Through Khmer countryside

  Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, Cambodia
Friday, August 4, 2006

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An early start to go to the Burmese ambassy and drop my passport there. I have made my mind and I will go to Myanmar after Laos. Only problem: I will have to fly from Bangkok to Rangoon, as there is no overland access to Rangoon when entering Myanmar by land.

During the bus ride to Siem Reap (6 hours), I got to see the Khmer countryside, which has lots in common with Vietnam, starting with the rice paddies!

Most of the houses along the road were typical Khmer houses: mounted on 2 to 3 meters stilts, of square surface, with plain wood walls. As everywhere, the traditional roofs are often replaced by metal.





Siem Reap is not a big town, but is bustling with tourists of all sorts: this results in a wide variety of hotels, bars, and restaurants being available.
I had planned to go to the Angkor temples to see the sunset there, but the weather was bad, with clouds and rain. I explored the town instead, found some street food (not that many available, as there is a lot of cheap restaurants).

Back at the hotel I got a note from the 3 danes Ann-Sofie/Mathilda/Katerin, proposing to pick me up the next morning at 5 to share a tuk-tuk to the Angor temples.

I also met in my guesthouse Ursa and Darja, two slovenians I knew from the Mekong delta in Vietnam, and who might be going to Laos at the same time as me.

The evening ended drinking beers with a french traveller and his Khmer friends, and that took me farther into the night... add to that a good food poisonning that also prevented me from having much sleep, and you can imagine I was not in the best shape to go visit temples, when I woke up at 4.30

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