At our hotel in Railay we had to pay for internet separately. We rushed to buy our tickets to Cambodia before running out of minutes and running out to climb. We found that the cheapest place to fly into Cambodia was Phnom Penh, the capitol, but it had an overnight layover in Singapore. As we’ve already learned, if you’re going to be stuck overnight in an airport Singapore’s the place to be. When we came back from climbing we bought boat tickets to Krabi airport for the following afternoon.
Remarkably the boat/van ride got us to the airport in exactly the amount of time promised, which never happens. Oddly, the ticket counter in the airport was empty and when we found the airline’s office they told us they didn’t have any more flights out that day. When we pulled up our email we realized that in our hurry the day before we’d purchased a boat to Krabi but a flight out of Phuket! Oops!
We couldn’t get to Phuket in time for the flight, so we found a flight to Bangkok’s domestic airport, a bus from there to Bangkok’s international airport, then a flight the following morning to Siem Reap. In the end it probably worked out better this way logistically (aside from spending the night in the Bangkok airport and the wasted airline tickets).
We picked up a taxi to our home stay (Thanks Krista & crew!) which was a small bungalow at a family’s home. We had hoped to rent their bicycles for the following day but another couple staying there already had them reserved. Luckily, Thomas and Channa knew a local tuk tuk driver that offered a good price for a full day of touring the temples surrounding Angkor Wat. They also informed us that if we bought our temple ticket a day in advance we could get the sunset tour that night followed by sunrise and the whole next day.
We enjoyed a relaxing sunset out at the temples followed by a tasty dinner with the family – Thomas, Channa, their 3 kids, 2 other guests and a couple of dogs that curled up underfoot. Channa even invited Rachel into the kitchen to see some of the secrets to her spring rolls including shredded coconut and a tamarind peanut sauce.
The next morning we got up at 5am to head out and start our day. We went to Angkor Wat for sunrise – where the crowds seem to go to try to get the postcard shot of the sun reflecting in the pool out front. However, since we were not interested in waiting amongst the crowd, our guide suggested we continue in through Angkor Wat instead. Having a good guide made a huge difference. (Thanks Hayley and Todd!) We were able to walk through all of Angkor Wat with only the occasional other visitor. It was so peaceful. After hearing a couple of stories about the building and the carvings, we made our way to the back of the building where we watched the sunrise over the back wall with only a couple other visitors and a few monks.
We continued the day seeing several main temples including our favorite – Ta Prohm. The temple gained attention in the movie Tomb Raider, it didn’t need the star power of being used in a mainstream movie to draw in a crowd. While many of the temples have undergone a great deal of restoration, Ta Prohm has largely been left the way it was found. It was really something else to see how the jungle moved in to take over the temple!
We could have happily spent another day or two in Siem Reap, but were instead on to more exploring in Phnom Penh.