Siem Reap - the highlights

As usual I manged to go away and take way too many photographs! Through this blog I`m aiming to give a feel of what it was like to do this trip that took in 5 flights, long bus rides and many , many miles!
We used Citrus Travel and got a great price. Whilst overall not as good an experience as the Holiday Place trips we did ,everything / everyone was in the right place at the right time, apart from us changing a supposed 6 hour bus ride (warned actually nearer to 9 + ) from a coach to a plane ride through a contact at our hotel.

Siem Reap was lovely. Great weather and so much to see and do Our hotel asked us to remove shoes at the door - not for cultural reasons we later discovered but to protect the wooden floors from heels as it was a leased building! Lovely little hotel with great rooftop breakfasts.

A tuk tuk back from town after a drink

 The town centre itself was a bit of a shock with its bright neon Pub Street signs but we were soon sipping Tomb Raider cocktails in Angelina Jolie`s favourite bar watching the world go by.

We adopted Jan early on in the holiday who was travelling alone

Our bar had it`s own personal security guard which was totally not needed. Still he was only 12!










The night market was busy and noisy and full of bargains!

We needed a T-shirt like that one - so many tuk tuks!

One curious aspect to the tuk tuks was the number of hammocks available for those needing a short rest. Saw this so many times and always made us smile.

On our last daywe happened upon a great Buddhist street parade which stopped the traffic and were able to visit the temple too.

I`ll cover Angkor Wats in it`s own blog but our Siem Reap visit ended on a sour note for me when attending a local traditional dance venue. Managed to drop my wallet by putting it in the zipper pocket that was actually the zip of my zip off shorts. Only later did I remember the curious site of a waiter picking up a napkin fro the floor by me when none of us had dropped our napkin- seems it was my wallet he was picking up never to be seen again. Luckily I`d left other cash and cards in the hotel safe and I was able to cancel those lost.

Peter being a pain in the neck!

Children`s Hospital

How`s that for a fence!

Whilst there we ate well and our best meal without a doubt was in a local training unit called Sala Bai A great project (0ne of a number in Siem Reap) where they go out and find the most disadvataged young people and train them in hotel / restaurant trades. Fantastic project which we were glad to support. "The School of Rice" - I think they need to work on their marketing strap lines!