Hello friends,

Here it is: our special edition all about Angkor!

We loved Angkor and think you need to add it to your bucket list right now. Even with a one-week vacation, you will have a spectacular adventure in this ancient city.

We have a lot to say, so without further ado...

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Perry’s Travel Diary

Angkor

Angkor was once the capital of the Khmer Empire and the largest city in the world. The temples are what remain today, including the most famous, Angkor Wat. We imagine that the jungle between the temples was full of villages, houses, shops, and people living their lives.

Many tourists will erroneously refer to the entire city as Angkor Wat. "Wat" refers to a type of Buddhist temple.

The population of Angkor is unknown, but the agricultural and irrigation systems may have supported a population of up to one million people. Just one of the temples, Ta Prohm, was home to 12,500 people with 80,000 people in the surrounding villages providing support services according to its stele (stone tablet) records.

Historic Pompeii, Italy, comprises about 163 acres and had a population 12,000 people at the time of Vesuvius' famous eruption. Angkor is over 400 acres.

If it’s not obvious by now, it’s too far to walk the entire complex, located 3.5+ miles outside of Siem Reap’s main town. You’ll need to hire a tuk tuk driver.

(If you’re in great physical shape and have a lot of time to visit, you can choose to ride a bike through the archaeological site. The road is pretty flat, but the heat is killer.)

What exactly is a tuk tuk?

We first encountered tuk tuks in Phnom Penh (and talked about them in last week’s newsletter). Tuk tuks are a tricycle-type vehicle with a bench in the back for 2-3 passengers to sit on. They are used as taxis and usually reach a maximum speed of 35-45 miles per hour. “Tuk tuk” is an imitation of the sputtering sound made by their engines.

Also popular in Cambodia is a specific type of tuk tuk called a rormork. In this design, a trailer with two benches is attached to a motorcycle. Although we refer to “tuk tuks” and our “tuk tuk driver,” we actually used rormorks for the majority of our transportation in Siem Reap.

Hiring a Tuk Tuk driver

Despite it being 2022, there isn’t a great method of booking your tuk tuk driver online or through an app. You’ll need to contact one directly.

We were unbelievably fortunate to meet Mao, our tuk tuk driver, as we got off the bus in Siem Reap. Mao is a delightful and trusty human being. We so enjoyed chatting with him, and he took great care of us during our days in Siem Reap. We were shocked to learn that Mao was 40 years old (he looks much younger), which means that he was born in the middle of Cambodia’s civil war. He spoke about how difficult it was for both him and his wife to get an education among other stories about their lives.

Mao suggested our tour and route, covering 4-5 temples each day over 4-5 hours. He charges $20 per day, but we included a tip on top of that.

If you’re traveling to Siem Reap, we highly, highly recommend Mao. Please book him! We’d like to see Mao get lots of business. He can be contacted via WhatsApp at +855 17 476 626. You can contact Mao as early as you like to book him, but we also reached out the day of if we needed a last-minute ride.

Mao doesn’t provide a tour of the sites themselves, but you can hire a guide at Angkor Wat for $15.

Angkor in Photos

Day 1

Our Day 1 itinerary included:

• Angkor Wat

When we walked up to Angkor Wat, I was very impressed with the size of the temple. Then I realized that we weren’t even in the temple yet. We were in the gate house.

Angkor Wat is huge. It was built in the 12th century as a Buddhist temple and played a significant role in converting the kingdom to Buddhism. It has never been completely neglected, though it did start to fall into disrepair during the 1500s.

We’d recommend starting with Wikipedia and digging into some further books to gain a complete history of Angkor Wat, since 900 years of history is difficult to cover in an email.

• Bayon and Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom, according to Wikipedia, “was the last and most enduring city of the Khmer Empire,” covering 9 square kilometers. Bayon is the Buddhist temple at the center of the city.

Bayon is notable due to the number of faces carved into the top of each peak. There are competing theories about whether these faces are images of Buddha (or bodhisattva), Lord Brahma of the Hindu religion, or King Jayavarman VII, a buddhist who sponsored the construction of the temple during his reign. My personal opinion was that the place felt like it had a Mount Rushmore-esque vibe.

The giant sculptural gates and bridges - which we saw at both Tonle Om Gate and Ta Som - have a four faced entity representing Brahma, one of the chief gods in some Hindu religions. A notable sharing of iconography between the two religions can be seen in the serpent entities referred to as Naga. They are portrayed as a snake with multiple heads, always an odd number, at times with human characteristics or faces. In folklore they are a water spirit and generally regarded as being good. They are often supported by humanoid-appearing statues of demons. Many of these statues are still impressive despite their degradation.

• Chau Say Tevoda

Chau Say and Thommanon were located across the street from each other shortly outside of Angkor Thom’s Victory Gate. Almost no one else was at these small temples.

• Thommanon

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• Ta Som (Ta Prohm) - aka the Tomb Raider Temple

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Ta Prohm temple is perhaps the most inspiring and mysterious of the many temples - and it was our personal favorite. The forest has largely reclaimed the temple and in some cases, the trees themselves are what is holding the last vestiges of the temple together. Some of these trees almost seem to be intentionally holding the bricks, as in their absence areas of the temple would have already collapsed. It is hard to imagine the 12,500 people I mentioned earlier living here.

• Phnom Bakheng Temple

We visited this last temple, located high on a hill, in an attempt to capture the sunset. A huge rainstorm rolled in during our hike up, stopping us from exploring the temple at all. We glanced at the view while running back to the tuk tuk before we were soaked to the bone.

Day 2

Our Day 2 itinerary included:

• Preah Khan

Exploration and careful observation of Preah Khan will perhaps create more questions than answers. Notice the blending of multiple cultures and religions within various temples of Angkor. Some are solely Bhuddist; others are a mixture of Hindu and Bhuddism. At Preah Khan, you’ll see that some faces have been removed from the bass relief sculptures. This happened when the new king practiced a different religion (Hinduism) than the prior king (a Buddhist). If the king had a new religion, so did the entire empire.

At Preah Khan, we encountered a person dressed in something resembling a security officer’s outfit who saw us and said, “Let me show you something.” Pete showed an interest and followed up with additional questions about the structure, which led to a short tour. At the end, this guy requested a $5 tip. We were happy to pay for his hustle because he was so interesting. However, if you don’t wish to pay someone - or if you don’t wish to be taken for more than $5 - either politely decline or negotiate your rate up front.

• Neak Poun (also known as Neak Poan or Neak Pean)

Neak Poun is a Buddhist temple located on a man-made island in the middle of a large, perfectly formed lake. The temple was small, but we enjoyed walking the perimeter of the island.

• Ta Som

If you need an alternative to the Tomb Raider temple, Ta Som is also being overtaken by the forest. It was constructed during the same reign of the king that built Bayon, Preah Khan, and Neak Poun.

• Eastern Mebon

The East or Eastern Mebon temple is a Hindu Temple dedicated in 953 AD. It was notable for its elephant statues. The temple used to be surrounded by a reservoir, which is now dry.

• Pre Rup

Pre Rup is a Hindu temple constructed in 961 or 962, making it and Eastern Mebon some of the oldest that we visited. The common belief is that it was used for funerals.

Day 3: One last temple

On our last evening, Mao took us to watch the sunset at Phnom Krom, located on a hill south of Siem Reap.

We climbed a large staircase and then a steep hill to reach the temple at the top. Mao did the hike with us and chuckled about how Cambodians do this hill for exercise, “when they want to lose weight.” We told him Americans do the same thing.

On the way up, many Cambodians were out on the hill eating dinner or watching the sunset. Mao pointed out a few that were reclining in hammocks. He told us that they would come here to rest because their homes did not have floors and would flood at this time of year.

He told us this in the same way you might tell someone that you went to the store and bought milk.

We didn’t really know what to say in return.

It was not our first encounter with poverty in Cambodia. You can see how underdeveloped the villages in the countryside are even as your bus rips by. I struggle with how to fully convey this in the quick bits we share via email and social media.

The temple at the top of the hill was further deteriorated than the ones in the main park, but you could see that restoration efforts were underway.

And the sunset over the rice fields was beautiful.

Specific notes for visiting Angkor Wat in 2022

Between the discounted tickets and lack of visitors, 2022 is a fantastic time to visit Angkor Wat.

However, I found that many of the travel websites covering Angkor Wat have outdated travel advice since they were written before the pandemic.

First: the 2022 ticket promo. For the rest of 2022, Angkor Wat is running a special deal on tickets, allowing you to visit additional days for the same price. It breaks down as follows:

• $37 for a 1-day pass (valid for 2 entries during 2 consecutive days)
• $62 for the 3-day pass (valid for 5 entries during a period of 10 days)
• $72 for the 7-day pass (valid for 10 entries during a period of 30 days)

This deal is available whether you purchase your tickets in-person OR online. My initial research suggested that the extra days were only available if purchased online, but this was not true.

We purchased a 3-day pass thinking that we would need three full days, but we only needed two. We should have saved money and only purchased the 1-day pass. If you're in Siem Reap for one week and are using a tuk tuk driver, a 1-day pass is all you need.

You can enter the temples after 5 PM without getting your ticket checked or stamped. It is popular to buy your ticket late in the afternoon, around 4:30 PM, and then go to sunset at Angkor Wat. (We didn’t do this only because we were tired and wanted to go home after our ticket purchase.) They may check that you have a ticket, but it will not be stamped or used.

Second: there aren’t that many people. The crowds at Angkor Wat were nowhere near the throngs pre-pandemic visitors described. Mao told us that prior to the pandemic, entire tour buses of Chinese tourists would drive from temple to temple. These buses were nowhere to be seen. There were certainly other tourists, but it was far from the most crowded tourist site we’ve ever visited.

Third: you don’t have to be an early bird. The popular recommendation you’ll find online is to visit Angkor Wat at sunrise. I am not a morning person. Waking up at 4 AM sounded like a miserable idea. Plus, we were visiting during the rainy season, so there was a high probability that clouds would block any views.

While the temperature would be a bit cooler if you started your day before the sun, we had no problem touring Angkor Wat during the afternoon and evening.

Finally: a few miscellaneous things.

• Don’t buy stuff from kids. If the children can make money, it disincentives their parents from sending them to school.
• Modest dress is required in all temples. You must be covered from your shoulders to your knees, which means no short shorts, tank tops, or crop tops. A knee-length dress that stops just above the knee is fine, but a mini-dress is not. You can wear whatever you want along the roads and outside the temples, but you’ll spend so little time there that I don’t think it’s worth the effort to dress up and down.
• You need to be healthy and mobile to visit Angkor Wat. There are lots of stairs and uneven ground. The vast majority of the archaeological site is not accessible to disabled people.

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Itinerary

Check out our last email for all our Siem Reap travel details, including our hotel, restaurant, and other tactical travel notes.

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Travel Tip of the Week

Take an umbrella for both rain and shine

When we were packing for our trip, someone told us to take an umbrella.

“Oh, of course,” I said. “I know it rains a lot.”

“No,” they said. “Take it for the sun!”

Turns out, the small amount of shade and sun protection provided by an umbrella is a huge deal when exploring city streets or ancient temples in the oppressive summer heat. Any umbrella will work, but ours looks something like this. ​

I can’t remember who it was that gave us this tip, but if it was you, thank you!

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If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d love it if you would share with your friends.

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All our love,

Pete and Perry

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