Exploring Cambodia
We’ve taken 4 main stops on our trip to Cambodia to hopefully hit all the main sites of this wonderful country. We start our adventure off crossing the Vietnam border into Cambodia to get to Pnom Penh.
The border crossing and visa should cost you no more than 35USD if you are being charged more than that then you have been ripped off. We used a bus company that the guide and driver were extremely helpful and did everything for us, we just had to get on and off the bus when told. It was all very simple, I imagine and have been told from other travellers that sometimes it’s a lot more complicated. Good Luck!
The Capital City
In Phnom Penh we stayed a couple of nights and were really only there to see one thing. The genocide museum and killing fields of Cambodia. It really was a very harrowing day learning of the gruelling not so distant history of the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot and the mass genocide of over 3 million people. I would recommend anyone visiting Cambodia to make a day trip to both of these sites using the guided headset tour to learn about their history and share it with the world so that this disastrous event will never repeat itself.
Islands of Koh Rong
Next stop for us was Koh Rong Samloem an island off the south coast of Cambodia, situated next to the well known party island of Koh Rong. Unfortunately to get to the islands you have to stop at Sinhoukville, a once beautiful tourist city inviting all the backpackers to their endless bars and beaches, but now a hideously built up dirty building site. I have no doubt that in 5-10 years time the city will be almost complete with high rise hotels and casinos much like Nah Trang in Vietnam which will invite tourists once again. From Sinhoukville we took the speed ferry over to Koh Rong Samloem ready for our relaxing few days on the beach.
Koh Rong Samloem did not disappoint,
Beautiful sandy beaches, clear blue water and the weather to go with it. It
really was beautiful. Take yourself out on a sunset boat trip, or cruise round
to explore the other beautiful beaches on the island. There is not much going
on here on the island but if you love a beach, a nice walk, snorkelling and
getting stuck into a book whilst you enjoy island life, then this place is for
you. Don’t forget these beaches are well known for the plankton lighting up the
sea at night so make sure you take a walk at night to experience the underwater
magic for yourself. Note: there are no ATMs on the islands of Koh Rong and Koh Rong Samloem so be prepared and bring enough cash with you otherwise you will be stuck or charged a hefty amount for someone to bring you cash from the mainland.
Island life over for now we took a very hot and crowded bus journey to Kampot. (You can definitely book a bus that’s a bus more luxuries).
Salt and Pepper town.
Kampot seems to be the new place for
tourists to visit from what I understand. We first stayed a couple of nights in
a place along the river – with its own ‘waterpark’ use at your own risk, it was
great fun but the safety was definitely a bit suspect. Then for our final 2
days we stayed in the city and took in the sights.Get yourself on a tour of the country side. Its beautiful and has a wonders to show. Our first stop was the salt fields, Kampot produces the majority of Cambodias salt, Who knew eh?. Watching the process of the salt being produced was quite fascinating and definitely not one to skip. Next on our countryside tour was the Temple cave and secret lake. The temple cave has an old temple in which locals will come up to for prayers of luck on their farms, we took the detour route back down through the caves to see the stalagmite’s and stalactite’s and the bats. The secret lake was built in the period of the Khmer Rouge to provide water to the ever growing padi fields they were relentless working people to tend to. The lake was beautiful but when you think of why it was there and what it was used for it suddenly became very eerie.
To round our Cambodia trip off we
took our final overnight bus to Siem Reap. We spent two days here, the first
day was relatively chilled after a long bus journey but we did a cooking class
in the afternoon and then took some quadbikes out to the padi fields for
sunset. There a numerous tours that offer similar things and tuk tuk drivers
all over to help you get about.Temple running.
Naturally the main reason we came to Siem Reap was for Angkor Wat. One of the wonders of the world, and even after a VERY early start it truly was wonderous. At that time in the morning it is heaving and buying your ticket which is at a separate building about 15 minutes down the road was quite a challenge. I suggest you buy your ticket the night before so you don’t have to stress about missing the sunrise! We paid $20 for a tuk tuk driver to take us round the temples for the day. The temples were truly spectacular and all so so different. I very much recommend taking your time and see however many you can in your time here. Remember to bring water, it was so hot we were melting by the end of the day!
Our time here in Cambodia has come to an end. It hotter than everywhere else we’ve been so far in South East Asia, however that might just be the changing of the seasons, You pay in USD but receive Cambodia riel as change which is very confusing, their history is chilling but remarkable to see where they are now and it is truly a fabulous place to visit and like no country I’ve ever visited before.
Fish our your passport, add it to your list, give us a call and we can help you plan the trip of a lifetime.
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