Siem Reap wasn't a huge place, no modern glass and steel towers on the skyline but it did have quite a large number of hotels, bars and restaurants for the tourists visiting Angkor Wat. The picture above is a pano taken from our hotel room which was on the fourth floor of the building, in a suburb of the town, it was evening time when this was taken but it was still over 30 degrees.
The food and drink was a little bit more expensive in town that previously in the big cities, I guess that was because of the higher ration of tourists to locals, it felt really expensive after our trek through Vietnam and Phnom Penh but actually it was still pretty cheap, here's a typical menu from a mid-range restaurant (prices in US Dollars)
Even though we were in the middle of Cambodia in a small town I still managed to find some craft beer! There was a little bar by the canal that runs through the centre called "Embargo" that's run by an English bloke who brews his own beer as well as stocking some of the more popular Vietnamese craft brews (like Heart of Darkness) it was a great little spot, and the beer was cold and tasty! (see picture below)
One evening we decamped (via tut-tut) to a local hall/theatre where we were treated to some local music and traditional dance, it was a very touristy affair with quite a few people, but it was enjoyable and the buffet was amazing. I snapped a few pictures (see below) everyone was impressed with the bright colours of the costumes and the extraordinary finger bending!
The night life in Siem Reap was quite vibrant but also quite seedy, lot's of balding middle aged European blokes cruising around trying to pick up Asian girls. It was sad to see but inevitable I suppose when you have such a wealth gap. I do wonder though, some of the girls must be quite disappointed when they ultimately find out that the bloke they latched onto is a divorced plumber from Rochdale, still, hopefully some find what they're looking for. There's one street in the town named "Beer Street" (I'm sure it's not really called that) where all the action takes place after dark, I snapped the picture below, it looks colourful but in reality was like running a gauntlet of people trying to sell you things, we walked through it one night (on the way home from a restaurant) but didn't spend any time there.
One point of interest, the coloured cubes hanging from the overhead wires were for the local beer which was amusingly called "Krud", I guess it's an acquired taste.
We enjoyed our stay in Siem Reap and it was from there that we left for the journey home. There were two legs to it, first a flight from Siem Reap airport to Saigon and then direct from Saigon back to Heathrow, London. The airport at Siem Reap was quite a surprise, it was brand spanking new and looked fabulous, however there was no one there, completely empty. Apparently built with Chinese money in the pre-covid tourist boom it's utility has somewhat waned since then, I snapped the picture below to show the main terminal building with not a soul in sight (except my Mrs)
The flight to Saigon was short, less than an hour, and pretty soon we were back in the maelstrom that is Ho Chi Minh City airport. After spending all our left over currency on things we didn't need we went down to the departure gate and waited to be called to board. Fortunately everything was running on time and we left around Midnight on our Boing 787 back to London (see below).
Our flight landed a little early at Heathrow T4 and our bags came through quite quickly so we shuffled downstairs to the train station and hopped onto the Elizabeth line to take us home, this involved a quick change at Hayes which proved to be quite a shock to the system! It was only 7am so on the platform it was overcast, grey, freezing cold and drizzling, a rude awakening after the heat and sunshine of Asia,! Anyway, it was good to be home and we were happy to have banked so many amazing sights, smells and sounds on our travels, I wonder where we'll go next?
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