Siem Reap, Cambodia - Tonle Sap and the floating villages

 

Welcome to Tonle Sap

 

If you look at a map to Cambodia, you would see a relatively large body of water towards the west of the country. This is Tonlé Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. A tour of this lake and the floating villages located on it is one of the things to do in Siem Reap besides temples.

 

You have the option of accessing Tonle Sap via Chong Khneas, Kompong Phluk or Kompong Khleang. The latter two are further away from Seam Reap and consequently receive less tourists. Chong Khneas is the nearest (15km away), but the crux of the problem of Chong Khneas is the scams and rip-offs, ranging from exorbitant boat fare and being forced to "donate" to a school for orphans. On the latter, the modus operandi is that the boat driver would take you to a grocery store to buy stuff to donate to the school. I'm all for spreading love and joy to children in need but not when the bag or rice you are supposed to buy cost USD50 and certainly not when you know that only a fraction of the money you part with goes to the children.

 

So, against our travelling norm, we booked a private "Authentic Tonle Sap" tour through Smart Tour Travel. The Tonle Sap tour price that we booked was USD120 for us 2 adults (free for kids under a certain age) for the tour which started at 8am. Probably still expensive but at least we knew that that was the max we would pay and the rate included transportation by car from and back to our hotel, private guide, lunch at a decent Khmer restaurant and the boat trip itself. Further, the tour started at Chong Khneas and ended at Kompong Phluk so we got to see both floating villages. 



1) GECKO Environment Centre

We had a brief stop here while on the way in the car from Siem Reap to Chong Khneas. The centre has displays and information on the ecology and biodiversity of the lake area as well as the lives of poeple living in the floating villages.

 

Front entrance of GECKO Environment Centre

Playing with the displays with a couple of Cambodian kids

 

2) Chong Khneas Floating Village

At the jetty, our tour guide sorted our tickets for the boat so that saved us from all the hassle. We boarded a long-tail fishing boat that could fit at least 10 people. There were lifejackets on the boat but all were adult-sized. So remember to bring your own if you are travellng with kids. We always bring Snufkin's own child-sized lifejacket when we have boat tours in our itineraries.

The floating village was a village in every sense, with sundry shops, petrol station, schools and of course the village houses. You see women rowing their boats, probably to get their provisions for the day. I was told that the villagers there were mostly Vietnamese. But Vietnamese or Khmer, it was obvious that these were very poor people and I am not sure whether they appreciated having tourists with their expensive gadgets peering into their impoverished houses on a daily basis.
 

Grocery shopping on the Tonle Sap

Floating school

3) Crocodile and Fish Farm

We stopped at a Crocodile and Fish Farm, which was nothing if not a tourist trap. There was a small crocodile pit and a smaller enclosure for catfish where you can purchase fish food and keep the young ones entertained for 5 seconds. Apart from that, there was a souvenir shop, a restaurant and a viewing deck on the upper level.

 

This was also where we were approached by beggars - a small girl with a snake wrapped around her neck; a woman with a face full of sorrow, her small child in a cradle at the stern of her decrepit boat.

 



 A mere prop used by the beggar? I still gave some money



We then made our way across the great lake towards Kompong Phluk. It was quite a long journey, probably more than an hour. Only then I could sense how big the lake was - at some parts I could barely see land. I had a good time chilling on the bow of the boat and Snufkin even joined me for a couple of minutes (the water was very still, Snufkin had his lifejacket on and I was assured that there was no crocodile!)

 

Boating across the Great Lake

 

4) Flooded forest of Kompong Phluk

This was my absolute favourite part of the tour. We were dropped off at a small floating restaurant and from there boarded a paddle boat rowed by a Cambodian woman who brought along her little girl.

 

The boat navigated through the narrow waterways of the flooded mangrove forest. It was serene and tranquil. The trunks and boughs of the trees reflected clearly on the still water, rippled only by the movement of the boat. We saw only two other boats; for most of the time it was quiet, save for the splashes of the oar. Snufkin enjoyed himself tremendously - he even gave one of his Hotwheels cars that he brought to the girl who, by the way, had one of the saddest faces I've seen in a child.

 

I would do this tour again just for this boat ride.

 

Rowing through the flooded forest

Flowers plucked by our rower - I had no idea what she said when she gave it to us

5) Kompong Phluk floating village

We saw more of authentic village life here than in Chong Khneas. The houses soared high on stilts and many had boats parked at their doorsteps. The villagers were going through their daily lives - the men sorting out their catch in the fishing nets, the women washing dishes, doing their laundry and the kids splashing in the water. Their lives literally and figuratively centred around the lake.


Houses on tall stilts

Police station

School run Kompong Phluk style

Snufkin fell asleep on my lap as our boat drove through the village. And he stayed asleep as we docked at the "jetty", transferred from the boat to the waiting car, had lunch at the Khmer restaurant and all the way to the hotel. All in all 1.5 hours of sleep.

I would recommend a trip to the floating villages if you plan around the potential scams, include the boat trip to the flooded forest and do not mind feeling like a one dollar dispensing machine.

Kompong Phluk "jetty"

Siem Reap, Cambodia - The ruins of Angkor

Further to my earlier post on planning for Angkor, here's how we spent our day there:
 

Sras Srang

It was pitch dark when we got here. Snufkin, who was carried from bed to tuk-tuk in his pyjamas, woke up. We gave him a torch light and he was no longer sleepy. It was pretty cold then and even colder in the moving tuk-tuk earlier. On hindsight, I would have brought a thick shawl to cover him up and slathered mosquito repellent before getting off the tuk-tuk as as the little buggers were having a pre-dawn fest.

Sras Srang is a man-made lake located across the road from Banteay Kdei. The stand-out feature was a landing platform/terrace with serpent balustrades flanked by two lions. It was built in the 12th century by King Jayavarman VII as a royal bathing pool.

Alas, it was a cloudy day so the sunrise was not spectacular. But we were there with only a handful of other people so it was a serene way to watch Angkor wakes up to a new day.

Sras Srang at dawn

Ta Prohm

I have seen photos of Ta Prohm teeming with crowds and it was like a scene from a horror movie.  But Ta Prohm in the morning, with no other soul in sight, is magical and other-worldly. Crumbling walls, slabs of stones piled on top of another, giant roots of silk-cotton trees wrapped around roofs and pillars, carved doorways leading to impassable corridors - it was all somewhat surreal. You would have to be extra careful if you were travelling with young children as you would have to step over rubbles in many parts of the temple. I can imagine that it would be a Health & Safety Inspector's worst nightmare.

But it's a small price to pay to entertain the budding young explorers. Snufkin got himself equipped with a stick as we went from one corner of the temple to another. I am not sure whether he was pretending to be Indiana Jones or Lara Croft - I hope it was the former.

The single best advice I would give is: Make sure you get to Ta Prohm first thing in the morning when it opens, or else you would not be able to take the photos below without having 10 other people in it holding up their fingers in the "V" sign.

Man-made and nature at one



The "Tomb Raider" tree that we spent ages to locate



Solitude in Ta Prohm

Angkor Thom and Bayon

Next, we past through one of the entry towers into Angkor Thom, the last capital of the Khmer Empire, via a long causeway flanked by a row of stone figures on each side. At the heart of Angkor Thom is Bayon. The most distinctive features of Bayon are the faces carved out of the stone towers. Everywhere you turn, you would see these faces smiling somewhat knowingly. Or was it smugness since they are older than all of us there put together?

Not to be missed are the two galleries of bas-reliefs depicting scenes of legendary and historical events.

By this time of the day, the crowd was swelling up. But Bayon has many nooks and crannies where you could just escape to. Your option of said nook and cranny is increased the more stairs you are willing to climb.



One of the 216 stone faces carved into the stone towers



Apsara dancers posing for photographs

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat is vast and it deserves its title as the largest religious monument in the world. The causeway over the moat leading to the West entrance extended for a quarter of a mile. French explorer Henri Mouhot wrote:

"One of these temples—a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo—might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome..."

He, of course, had the fortune of not having to share it with thousands of other people.

This mostly sandstone monument is made up of three levels, with the third level supporting five lotus flower towers - four in the corners and one in the middle. The series of stairs to the upper level are frighteningly steep, with impossibly narrow steps. It gives a new meaning to the phrase stairway to heaven. When we were there, only one flight of stairs was opened and you have to queue to go up. They have erected wooden stairs right on top of the original ones, complete with handrails and all, no doubt to cater to the rising number of tourists. But even then, I don't think it's suitable for young children. I held on to the handrails for my dear life as I descended from the upper level.



The famous view of Angkor Wat over the water basin



The (still) steep stairs to the upper level



Gallery of the bas-reliefs - Depicting scenes from the 

Ramayana and Mahabharata 

View from the upper level

Altough we spent close to 8 hours in Angkor, we were finished by 1pm. I know many tourists make full use of the day-pass by returning in the evening to continue their temple tours. But we were done. We went back to the hotel, ordered room service and slept the afternoon away.

The architecture and the artworks in Angkor are astounding. And to think that all that was built in the 12th century, that's doubly impressive. I'm just glad that Pol Pot, in his psychotic craze to obliterate anything related to culture, arts and religion, left Angkor pretty much alone.


Siem Reap, Cambodia - How to do Angkor with kids and without crowds

Contemplating Angkor Wat

Without any doubt, Angkor Wat is Cambodia's most famous tourist attraction. The number of visitors to this UNSCO World Heritage Site increases year by year and in 2013 it received around 2 million visitors. It had been done to death and I feared that we were too late for Angkor. And then there were the questions of which temples to see , whether these would be suitable for young children and the best way to see Angkor Wat. Here's what we found out:

1)   Temples to see

There are hundreds of temples within the Angkor Archeological Park but unless your kids didn't mind being dragged from temple to temple, it's best to limit to the major ones. We decided that we would only see Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, Bayon in  Angkor Thom and Sras Srang for the sunrise. Even then, we spent nearly 8 hours there from 5.30am  to 1.00pm. More than that and we would have been templed-out.

2) Timing and order

The temples that we wanted to see were pretty much on the (very) beaten path. So the only way to try to beat the crowd would be to strategise the timing and the order of the visit.

Now,  if you intend to follow the Small Circuit to cover the major temples, you would probably be advised to start at Angkor Wat and end at Sras Srang. This would be a great idea if you like to pretend that you're in a One Direction concert whilst on holiday. We wanted to be there first thing in the morning and catch the sunrise but practically every Tom, Dick and Harry would be at Angkor Wat at 6am to watch the sunrise, a reason enough for us to avoid it altogether. A less touristy option to watch sunrise is Sras Srang so this was where we started. We then worked our way to Ta Prohm, then Bayon and lastly Angkor Wat. The main advantage of this was that we had Ta Prohm practically to ourselves.

3) Tour vs DIY

There are probably hundreds of companies offering all kinds of tours to Angkor, private or other wise. I have been asked whether it would be better to get a tour guide when you are going there with children. In my opinion, Angkor could be done on your own even with children. We hired a tuk-tuk for the day for $15 and told him which temples we wanted to see. We had our Lonely Planet guidebook which gave good context and comprehensive info on the temples in Angkor. It was enough for us - we were not doing a thesis on the Khmer Empire anyway.

The only "downside" to this was when we spent ages trying to locate the "Tomb Raider" tree in Ta Phrom on our own. But hey, that's part of the adventure.

4) Suitability for children

I know some people who have been putting on hold their visit to Angkor Wat to wait until their kids are bigger. Of course it all depends on what the parents think is best for their own kids but I think it's doable if your kids are used to walking. Pushchairs are out of the question due to the uneven ground and stairs to climb. Our son was 4 when we went and we made sure that we paced the walking, had lots of rests and of course plenty of water to drink.

Exploring Bayon

Overall, I think Angkor Wat is the most kids-friendly, provided you did not take your kids climbing to the upper level. Bayon has endless flights of stairs and Ta Prohm is an obstacle course for most of the parts. But again, all are perfectly doable.

5) Food

There's no shortage for places to eat within the Park but the most decent one that we found was Blue Pumpkin Cafe (also known as Angkor Cafe). At 10am, between Bayon and Angkor Wat, we had our first proper meal of the day (not counting the pre-packed breakfast provided by the hotel). It's located opposite the causeway leading to Angkor Wat, and linked to Artisan d'Angkor. You can gaze at Angkor Wat or browse for souvenirs as you refuel. Ice-cream for bribery can also be bought here.

More photos and and our experience at the temples in the next post.

Note:-
Entrance fees: Passes are sold in one-day ($20), three-day ($40) and seven-day ($60) blocks. Free for children under 12 years old. The three-day pass is valid for one week, i.e. 3 days to be used within the week, not necessarily consecutively.

Angkor one-day pass

Passes may be purchased at the main entrance on the road to Angkor Wat. Your photo will be taken on the spot. One-day tickets only can be purchased at the secondary tollgate on airport road entrance near Angkor Wat and at Banteay Srey. One-day tickets purchased after 5pm is valid until the end of the next day.
 
How to get there: Transportation options include: two-person tuk-tuks (moto-romauk) average $10-$15/day; car taxis $20-$30/day; motorcycle taxi (motodup) for $8-$10/day; bicycles for $2-$3/day.

Opening hours: Visiting hours are 5:00AM - 6:00PM. Angkor Wat closes at 6:00PM. Entry and exit to Angkor Wat can only be accessed from its west gate.

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

  

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - Le Jardin Restaurant and Sisowath Quay

After a depressing first half of the day spent at the Killing Fields and S-21 Prison, it was time for lunch. Included in my itinerary was Le Jardin Restaurant - mainly because of the good reviews it received on being kids-friendly.

The restaurant/cafe was located in a courtyard garden shaded by jackfruit trees. I can't emphasize enough how great this place was in terms of having a long and leisurely lunch with young children, especially when you had just spent a few hours looking at skulls and gruesome photos. There was a big sandpit (with toys to play in it) and a playhouse with a slide.

We spent quite some time there lazing on the comfy seats, gorging on grilled fish and pasta, sipping passionfruit smoothie while Snufkin ran wild in the sandpit and playhouse. And if that was not enough, there was ice-cream to please the little ones further.


 



Le Jardin - Good food, good ambience, free creche

In the evening, we went to Sisowath Quay, the riverside along the junction of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. The Quay area is as touristy as you could get in Phnom Penh - bars, restarants and hotels lined the riverside. The tuk-uk driver dropped us near the Foreign Correspondents' Club ("FCC').  I wanted to have coffee and snacks at FCC (apparently the most iconic Phnom Penh experience) but it looked too crowded and until now I still feel a twinge of regret of not doing so.

From there, we strolled along the riverside with no specific destination. The wide pavement and the old colonial buildings that lined Sisowath Boulevard somewhat reminded me of South of France. There was a a lot of things going on: families taking a stroll, aerobic sessions (though none was at the scale that we saw in Vientiane), kids cycling and even men grouping together leering at sexy ladies. Another differentiating factor from Vientiane's riverside was the number of poor Cambodian children that kept approaching us trying to sell us bracelets for one dollar or even just to beg. They looked unkempt and rough and their eyes were dead. Most were undoubtedly homeless and probably orphaned. I told Snufkin who was playing with the bubbles that we bought at the Royal Palace yesterday how unfortunate these children were for having no parents to look after them and no place to call home.

I was also more cautious as there seemed to be many dodgy people and I had also read on scammers and muggers doing their thing in the vicinity of Sisowath Quay.

Blowing bubbles by the Tonle Sap

In the waning light, we decided to look for dinner and I was adamant that it had to be Khmer food. Options were aplenty but many looked like restaurants doubling up as bars and in that window of happy hours I did not think that it would be appropriate for Snufkin. We settled for Karma Restaurant which looked decent and not too crowded.  I ordered fishcake for Snufkin and fish amok for myself. The amok looked like something that a cat spews on the floor but the taste was not bad at all. And after all, you gotta try the local dish.

Fish amok

Outside along the corridor, more children were plying their wares with the requisite "One dollar, one dollar". Some were also seen setting up their "home" in front of shops that were already closed. These scenes were a reminder of how poor Cambodia is.

Once dinner was done, we took one of the many waiting tuk-tuks parked on the kerb along Sisowath Boulevard, back to the hotel for an early night before our onward journey to Seam Reap tomorrow.

Note:-
Le Jardin Restaurant: 16 Street 360, Phnom Penh. Open 7.30am to 10pm, closed Mondays.

Karma Restaurant: 273c Sisowath Quay | (The Riverside), Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Open daily 7am to 11pm.