Author: Maren Hanetho

Next stop Ho Chi Minh !

Entry into Vietnam went fine, showing return ticket (within 15 days) stamp stamp ok.

We are staying at district 1, in a pretty big airbnb apartment. More on Ho Chi Minh and apartment tomorrow.

Very nice Airport, not that big and easy to get around. No checks when entering the airport, just walk up to the checkin counter and show passport. We are traveling to Vietnam, and had to state how many days we planned to stay there, and then show flight tickets out of Vietnam.

Video of the departure hall, DQ and BurgerKing are here – and a few tourist go “oh hell yes!” 🙂

https://www.whereistrond.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_2245.mov

Now we are waiting for our flight to HoChiMinh in Vietnam, should be an hour and a half there, and then we will check in to our first AirBnB.

So we got to visit Ta Prohm today, a bit further out in the jungle from Angkor Wat. This place, and pretty much the whole area got a major boost after the 2001 movie Tomb Raider.

We got here bright and early at 07:15, so thats 15 minutes before it actually opens. When the guards finaly let us in we where like 6 people in total, it do add a lot to the experience to explore these sites ‘alone’ – and not together with the whole of South Korea (more on that later)

The restoration of this site is a cooperation between India and Cambodia, and I think that whats done – is done nicely. There are pictures of before/after, and where they have added new plaster or cement it is clearly visible, as to aknowledge that “yeah – we did this”.

A lot of Tomb Raider was shot in this exact location, for those who remember it – it is the scene where Lara walks around the ruins, and these kids keep popping in and out of the shadows, she roams around and dissapears into a hole in the grouns after picking a jasmine flower. Quite a cool scene, and even cooler since it is on location and not in a studio.

The story of the filming itself is quite interesting, and well worth the read before visiting. The crew spent a long time in Siem Reap and you can still get Angelinas favourite drink at some of the bars in Pub Street. (Its contruie, lemon/line juice and sofa, if I remember correctley – called ‘Tomb Raider’). They used lots and lots of the locals for extras and general help, and it had a major impact on the town and surrounding area – bringing in intress of the old sites and the general flow of money that follows tourists.

For me, I would say that this is probably the coolest site to go visit in the Angkor area. Of course, you dont opt out of Angkor Wat – it is also amazing. But to get to Ta Prohm early, without all the tourist crowds, is absolutley amazing. You can roam around quite freely, only a few places are ‘no go’, but it feels much more free. Absolutley amazing place, you can walk around here for hours – and we did!

Bring some water, lots of water. You will have to exit the site if you want to buy some more. And put on some bug repellant stuff – not to bad, but there are a few more mosquitos here than Angkor Wat. It opens at 07:30 (SHARP!) and is of course covered by the general ticket.

If you are planning to go here any other time than 07:30 – I would just forget about it. After 1 hour it was crowded.

Now – after this site, a natrual next stop is Bayon area/temple. This is also a part of Tomb Raider, if you remember the scene where all the locals where tearing down the temple wall, while the villain archeologist is lounging on a red velvet sofa – sipping tea. Also, when Lara lands her Jepp in the jungle, and the looking around using her binoculars (yeah – I can’t have spelled that correctly??), here you will see these smiling buddha faces. These smiling buddhas are from the Bayon.

The site consist of a total of 120 budha faces, all said to be differetn. Quite a special view.

And here we also met South Korea, pretty much all of them. I have never seen that many selfie sticks in one place ever. They had to have come in on a buchload of busses – and they completley overrun the place. Now we did a selfie or two ourselfs there, but not nearly to the same extent as Sout Korea. They even had brought along their own photographer, and he made everybode form a line – and then had them pose in the same way over and over and over again.

Strangley enough, I did not get an actual photo of em 🙂 , we just sped up and got ahead of them.

When you take a step back. and start to identify the different huge faces in the towers – it is an amazing view.

You can move around quire freely here to, but its a bit more thingt spaces, steep stairs, small open areas. So when the crowds get there, you will walk a bit in que. A nice thing to do is walk around the outer walls, splendid views and lots of nice photo opps.

So, all in all, there are a few places we did not visit. But I cant understand anything cooler that these two sites. And yeah, Angkor Wat to, you have to see them all. But to have it split up in 2-3 days is probably wise, since you will be able to get there early and also get out before the heat kills you. And another thing, if you do them all back to back – I dont think you would actually appreciate it as much. It would probably be a bit ‘here we go again’ feel. Sonset aside three days, thats my suggestion anyways.

And also, be sure to have a hotel with a pool for when you get back 🙂

There is a lot to see around Angkor Wat, that isn’t Angkor Wat, but Angkor Wat related. Ta Prohm is a tempel made 100 years or so later than Angkor Wat. This is where Thomb Raider was filmed. It was quite the adventure. We walked out into the jungel and found overgrown ruins.There were people working in restoring the temple.We loved to go exploring in the jungel….. unfortunatly we forgot our machetes at home.

Then we Tuk Tukked over toThe Beyon, the official state tempel of the Buddhist kong Jayavarman VII. Buildt shortly after Ta ProhmThe temple has 120 different faces of Buddha. TThis temple also had a lot of beautiful carvings. The area around Angor Wat contained a lot we didn’t get to see. So we will have too come back for those for sure.

We headed out to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat ( ir was beautifull), we knew there where going to be a few of us – tourists that is.

Thi is as close to the ‘classic’ picture I got, and to be honest – we rather tried to savour the moment 🙂

just look at this…

and while Im at it.. what the fuck is the deal with these chairs??!

Urelated I know, but these chairs are for adults that want to grab some food… lord allnighty! They didnt even reach me to the knee.

Anyways, like Monkey Mia in Australia, the sinrise in Angkor Wat has gone bananas, to many people.. but still, nice to get ther early and check out the ruins before they turn up the heat!

Anyways2 – Angkor – pool and breakfast at hotel – 1 hour silent contemplation, and the we went tuk tuking again. Time to visit the second and last microbrewery in Siem Reap, this on a bit more up-scale

Great location, excelent chairs and big fans.. some flies and the fish pool could have used some cleaning, but otherwise tiptop.

We had the ipa, weisse, saison, dark and golden. Fine all of them, but not anything out of the ordinary…saison one was prob the best, atleast thats my opinon.

We just had a snack, shared bbq pulled pork balls (haha), made with the local beer, as many of their dishes where.. so thats a big plus

We also did a taster, good stuff. 1 beer, 0,33, was like 5$ – thats superexpesive here, and that was probably why there where just 4 of us in the whole place.

I would say that the guys at ‘The Local’ do a better beer, but the food and seating is nicer here.

here is a video of a selfie person, there was a lit of them around angkor wat 😀

https://www.whereistrond.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_1980.mov

Yeah, and we got to go up in the angkor wat tower thingy – terrible hig and steep stairs, here is Mare comming down.

Nice view up there, could see the whole area spread out

One would think that a people capable of creating Angkor Wat, would be able to come up with something better – when it comes to chairs for grownups – than this stuff:

We wanted to see the sun rise in Ankor Wat since it’s a thing. Got up in middel of the night, and Tuk Tukked out. We had booked the driver the day before.

The drive out in the dark, and the walk out to the ruins was unexpectedly nice. In sort of quiet unison with a thousand other tourist.As the sun rose our fellow travellers just got annoying. The morning was quite cool so we climed the stairs to the top and the view was worth it. There was a lagre floor on top which we didn’t realise on the ground. The monkies were out and about. They were fun, but they got angry at some tourist who tried to pet them…..rookie mistake….we knew better.

We had major issues getting to sleep last night- might have been that redbull drink at the end of the night, or Arne (thats the name of our soon retired sircondition in the hotell room) was doing a halfhearted job. Dunno, but it was lik 3 AM before i think i was out.

Our most excelent hotel, Popular Hotel and Spa, has tuk tuk drivers of their own outside.. not that getting a tuktuk is a problem, they are everywhere and do not take no for an answer. I do feel that this whole place has a ‘India’ feel to it – lots of similarities .. tuktuk’s being one.

Anywho.., For 12$ we get a ride from the hotel, to the ticket office and then to Angkor Wat. There the driver waits for to-three hours until you are all sweated out and drives you back. Not to shabby

No pictures excist of the ticket office, we forgot about it. Picture if you will, a big hall,, lots of people, vending machines and a train-station-feel, without tracks and train… yeah. Tons of booths.

So its 62$ pr person for a 3 day pass, and most people goes for this option. It is a huge area, Angkor Wat just being the main temple area (temple/ some say mausoleum), and you are pretty much done afte 2-3 hours due to heat.

Tickets comes with your picture on it – so, just slab a magnet on the back of it and then you have a grade A souvenier. Jeppsi peppsi !

So Maren wil put up some pictures of the site itself, it was awsome to finaly get here. This is one of those places I have sat at home and looked at on youtube.. cool

Look at how dry I am.. My good lord Khutulu I was warm, it was boiling inside the temple. It was probably the most hot and humid place I have ever been in.. at least a top 3. There are people selling water not to far away from the main area – but bring a couple of liters anyway.

Angkor Wat from the tuktuk dropoff site (that was full of booths selling whatever)

Huge area, but we kinda covered this spot in a couple hos hours. We are going back tomorrow, a few things we wanna do.. se the sunrise ( yeah, getting up at 5AM) and climbing the stairs to the top, its not open for climbing all days – today it was closed.

Note that you ned grådig-lange-stuttbukser (long shorts), that covers the knees – if you show knees – or to much shoulder -, you will have issues getting in everywhere. Also – midday, we where here at 14:00, and according to our driver there was ‘no one’ here.. leter in the afternoon lots more people came, but as you see on the pictures, come midday when its at its hottest, and enjoy a bit more space and silence.

After exiting the park (its a huge floating walkway across the lake..bouncy) and finding our driver – we really really had deserved a beer. And I had checked in advance, there are two microbreweries in Siem Reap – we went for ‘The Local’ – run by three americans that moved here some years ago.

Pretty basic setup, 3 home made on tap (gefe,lager and ipa), and the ‘friends’ on tap. The lager was my fav.. The place was pretty much just tourists and expats, but still – supernice people at the bar and well worth a visit.

I been really looking forward to this. The pictures from here always looks so amazing and the reality is even better. We decided to get a three day pass and for the first day we went when there were the least amount of other tourists. That was quiet an experince. Recomended!…….just don’t stay too long in the heat. We even had room to danceAnd take staged photos