The Kingdom of Cambodia

We spent 4 days 18th to the 21st of April in Cambodia (Siem Reap) to be exact. We had signed up for a 4 day Independent tour trough Intrepid Travel. We had heard great things about Interpid while in New Zealand so we were hoping that it would be nice. We arrived at the Siem Reap airport (very small) and walked off the plane to a rush of humid hot sticky air. We knew we were in for some hot weather as it was only 9am in the morning. Our guide, Kheang, and our driver, So, met us and we headed to the car. We checked into the hotel and then it was off to visit some of the amazing temples that the Khmer people built many years ago. We visited temples which were built as early as the 9th century. One of the main temples that are visited is Angkor Wat which is the largest religous monument in the world and was built in the 12th century. There were many other temples as well including the one which was used in the Tomb Raider movie.

Cambodia uses the Reil as their currency, but in actual fact, most places accept USD and the prices are in USD. There is also a lot of English used which is good, because the Khmer language is very difficult and is written a form of sanskrit which makes it difficult to read as well.

A couple of our highlights were visiting the temples of course, cruising on Tonle Sap River and seeing the boating villages which live on the large lake, visiting a local village, spending time at the night market, riding in a Tuk Tuk around town, seeing pick-up trucks packed with 30-40 people driving on the highway, and the cheap price of food, a full meals costs around 2-4 dollars (draft beer was 50 to 75 cents).

Cambodia was absolutely amazing and it's hard to put into words how much we loved the Kingdom. We would love to go back and see more of the country at some point as everyone we met was super friendly. We imagine that there may be some unfriendly people as every country has them, but we didn't find any.

We're in Vietnam now, and have just completed a 2 day trip to the Mekong Delta. We start our 10 day tour Northbound tomorrow night and will post more later.