The road to Siem Reap

In my earlier post, I mentioned that we had to look for transportation for the 350km journey between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. Bus travel was touted as the cheapest and most popular means of overland transport. It cost around $12  - $15 on the better services. Another option would be to do Phnom Penh to Siem Reap by private car. I had earlier booked a Tonle Sap tour in Siem Reap with Smart Tour Travel so thought of checking the rates with them. They quoted $70, which was only $25 (RM75) more expensive than bus tickets for the three of us. It was a no-brainer.

Smart Tour Travel is highly rated on Tripadvisor with many excellent reviews. They were quick o respond to emails and I had no problem in arranging what I wanted with them. We arranged for the driver to pick us up from the hotel.

As the car sped away from the hotel at 10am, past the Independent Monument and the Royal Palace, we bade farewell to Phnom Penh. We were there for only 3 days but I have gleaned so much on what makes the capital what is is today. Sure, it is relatively gritty, rough with roads impossible to cross and street children in abundance. But it is also refreshingly free from mass tourism. If you ever want to visit a (still) authentic South East Asian capital, then this is the place to be.



Leaving Phnom Penh

If yesterday I thought that Phnom Penh was poor, I had not seen the rest of the country yet. Driving along National Highway 6, the highway connecting Phnom Penh with Siem Reap,  it was easy to see that the country was still plagued with abject poverty. It was already more than 30 years after the Khmer Rogue regime was taken down, but the country has not progressed much since, at least not in the rural areas. We past by dusty villages, ramshackled wooden houses and people trying to eke a living by doing anything they could get their hands on. Kids walked to school or rode pillion at least 4 to a motorcycle. The latter was also used to carry almost everything - stacks of mattresses, dead pigs, live chicken in a cage, pots and pans and even what appeared to be the whole inventories of a sundry shop.  Bullock carts trundled by as if it was still the 70's.



Traditional houses built on tall stilts to avoid flooding

A Cambodian lady out at work

The roads deserve a post of its own. Many parts were dusty and pothole-ridden. Some were not even tarred - and this was a main highway. I thought fondly of our tolled and congested highways.

Cambodia's National Highway 6

Our driver made 2 stops in the journey. The first was at Skuon the Spider Village. Cambodian fried spider is the regional delicacy here - these were sold next to mangoes, jackfruits and bananas as if it was the most natural snack in the world. The arachnophobic side of me thanked my lucky stars that the tarantulas were sitting nicely and quietly in a bowl instead of scampering about. I was also grateful that Snufkin asked for Pringles instead of tarantula for his snack.

Crunchy tarantulas

The second stop was at Prey Pros Rest Area at Kampong Thom. This was as close as you could get to an R&R in Malaysia. There were toilets, a souvenir shop and a restaurant, the latter was in a bamboo and wooden structure built on stilts over a lake of water lilies. Although our stomachs were grumbling, I did not trust the cleanliness of the restaurant and hence only ordered coffee. We feasted on Pringles instead, and of course biscuits for Snufkin that I always brought for our travels.

Untill now I'm still in the dark as to what purpose the coloured water in the plastic hanging from the beams served

Altogether our journey took 6 1/2 hours, an hour more than what was advised to us. I was trying to get Snufkin to sleep as I myself had dozed off twice. He did - 45 minutes before we reached Siem Reap. But credit to him, he did not complain of the long and bumpy journey and more importantly he did not get carsick.

By the time we got to Siem Reap, sundown was less than 2 hours away. The initial plan was to go to Angkor Wat to watch the sunset but all 3 of us were knackered and all we wanted to do was to get a nice meal and laze in the hotel. We had booked Apsara Centropole Hotel for USD67 (approx. RM200) per night, which was a nice smallish boutique hotel with 19 rooms. The location could not be more strategic - just steps away from Blue Pumpkin (Cambodia's version of Joma Bakery), a fruitshake stall selling one of the best passion fruit shake and the heart of the action. To top it all up, we were upgraded to a terrace suite which comes with a private rooftop terrace complete with sun loungers.


Apsara Centropole Hotel

The pool and our private rooftop terrace

 

Note:

Apsara Centropole Hotel - Address: #522 Svay Dangkum,Siem Reap, Cambodia. Phone: +855 63 968 096