Cambodia: A relaxing journey in a country without time

GPS Coordinates (taken at my Hotel place):
13°21’10.71″N
103°51’14.57″E

When I planned my trip, I decided to take the most tiring part of the trip at the beginning. So, after it, I could have much time to relax. So, after 26 hours of flights and waiting in the
airports, I landed in Siem Reap. In spite it’s the capital of its province, it is a quite small city. The city is located on the north of the Tonle Sap lake. This is the biggest lake of the
South/East Asia. The lake itself is surrounded by moresses and swamps. The reason of all these damp places, is that the lake itself keeps on rising and lowering its level with the changing of
the seasons. You can see the northern shore of the lake in the first picture of this group. In the second picture of this group, you can see the outskirts of Siem Reap. The city is surrounded
by a very flat land, with some small hills, that in Khmer language are called “Phnom”. If you want to see some mountains you need to go about 30-40 km north, where you can find some of them.

The arrival at the city, on the beginning, looked like going to a touristic village. The airport is very pretty. It’s all new, and when we got out of the plane, a swarm of dragonflies was flying
around us. It looked almost like being into a fairy-tale.

I want to tell you a small information about the word “airport” in Khmer language. In fact, in Khmer the “airport” is just called “airport” as they don’t have a word for it. In fact, in Khmer,
the name of it should be something like “The place where land the flying ships”. Anyway, this airport was very beautiful. The inside of the airport itself looks like a museum. While you step
inside, you can see many real-size replicas of the statues that were found inside the archaeological park.

The visa costs you 20 US dollars if you have a picture for the visa with you, and 21 if you don’t have the picture. In Kampucha you can use two currencies. The national one is the Riel, and 1000
Riels are worth about 0,25 US Dollars, while tourists can freely use the US Dollar, as it’s accepted everywhere even more than the Riels. The problem is when you have to pay some US Dollar cents,
as you’ll have the change in Riels. So, I learnt very fast that 4000 Riels were 1 US Dollar worth. The visa can be made at the arrival in the airport or on the land-borders. The funny thing was
that when it was my turn at the immigration desk, I handed to the officer a strip with two pictures in passport size. The officer told me “I want one!”, I told him “Ok, take one”, and he answered
“I want one!”, and I answered “Ok, cut them!”, he answered “I want ONE!”, so I replied “Ok, give me the scissors!”, he replied angry “I WANT ONE!”, and I replied, slowly, miming with my hand the
scissors “Do you have S-C-I-S-S-O-R-S or I have to tear the pictures with my teeth?”. So, he finally understood and gave me the scissors. Then I went to the next step, and I discovered that the
visa-form that I just filled was out-of-date, and I had to fill one new. So, after this long waste of time, they let me enter Kampucha.

As you get out the airport, you find yourself surrounded by people that offer you taxi service. But as my experience taught to me, I preferred to go to the taxi desk and ask for a regular one. To
my disappointment, they told me that in spite I wanted a tuk-tuk (a cart dragged by a motorbike that works as a regular taxi), I couldn’t get one. In fact, the tuk-tuks were only for groups of
two or more people. Seen that I was alone, I had to take a motorbike. So, on the end I accepted to go to the centre with a motorbike-taxi. You can’t imagine how was to go with that crappy
motorbike, the crazy driver, my big backpack before the driver and the small backpack on my shoulders. That was a really crazy experience. So, in about 15 minutes of crazy driving, we reached my
hotel, and it costed me 2 dollars.

My hotel, the Ta Prohm Hotel (you can see it in the fifth picture of this group), was wonderful. Probably the best I ever was in. The personnel was super kind and the room was great. The building
is in colonial style, and I liked it so much. When I chosen the hotel, I studied carefully the place. The hotel is on the “riverside” of the city (but the city is so small that every place in the
centre, is not far from the riverside), and next to the “Old Market” (the place where ancient travellers and merchants were dealing goods, where now you can find many good deals), and also close
to the “Pub Street”, where you can find almost all of the few pubs of the city. So, I also liked the location very much. The name of the city has an interesting origin. In fact, in Khmer it means
something like “the laying down Siam” or “the grounded Siam”. The city was named like this in the Angkor times (about in the year 1100) after a victory in a battle against the Siamese troops (for
Siam is meant the modern Thailand). In this group of pictures, you can see in the third and fourth some streets of Siem Reap, while the sixth and seventh were taken in the “Old Market”. As you
see, Siem Reap looks really pretty.

Francesco Benvenuti per Newsfood.com