I bet whenever you plan your Siem Reap, Cambodia plan, you must be wonder how many temples there and how many temples that worth to visit.
Before travel to Siem Reap, you'll probably ask:
1. How big is Siem Reap?
2. What are Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Remote Temples all about?
3. How big is the area? How many times do you need to explore?
4. How to hire a tour guide and driver?
I'm going to share my experience in this post.
Q1. How big is Siem Reap?
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| In case the words are too small. Red circle is town, Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. Blue is the tonle sap lake and water village. Green is remote temples area. |
I make Siem Reap to 3 parts:
1. Town
2. Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom (People call it big circle and small circle)
3. Remote Temples (eg: Banteay Srei, Beng Mealea etc) & Tonle Sap Lake
And above 3 parts are all about Siem Reap, but these 3 parts are big enough to explore.
Q2. What are Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Remote Temples all about?
All about temples.
Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom are very developed tourist place, most of the temples has been restored, you can see temples are quite in one piece but our tour guide told us, 80% of the temples are "new", which mean restored by countries, eg Japan and German whoever show support to the World Heritage Site.
If you have been doing the research, you probably found a lot of temples name like the link showed.
http://www.canbypublications.com/siemreap/srtemples.htm
and you probably start to confuse and worry where are all these temples and how should you plan your shedule.
I tell you, just ignore those unfamiliar temples list (if you're not really fancy on temples and all these, you just wanna pay a visit), remember only 3 names.
Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Remote Temples.
Because, almost all the temples are inside these 3 areas.
If you cant imagine, let me describe a little.
Firstly, Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom are surrounded by wall and river, the old people take this as the way to defend themselves from the enemy.
As what you see in the map above.
And where the hell is all these unfamiliar temples?
All inside Angkore Wat, Thom and Remote Temples.
To make it simple, imagine Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom are zoo, and all those temples in the list are animal cage.
Basically when you enter to the 4 square castle (which mean Angkor la), you'll not see only one temples, but a lot of temples.
Understand now?
Ok now what is remote temples?
Those are less develop tourist place because of they are not in the town area, thats why people call it remote temples.
Remotes temple including Banteay Srei, Banteay Seram, Beng Mealea, Rolour Group and etc.
And they are all 4 different temples and located in different area.
My opinion, although you've to rent a taxi and spend whole day to visit those temples, but its more worthy to visit, because it is very original, especially Beng Mealea, no restoration has been done so far.
Well i will blog out the detail later.
Q3. How big is the area? How many times do you need to explore?
I don't know how big is the area, but we spend 3 days to visit Angkor Wat (one day), Angkor Thom (one day) and Remote Temple (one day).
And we're not fans of history, John admire anything that bigger than him, that's why. Haha.
If you're actually worry about your physical, that's not that tiring, because tuk tuk can be drove into the Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, the driver will drop you in the temple, so you don't need to walk from one temple to another temple.
So if you're not ready to see every inch of the temple, you can give up the one week pass, and get 3 days past like us, or one day pass.
I suggest you to hire a guide and tuk tuk, so they knew where to bring you and what worth to see, well i will explain to you later.
But most importantly was the tour guide will bring you to apply the pass for free (the counter isn't near the temples)
3 day pass = UD40
One week pass = USD60
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| One day pass counter |
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| 3 days pass counter. |
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| John's pass. Picture, date of entry and expiry stated. |
You don't need to bring photo for the pass, they took it with the cam when you're apply the pass.
Every entrance of temples guided by controller, they check your pass very detail, so better pay and get your own pass, afterall the money go to the restoration fees of the temples.
Ok back to town now.
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| Red circle is the main town. Almost all the famous restaurant like Khamer Kitchen, Dragon Soup are all in the same area. |
Town is small, one main street and alley from the street, that's all.
Of course there are some local resident areas but its not wide, local and foreigner mostly found in old town, aka pub street.
Except restaurant, pub, and hotel, old town has 2 or 3 markets of souvenir, you can get pretty cheap scarf there.
Q4. How to hire a tour guide and driver?
Walk to the street and ask any tuk tuk driver, even thought you want a taxi not a tuk tuk, because they have contact.
For Remote Temples, you need a taxi, because there are 60 to 80km away from the town, you may take bike or tuk tuk but your ass will defo get pain, because rocky road all the way to the place.
So we got a taxi + driver for one day remote temple trip = USD70 (including USD5 road tax).
What i read from internet is USD50, but the driver say that is imposible and finally we make the deal by USD70 (he ask for USD100 at first).
About tuk tuk, driver and guide rent in the 2nd and 3rd days to Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, the charge as below:
Tuk tuk + Driver / day = USD15 (including 12 bottles of mineral water, you have to ask or they never give!)
Tour guide / day = USD20
My suggestion in hire tuk tuk / taxi / guide:
1. Compare price if you find on the street (trust me, a lot of ppl will come and ask you, don't need to book in advance)
2. Don't book with hotel because they will charge extra, of course if you're unhappy with the driver or tour guide, you've someone to find and complaint.
3. Check the license of tour guide, snap the picture just in case they serve you bad, you can make complaint to the tourism ministry.
4. Let them help you plan the route because they know better, but let them know you have done research before (eg: famous temples and price), so they dare not to rip you off too.
Last but not least, i'm going to share my plan here.
16/6 (Saturday)
KUL -> SR -> Remote Temples
650am: Reach SR, find tuk tuk ($7) to Frangipani Villa Hotel
8am: Reach Hotel, check in / left luggage
9am: Breakfast and get 3 days pass ticket
10am: Remote Temples (Banteay Srei & Kbal Spean / Beng Melea)
2pm: Lunch in town / nearby
4pm: Remote Temples (Banteay Samre & Pre Rup sunset)
7pm: Khemer Kitchen for dinner.
17/6 (Sunday)
Angkor Thom
5am: Depart to Srah Srang for sunrise.
8am: Angkor Thom (Bayon, Phimeanakes, Tommanon, Prasats Suor Prat, Terrace of the Leper King, Terrace of the elephants.)
1pm: Town for lunch
3pm: Angkor Thom (Ta Keo, Ta Prohm)
5pm: Phnom Bakheng for sunset.
7pm: Dinner.
18/6 (Monday)
Angkor Wat
9am: Angkor Wat
1pm: Town for lunch
3pm: Spa / Massage
7pm: Temple Club / Any restaurant with right feeling for dinner
19/6 (Tuesday)
Town
9am: Breakfast
10am: Psar Chaa
12am: Lunch in town
2pm: Killing field
3pm: Tea at Red Piano
4pm: Spa / Massage
6pm: Steamboat / BBQ for dinner
8pm: Night market.
20/6 (Wednesday)
6am: Wake up and prepare to check out.
Accommodation:
Frangipani Villa Hotel II: $63 (per person for 4 nights)
Transportation:
Day 1: $20 (car per 1 person)
Day 2 & 3: $20 (2 days Tuk tuk per 1 person)
town transport: $15 (whole trip tuk tuk per 1 person)
Others:
Tour guide: $15 (per day per person)
Entrance pass: $50 (per person for whole trip)
Meals:
8 lunches: $ 40 per person
8 dinners: $ 60 per person
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Accommodation: $63
Transportation: $55
Others: $65
Meals: $100
Total: $283 (x 3.1 = RM 877.30) per person
You may actually ignore the budget part, some cost (eg car rent and guide) is actually more expensive than i expected.
And eventually we didn't follow 100% of the plan above because we're flexible, we skip some temples because we had enough in the 1st 2 days hahahaha, we actually spend more time to chill in the hotel.
Oh yea we skip Tonle Sap too, because i don't want to hire a car to see yellow river that i can see everywhere in Malaysia.
We rather to visit more remote temples.
Stay tuned!
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
20121223, 1003pm
Rach in wanna some chocolate mood.
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