siem reap, cambodia
F E B R U A R Y 2 5 , 2 0 0 9
tiny human, ancient world // ta prohm, cambodia
cambodia was the first trip that just the three of us had ever taken together, and was really the beginning of “our mad planet” adventures (and blog). it opened the world up to our family and taught us to become more adaptable, patient and trusting. it encouraged us to embrace the wild adventure of traveling with small children, and showed us that it’s not only possible, but it’s essential to our quality of life. our dream life!
cambodia -- a tiny country nestled between laos, vietnam and thailand.
southeast asia isn’t an easy place to get to. it takes a minimum of 24 solid hours of travel, and typically 2-3 flights in order to arrive. but once you’re there, it opens up a whole new world.
inter-asian flights are as cheap as $45 to different countries. you can hire a driver for the entire 10-hour day for as low as $10, and everywhere you turn you are being offered cheap tuktuk rides and boat trips. it seemed absurd for us to have come all the way to indonesia just to stop there. so we spontaneously hopped the puddle to cambodia to begin a new adventure…
we flew from denpasar, indonesia to hong kong, then from hong kong to phnom pen, cambodia, and from phnom pen to siem reap.
once we stepped foot on cambodian soil we were met by a driver sent from our hotel, the angkor village. we drove 45 minutes through a sandy town that resembled an old western dust bowl. it seemed like a ghost town, but instead of being past it’s time, it was before it’s time… it hadn’t yet been fully developed. as we moved closer to our hotel and the extremely small, concentrated ‘downtown’ area, we notice more progressive shops, restaurants and markets aimed at tourism.
we got settled into our hotel in a beautiful room located on the second floor of a garden. we were surrounded by plants and the sound of fountains. it was to be our home for the next 7 days.
we immediately went out to explore the markets and the restaurant row. i remember the first restaurant we ate at was a mexican café. we ordered a plate of nachos, margaritas and a tall, cold juice for maddi and enjoyed our first indulgence. we walked around the markets where, as expected, each vendor was selling the exact same thing as the person next to him with little fluctuation in price. maddi was in heaven being able to stretch her dollar over the purchase of a purse, trinkets and a package of small, handmade stuffed elephants ranging in different colors.
we quickly made friends with a tuktuk driver who wanted to work solely for us during our stay for a total of $10 a day. his name was sophat (pronounced so-fat) and he really, really liked to smoke pot. we actually caught him smoking a joint of hash rolled in cambodian money. the small bills there are so nearly worthless (fractions of a penny) that they have more practical uses as paraphernalia than making purchases.
since we hired him as our permanent driver during our trip he would stay outside our hotel napping in his tuktuk all day, everyday, until we came out. loyal, mr. sophat.
at one point we were ready to be taken to the hotel gym, which was located in a different angkor village structure about 20 minutes ride up the street. pat went to wake mr. sophat. after attempts to wake him gently failed, pat had to physically shake his tuktuk and yell his name to get sophat to pry open his heavy, blood red eyes in total surprise. it looked as if he had crawled out of fear and loathing, but he bounced back quickly and soon we were on our way to exercise. despite his love of the herb, sophat was an incredibly reliable, competent and caring driver.
one of the really great (and also really inconvenient) things about cambodia is that it’s only just recently developing its tourism and it’s cities. the road to our hotel was under construction and being laid with rocks the size of basketballs, so we had to ride in our little carriage through the bumps each time we came and went. when we were out and about, no one – not a single driver – would know where anything was located. it was as if the city was developing faster than its own people could keep up with.
siem reap is one of the most charming cities we’ve ever experienced. if you decide to go, we would highly recommend the angkor village hotel! and if you really want to go for the full experience, you can probably still find sophat sitting outside in his tuktuk, getting stoned, napping and waiting for his next job. :-)
