Backpacking in Cambodia — Day 5— Siem Reap
Day 5— Siem Reap [November 23, 2022]
Head here for Day 4
A storm is coming, Mr. Wayne
Third wheeling on our trip were the unseasonal tropical thunderstorms. The locals don’t remember seeing rains in November. Fortunately they decided to visit Siem Reap a day after our Angkor Wat trip. Waking up to heavy showers meant we dialed it a notch lower to our lazy mode. We had anyways planned for a lighter day considering the 25,000 steps we had individually added from the previous day to our fitness apps and also had a long overnight journey later. After a lazy breakfast in the hostel itself, we checked out and got the $5 deposit they had taken for the room. Dumping our bags in the space under the staircase of the lobby area which doubled up as a cloak room, off we went. The Rain gods had settled down as we booked a tuktuk for 5000 riels on PassApp to take us about 4 km away- outskirts of the city to Apopo — an NGO I got to hear of part of the Goldman Sachs Analyst Impact fund few years back.
Rat-a-tat-touille
We reached a few minutes past eleven and they squeezed us into the forty five minute tour that had started a couple of minutes earlier. We were a group of six-seven with one guide who shared the history, the process and also included a live demo plus an opportunity to hold one of the heroes. HeroRATs are African giant pouched rats primarily from Tanzania that can be trained to sniff, identify and signal TNT — a primary ingredient of landmines. Being under weight gives them the advantage of not triggering any landmines even if they were to step over them.
Compared to a metal detector, a HeroRAT can clear out a tennis court in 30 minutes whilst a metal detector can take longer than a day. With over six million landmines still potentially waiting to be discovered in Cambodia, these HeroRATs have their work cut out. APOPO has now started training dogs too in the same domain as they are more responsive and emotionally intelligent compared to the rats and can be sent further away. The tour wraps up with a quick video documentary and ends up in the gift shop which included replica mines.
The innovative approach to problem solving really took me by surprise and the tourist centre is a nice, no frills set up to give you a quick experience of the entire journey.
Into the WILD
We walked down a few hundred steps to land up at the Siem Reap Genocide museum and the Killing Fields — these are at a smaller scale to the one in Phnom Penh catered to the tourists who just hit Siem Reap part of their South East Asia itinerary. The sun was out in its full glory literally after a morning of heavy downpour. We walked down the sweeping wide boulevard with cycle lanes but it was getting warmer and we needed to grab lunch and be at the hotel by 2:15 PM ish for the 2:30 PM bus to Tonle Sap floating villages.
Our tuktuk this time was driven by a female driver — a first that we noticed. She had really decorated her tuktuk with bonsai plants and knick knacks all over hanging from the various nooks and corners available in front of the driver. We reached Wild. They call themselves a creative bar and spring rolls place. Jagnoor had dug this up and had stopped me from eating spring rolls in other places saying we are going to be doing a spring roll place.
Half expecting a place like a pakoda shop or a momo store like in India where they specialise in one item, the Wild actually has a really fancy vibe to it and so is the presentation of the menu. Remember my thumb rule from a previous blog entry of how do you know a place is premium in Cambodia? Yup! You got it right — if they serve you complimentary drinking water.
Two of the groups from APOPO were also having lunch here. It was sunny and warm so we skipped the lawn seating and went under the shade and ordered the summer rolls and these were some of the best summer rolls I have had especially the one with mango (Yes! Mangoes were in season in November!).
Door to Door service
Around 1:30 PM we decided to walk back to the hostel to catch our bus. When we reached at 2:05 PM, a bus driver was already patiently waiting for us as he had to pick up a few more folks and leave town by 2:30 PM. He mentioned they usually arrive 30 minutes prior which our dear friend from the previous night had omitted telling us (The same souvenir shop guy we felt was probably doing his first sale in the previous blog entry).
Don’t know whether it is the economics of a small place, but having a bus pick you from your hostel (technically free of charge but clearly included in the ticket price) for various activities we undertook really made the tourist experience really smooth as you don’t worry about getting to transit points but get door to door service.
The other advantage is we got a tour of the city as we picked up other passengers from different hotels and hostels across the city crossing the non-touristy parts of town. By 2:35 PM, we had picked everyone including our stand up comic of a tourist guide with his awkward one liners and forced jokes but all in good humor. Another 45 minutes passed by as we went through agricultural towns into rural Cambodia towards the Tonle Sap floating village of Kampong Phluk. There are a couple of villages that inhabit this fresh water lake — the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia.
“Mission Cambodia”
If Hritik Roshan and Priety Zinta had to remake their classic movie , they’d be dancing to “socho ke jheelon ka shehar ho” in Kampong Phluk. Tonle Sap is an extremely diverse lake ecosystem with flood forests, meadows and unique flows and counter flows from the Mekong river. Equally interesting is the demographics of the lake dwellers. Most of them are Cambodians of Vietnames origin who have made the lake their home. The boat being their means of transport. The three major sources of income are agriculture during the dry season and fishing plus tourism during the wet season when the lake overflows. The government is working towards making tourism an all season affair.
Kampong Phluk is the most tourist oriented amongst all the villages this side of town. By 3:45 PM, we had reached the starting point of the ferry. As we all clambered onto the roof, we had to re adjust to make sure the boat was balanced but then were on our way. Blue skies greeted us again as we slowly edged our way into the lake past mangrove forests and houses on stilts including a police station, hospital and a church. Fruit and fish sellers passed by on smaller boats. We finally reached a transit point where a woman cooperative runs the “flooded forest” tour leveraging canoes.
Flooded Forest
This ride is an additional $5 per person and is not included in the floating village tour package but is well worth it. Our boat lady was a young girl probably on the first few trips of her life as I could see the stress lines on her face as she navigated the forest filled with mangrove trees. This is as compared to the carefree manner — almost involuntary flicks the older women who passed us used to navigate the same routes. It is so peaceful and rhythmic as we slowly inched through the flooded forest with sun playing peek a boo through the trees. There used to be a lot of crocodiles in this part of the world but they have more or less disappeared in the wild because of their meat being a delicacy. There are crocodile rearing farms which have come up again primarily for their meat.
Scam Alert!
There is a tourist trap where they pass by a few shopping boats that sell “cold soft drinks” for your boat lady and also notebooks and pencils for the children that you’ll pass by in the village. You could call it recycling in a way for I am sure the sold goods land back in the store inventory without being used. Later we got to know that it is a known scam where tourists are shown a school for orphaned kids where kids rehearse a sentimental script, post which the local driver adds to the sob story and suggests buying school supplies for these kids at hefty prices. People have been ripped off for upto $100 part of this.
After hitting a busy thoroughfare of the village with a number of kids waving right at us, we hit the peace of the forest again till we parked near a floating restaurant where we halted for food and drinks which are obviously overpriced — due to the captive market and also it is a logistical challenge to get supplies all the way here.
Sunset Cruise
Not hungry after those yummy spring rolls from Wild, we simply watched the river, played with a sea faring dog and watched the friction between three girls trying to chat up a French youtuber who got arrested by police for trespassing in forbidden places in Paris for his channel. Once done, the boat was ready to take us to the middle of the lake to watch the sunset. Along with the sunset on one side of the horizon, dark black clouds made their presence felt. As we headed back in the twilight, the black clouds rolled in even faster and it started raining just as we made it to the ferry starting point where our bus was waiting for us.
The Dinner drama
We knew we were in for a tight schedule between returning, grabbing dinner and getting picked up for our overnight bus to Sihanoukville. We would be reaching by 7 PM and our souvenir shop guy had mentioned our bus would pick us up at 8 PM. With the World Cup on, the restaurant in Mad Monkey was crowded and their service is generally slow. We decided to check out this Cambodian cuisine restaurant we had walked by couple of times and had really reasonable rates compared to what we had been eating all these days. We found it a kilometre down the road. Titled “Khmer Taste”, the place was super packed with tourists and after looking at the prices in the menu — we understood why. Having ordered by 7:35 PM, by 7:45 PM we realised we didn’t have much time. So I asked for the food to be packed whilst Jagnoor headed out to the hostel to hold off the bus. The Khmer lady serving us seemed confused with the ask so another young lad came by and I explained that I needed the bill and the food packed if it was ready else they could skip preparing the meal. He went off serving other tables so I wasn’t sure if the message had been received. Finally an old lady came by rushing with a “to go” bag and the bill. Seeing it was only 7:55 PM and I had a 3 minute walk to go, I slackened my pace. A remorque headed my way and I stepped aside only for it to halt and Jagnoor yelling to quickly get on.
Siem Reap Derby
Turns out the bus folks had sent the remorque guy at 7:30 PM itself to our hostel and we obviously weren’t there. He had started panicking and when Jagnoor went in to inquire if any bus had turned up, the guy was displaying the entire spectrum of emotions. When we showed him the ticket stating 8 PM pick up time, he realised we had been misinformed. Probably swearing at the souvenir shop guy in Khmer, he drove as fast as a remorque could go whilst calling the bus guys that he was on his way and they should wait. He also took a photo of the time written on the ticket because the travels folks didn’t believe him and probably were looking to head out. Looking at the stress he was going through, we thought the bus station was probably really far off and he was racing against time to get us there. By 8:15 PM, we were at the bus station and the bus was only scheduled to leave by 8:30 PM as per the original plan.
The overnight sleeper bus
At the entrance of the bus, they gave each one of us a plastic bag to take our shoes off and place inside before stepping into the bus. It has a 2+2 bed configuration with a two tier set up — the lower tier being at feet level ( Indian buses usually have luggage space below the lower tier — not the case here). Luggage is all placed in the cargo section as there is barely enough space in the bus. We had the upper tier which is not meant for six feet one inch folks who like to stretch and sleep. Thankfully I curl up and sleep so could squeeze in. The interiors are pretty spartan and basic but comfortable all the same. We were also asked not to eat in the bus when they saw our food parcel but requested we wait till the bus stopped for a dinner halt later in the evening. The overnight ride saved us time and one night’s stay.
Midnight Dhaba & loo break
We soon passed out only to wake up when the bus halted for dinner at their version of a roadside dhaba. Either we were hungry or the food was tasty even after having gone cold. Both of us had ordered rice based dishes with gravies and finished it off with relish in the cold Cambodian evening on a highway in the middle of nowhere. The bus halted twice again through the night but we were too sleepy to care to get up and get out.
Key Details
PassApp — For booking tuktuks and remorques. You can pay by cash and don’t need a card.
APOPO Visitor Centre — $8 per person for a 45 minute tour of the facilities.
Genocide Museum and Killing Fields — $3 for entry (if you aren’t going to Phnom Penh i.e.)
WILD — $$ — Summer rolls and spring rolls to die for. $12 for a meal for two.
Tonle Sap Floating Village Tour — $30 per person (includes bus ride from Siem reap and back) Else just the entrance tickets if you go on your own are $21 per person.
Khmer Taste — $ — $7 for meal for 2
Flooded Forest Canoe ride — $5 per person / 2 per canoe.
Sleeper bus ( Siem Reap to Sihanoukville ) — $18 per person
Head over to the beaches on Day 6