Well, I did wake up in my Cambodian time capsule in the actual future, but just 1 day not 100 years. That was the best way to travel 12 hours, it flew by. And it felt great.
Waking up I did feel like Buck Rogers, stepping off a bus rather than a space ship, out of the chilly air con back into the heat, ready to do the standard Tuk Tuk hustle, the pack were waiting for us next to our bags and Em was straight into negotiating despite only waking up 1 minute ago.
Dawn broke as we climbed out of the tuk tuk at our hotel, The Botanic Garden Hotel…..as the name suggests, full of beautiful tropical plants and it was also the return of the bum gun, I was looking forward to that ultimate jet wash experience. We climbed into bed to get a snooze before heading off to explore Siem Reap. We need to be up at 4 tomorrow for the Ankhor Wat bike tour so we will need an early night tonight. I still can’t believe strangers share a bunk on that night bus! Crazy!
We couldn’t go back to sleep so decided to walk into the centre and see what’s happening. The hotel was situated in the grounds of a temple and as soon as we set foot outside we had Tuk Tuk attention. Nobody seems to walk anywhere here so if you are walking the drivers think you are fair game and so it began. Endless invitations for a Tuk Tuk that we politely turned down.
We were eventually cornered by Mr Choi who seemed a fun (if a little crazy) type of guy who spoke good English and we crumpled and agreed to go on a 2 hr tour of the city with him for $15. He immediately offered us cold beer which we turned down, it was 10 am. He claimed to know where Wales was but called us English for the whole time we were with him. Mr Choi was funny but a bad bad Tuk Tuk driver. We were wincing at crossroads as we cut up the entire motoring population of the city.
Mr Choi stuck to his word and showed us many sights of the city. At one point we had to agree to go into a very expensive shop and pretend to be interested in buying stuff, we were instructed (repeatedly) to say we were English and staying in the Riverside hotel. It was very strange and Mr Choi seemed nervous of the shop keepers. We declined to buy any of the very expensive products. After our tour he dropped us at a local Khmer restraunt which was delicious, we had tofu with pineapple, a local curry and stir fried pak Choi with spring rolls. Very reasonably priced.
After lunch we ducked and dived through the tuk Tuks into the (what I thought) was the safety of the market. Wrong. It was way worse in there, hundreds of stalls all wanting you to come inside and very claustrophobic. I may have lost it a little bit and required some fresh air away from all the ‘please sir’. Emma was enjoying looking at things I was stressing but eventually settled down after an iced dragon fruit shake. Even tried a bit of bartering just to see where the bottom lines were. Em bought a couple of bags. I was confident she overpaid so accepted her challenge to do better. I failed the challenge and congratulated her on her bag bartering success that I secretly chalked down to luck.
We grabbed a Tuk Tuk home (seemed less painful than walking and turning down all the curb crawlers) and once back at the Botanic Hotel we jumped in the pool to cool down before sipping ice cold beer on the roof Terrance overlooking the temple and listening to the geckos. Em found a good place to eat just round corner as the hotel kitchen was shut. It was a lovely little indian cafe with only 3 tables. We had vegtable Thali and veg pakoras all cooked fresh by the owner and his wife. $12 in total, absolute bargain of flavour bombs.
Back at the hotel we made final preparations for the big ankhor wat tour tomorrow starting at 4 am and riding bikes round for what they say could be 7 hrs. Feeling tired after today’s early start and a bit tetchy although better after food and basic needs met. Emma quick to spot the hangryness and implement a recovery strategy as always.
Ps. Emma treated herself to getting laundry done at the hotel which was a big highlight for her so she wanted me to write about it. How do they get it so flat and neat??? (With an iron I guess).
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