2022
Hi guys,
Here is the continuation of the part 1 related to our journey in Thailand and Cambodia.
For our last day in Siem Reap, we wanted to go out of the beaten paths. The problem is that most of Cambodian try to bring you to touristic places (very expensive and where they get commissions).
On that morning, we went to the city center as my wife wanted to go to a floating market. When we seen that all agencies propose this kind of visit for 25 USD per person, we decided not to do it.
Lucky us, we found a tuk tuk who proposed to drop us to Chong Khneas (a floating village) and told us he will wait for us until we finish the visit and will bring us back to the city center for 5USD. The place was 30 minutes away by tuk tuk.
Ah ah ah! Unfortunatly, it was a kind of rip off because you cannot go to Chong Khneas by tuk tuk and only by boat. The 5 USD was for the return from the city center to the pier. When we arrived at the pier, a guy told us the visit is 100USD for the 4 of us! You can imagine my face ;-(.... So we decided not to go and ask the tuk tuk to go back. The great thing was that on the way to go several things caught our attention and we thought we will stop and discover Cambodia by ourself.
Our first meeting was with schoolchildren with whom we spoke some english words. Then, we met this grandmother who couldn't speak a word of english and we saw houses on stilts. We were far away from our standard of living but we felt kindness and smiles told us a lot. We also discovered, by chance, the lotus farm where there are small huts used by Cambodians to make picnics. We felt we discovered the eart of Cambodia and this was exactly what we were looking for. I highly recommend this visit as it is free, far from touristic places and it will definitely stay a memorable day!
The next day was a long journey from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh as it was 7h by bus. We enjoyed a lot this experience because bus is always a great opportunity to meet people. Each time we share our trips, experiences and our lifes. And when you travel with kids, people speak to you very easely and friendly.
On that day, we had a memorable experience. Our bus was supposed to be air conditioned with the WIFI, very comfortable. We don't know what happened but we left and after 5mn around the block we came back to the beginning point. The crew had a look at the bus and after 30 min told us to change for another bus (it was a mini bus without air conditionned, without WIFI and not that comfortable). The good point is that we had so much fun, all together we had so much luggages, the crew had to make a tetris game. It took around 15-20 min and they couldn't find the solution. With another Cambodian guy, we took the things in hand and told them how to put all the luggages together. The good thing is that I have always been good at tetris ;-)! When we arrived, we had some rest, our dinner and it was time to go to sleep!
On the following day, we had to optimize as we had only one day in Phong Penh. We started the day visiting the National museum, the royal palace, the Wat Phom, Central Market and the Wat Ounalom.
Then we finished the day visiting the Tuol sleng museum. The Tuol Sleng is a museum about atrocities committed by the Red Khmer regime. The visit is very hard and images are hard to bear. We learnt and understood an historical part of Cambodia. I would recommend not to do it with kids.
From Phnom Penh, we took a flight to Bangkok as our last destination was Ko Samet island. We decided to finish our holidays in spending 5 days in a island and Ko Samet is only 2 to 3 hours drive from Bangkok. It is very easy to reach either by bus, taxi or Uber (about 50€ for one way).
We really enjoyed our stay as the island wasn't to crowded and there are nice beaches. I recommend to rent scooters if you go to Ko Samet as there is no car (only some taxis), it is quite safe, fun and it gives you the freedom to visit and travel on the Island. Especially, you can get to the Ao Wai and the Apache beach which are in the south of the Island (most of the people stay in the north of the island). There is no one on these beaches, so there is no better place for relaxing. There are also great restaurants for enjoying thai food!
I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I did writting it (it reminded me so many good souvenirs).
If you want to see more pictures, here is the shared album.
See you around
Jul
@Julien44 I really enjoyed reading it, you gave great advice and it was entertaining to read your experience. It's a shame that getting to touristic places is so expensive, but I'm glad you managed to enjoy yourselves in other places. The photos are beautiful, too. The beach looks very nice!
Thank you for sharing this, Julien!
