Destination 8.1.1 : 2-4 Days Itinerary in Siem Reap, Cambodia

March 8th - 13th, 2015.

This post is about how should you plan your 4ish days in Siem Reap.
To be exact, it was 6 days, 1st day looking for tour agencies and walk around the town and last day leaving Siem Reap.
The "day" I mentioned is the day you can start your tour really early and might end in evening.

Suggested itinerary : 

4 Days ( 3 Days Temple Pass )  -

Day 1 : 

Morning : Museum visit ( 9:30am - 11:30am )

Noon     : Floating Village Afternoon Tours ( 2:00pm - 7:30pm )

Day 2 ( Temple pass day 1 ) : 

All day   : Temple Small Circuit Tour (sunset is included)

Day 3 ( Temple pass day 2 ) : 

All day   : Sunrise at Angkor Wat -> Private Temples Visit (by tuk-tuk)

Day 4 ( Temple pass day 3 ) :

Morning : Kulen Mountain Waterfall Tours ( 8:00am - 3:00pm )

Evening : Free & Easy

2 Days ( 1 Day Temple Pass )  - 

Day 1 : 

Morning : Sunrise at Angkor Wat by tuk-tuk ( 5:00am - 7:00am ) 

Noon     : Rush back after sunrise and continue with Temple Small Circuit Tour

Day 2 : 

Morning : Floating Village Morning Tours ( 8:00am - 2:00pm )

Evening : Free & Easy

Note : Get your temple pass in advance as I am afraid that the ticketing office is still closed for sunrise. 

Why is this suggested?

For me, no matter what, sunrise at Angkor Wat is a MUST. It is just too good to be there for sunrise.

You should reach the temple when it is total darkness. Wait at the pond until you see light. Head into the Angkor Wat Temple when the light turn ugly (before you can see the sun) as there is no people in the temple yet. Head back to the pond to see the sun really comes out. 

Beware : Check the time of sunrise. It is not the same throughout the year. It can be as early as 4am. Mine (around mid of March) was about 6:15am. 

Illustration purpose only, the camera is just too good at taking this shot

Only visit the museum before any temple visit, it doesn't serve the purpose after temple visiting. You will understand the history and what to aim (e.g. who built it, wall arts, cravings) in temple during museum visit. So, you can save time in history research on temples (or if your tour guide is not good enough on temple explanation).  AND... it's not cheap though, $12 (bout the cost of a tour). 

Museum Entrance

Temple Small Circuit Tour will cover most of the famous temples that everybody will visit. This is sort of the minimum must visit temples. 

Tomb Raider's Ta Prohm temple

Buddha faces Bayon

Sunset at Bakheng Hill

There's afternoon tour for Floating Village, you could go for it on the day of your arrival. I don't suggest you to visit the Floating Village during dry season as the village won't be floating anymore. You can still visit it as it's sort of a must visit attraction for Siem Reap tour. 

Not so floating village

I didn't get the chance to visit the Kulen Mountain but it is suggested by my Cambodian friend. She told me that it is very beautiful that I should really go for it. 

Transportation :

Tuk-tuk aka trishaw. 4 seaters, can fit up to 6 smaller size people (Asian ladies).
This is the main public tourist can use.
It is open-air, so you might need to wear a mask to cover dust when going out.
Tips : Remember to check the price or bargain before use. Read that it would be about $12 - 15 for a daily tuk-tuk booking to temples. Tell him the exact temples you want to visit during your booking. They might raise the price during your tour.

View from tuk-tuk. The one on the right is tuk-tuk. 

Sneak peak of the room

Currency :

Just USD is enough. Cambodian Riel (Cambodia currency) will be given as smaller changes instead.

Where to Stay :

As close as possible to pub street would be great.
Pub street is only next to Angkor Night Market, Art Center Night Market, restaurants and of course nightlife.
I stayed in Khmer Mansion Boutique Hotel which is just 3 minutes walking distance to pub street, 4 minutes to Night Market.

Tour Agency : 

I booked my tours at Siem Reap Shuttle Tour through hotel. The tour guides I had for few tours were pretty good. Try to get Sopheap (Tour guide's name) as he has Master degree in history. You can skip your museum visit if he is your tour guide.

Temple Pass : 

It seems like you can only buy your temple pass at the entrance to temple as they need to take your "mugshot" on spot. It might not be open for sunrise.
1 day pass  - $20
3 days pass - $40

My 3 days temple pass.

Feel free to comment if there is more information you needed for the tour.
I will write another post about the temples I visited in detailed. The post will be describing those temples I like (personally). Then you can plan your trip on which temples you should go.

Destination 3.2.1 : 3 Days 2 Night Ho Chi Minh Budget Tour

October 23rd - 27th, 2012. 

The flight to Ho Chi Minh was very cheap that time, so my uni gang decided to go there since we just started making money. We spent less that RM1000 in the whole trip, 5 days 4 night from A to Z. Damn cheap.

Our lovely breakfast from hotel

Ho Chi Minh was well developed compared to 10 years before (my 1st time to Ho Chi Minh city). Staying close to the town is best choice as there’s lotsa foods in waking distance, Night market, street food, travel agency, park with a lot of people doing aerobics or dancing in the evening, beer by the street and etc.

Park with aerobics

The scary part in the city is crossing the road. There is lots of bikes that won’t give you any space to cross. Just be calm and cross slowly as other Vietnamese then you’ll get use to it in a short while.

How to cross if all of them are moving?

What we did in those days? There was only 3 main attractions for each day, city tour for day 2, Cu Chi Tunnels on day 3, Mekong river tour on day 4. 1st day and last day is considered skipped as we reached pretty late and left pretty early on last day.

It was a happy trip with those we went together with, a balance gang of 5. We had a boss, a banker, a GPS and 2 photographers. We have similar mindset, we like food, adventurous, can walk for pretty long distance (under hot sun). It was fun being with them.

Walking under hot sun

DAY 1 : HO CHI MINH CITY TOUR

I recommend that you book the tour through agent (there's a lot of agents around the city). We checked the price that it was very cheap. The advantages is that you don’t need to walk the whole city under the hot sun. And of course, you don't need to read map on your own (where I believe not everybody can read map). 

Get a city map, we managed to visit most of the attractions in the city by walking i.e. museums, church, and even hi tea. I'm sure that you can visit all if you're visit by some transportation. FYI, most of the museums operate till 5pm.

The Opera House

War Remnants Museum

Church

The Water Puppet Show is also recommended. Remember to check the showtime and get the tickets while you are passing by that area. It is different from the normal puppet show because they control their puppet under water.

Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theatre

Water puppet show

Nice environment dinner in Window's Cafe before we head back to end our city tour.

Window's Cafe with big tree

Dinner!!!

Nice Scene of the Opera House

What to do later? Night Market around Ben Thanh Market. Lots of food and snacks to get there. Then? Cheap beers!!!

DAY 2 : CU CHI TUNNELS 

Definitely need to book transport to go there, not within walking distance. This would only spend half day, so what we did for another half day? Through our tour package, we visited a temple on the way to Cu Chi Tunnels.

Very beautiful temple

Praying session

I don't remember much description of this temple and the religion. 

It was so good that we reached there on time for their praying session. It was full of tourists visiting during that session. There's staircase for you climb up and see from 1st floor too. 

We head to Cu Chi Tunnel after the praying session in the temple. 

The Cu Chi Tunnel (Nah, I'm joking)

Cu Chi Tunnel is the leftover from the war long long time ago. There is a tour guide guided us around. They explained to us on what's the purpose of this tunnel and what were the history back then. Please wear something that is dark in colour because you will be given the chance to crawl through some very narrow tunnel (and keep fit too). It was damn tiring for me as I need to squat through the tunnel, it's not easy for tall man like me. LOL

After tunnel party with refreshments

Day 3 : MEKONG RIVER 

The Jetty

Since it's a river, we need a boat to have our trip with it.
What did we do there? Trip around the river and crossover to the other side of it for a village.

Market on the river : Boat & their House

The village on the other side of river : Making rice paper

Lunch in the village : Standing fish

WHAT TO EAT : 

1st meal, Pho

There is a lot of food to eat around the town or night market. 

Something you must eat is Pho in beef slice. We went for the one that is close to our hotel (recommended by reception). Well, it was damn good, is every pho this good in Vietnam?

Clear broth that you can add those extra veggie and bean sprout given separately. Noodles that was nicely cooked with sliced beef, shredded beef and beef ball. It was so clear that you can taste that everything is fresh. 

We didn’t try other restaurant recommended in other website, can’t compare with the rest. 

Street seafood stall

Local street food is always my favourite. 

Seafood stall on our 1st night. You can see a lot of these stall along the beer street.

Clam

Boiled Duck Egg

The most special dish I ate, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Must try…

Duck egg that’s gonna hatch soon. The egg is boiled with some topping on it.

You can see that it’s going in shape. It just taste like any other egg. Interesting part is the texture. Soft meat with few bones or bone that is in progress of forming. Chewing eyeballs, and feathers that might stuck between your teeth. 

WARNING! GRAPHIC CONTENT!

The almost hatching egg content

Local snacks : Rice paper rolls and glutinous rice 

Hot Pot

Our last dinner before heading back to our country.
Something more expensive to spoil ourself. Was looking for vinegar hot pot but mistaken as other hot pot. Luckily it didn't disappoint us at all.

Their grill fish and scallops were awesome. Too bad that I don't remember the name of the restaurant anymore. It's located somewhere close to the pub street.

Don't forget the dripping coffee too

Local Starbucks

Nightlife? 

Cheap alcohols all over the street. You don’t need to worry about them. You only need to worry about the seats as they are so crowded and limited. 

Cheap local beers

Actually there were something more than cheap beers by the street, there's few streets of slightly more expensive pub all around the town. I am not sure about other like clubs as we didn't go there. 

Oh, before I forgot, this is the place we stayed

Hong Han Guesthouse 

Credit to my awesome gang :D

Destination -1: Traveling Checklist

A checklist for me while travelling oversea, been using the one in Korea 3 months preparation post but it's not up to date.

This list is usable for all the countries I visited. Will update it again if something is missing.


MUST HAVE ITEMS : 

1. Passport - check validity, must be at least 6 months before travelling 
2. Flight tickets - with return flight
3. Visa - quite strict for some country
4. Insurance - just get it, it's pretty cheap
5. Credit card activation - you don't need the rest if you have this (with huge credit limit)
6. ATM card activation - beware of extra changes
7. SIM card activation - in case you can't get a SIM card oversea e.g. Japan
8. Cash - and extra USD for backup

TO PLAN BEFORE TRAVELING : 

1. Itinerary - most troublesome part before travelling
2. Hotel booking - don't try to look for hotel when arrived (i've tried that, not a good idea)
3. Budget list - or maybe a shopping list (must buy in that country)
4. Flight check in luggage purchase - mainly for liquid toiletries
5. SIM card - You don't need any travel guide or books, just data plan is enough. Suggest to get it from airport. Some countries provide free sim card at immigration counter
6. Airport transfer - you know how to go to your hotel when arrived
7. Printed itinerary, flight, hotel booking

TOILETRIES : 

1. Perfume - to smell good always
2. Extra contact lens - something that you can't easily find anywhere
3. Earring - to change SIM card for iPhone
4. Tissue
5. Wet tissue
6. Contact lens solution
7. Hair gel
8. Toothpaste 
9. Toothbrush 
10. Shaving blade
11. Shampoo - normally i don't bring this
12. Nail clipper
13. Hair rubber band - for long hair
14. Comb - I don't use it, just in case
15. Vaseline - For cold country
16. Extra bags - for dirty laundry or extra shopping

GADGETS : 

1. Phone - has to be smart
2. Camera 
3. Earphones 
4. Power banks / extra batteries- at least 2 pcs, leave another charging in room while using another
5. Universal socket 
6. Extension socket - no fighting with roommate
7. Chargers (phone, camera, power bank)
8. Memory cards - to take lotsa photos
9. Selfie stick - for solo traveller like me If you don't mind it be in your photo
10. Have all of them fully charged

SUGGESTED : 

1. Hidden waist bag - to hide passport, cards & cash from pickpocket 
2. Medicine - buying drugs oversea is pretty expensive
3. Backpack - keep all the stuff while walking around
4. Pen - you'll need it during immigration 
5. Umbrella 
6. Sunscreen lotion 
7. Water bottle
8. Vitamins
9. Mask - some countries are pretty dusty

CLOTHING : 

1. Watch
2. Sunglasses (shades)
3. Belt
4. Handkerchief
5. Slippers
6. Covered shoes
7. Socks
8. Cap - to look like celebrity walking on street
9. Jacket - by hand for freezing flight
10. Semi formal wear (at least collar and long pants) - for clubbing purpose
11. Formal wear - for business trip purpose
12. Swimwear - replacement when lack of inner wear 
13. Pyjamas - unless sleeping naked
14. The rest are what you normally wear

ETC : 

1. Hair cut (before leaving) - to look good in selfie
2. Special tag on luggage - easier luggage identification 
3. Locks - to lock your luggages
4. U shape pillow - long distance travelling
5. Name cards - friends around the world
6. Student ID - student price items
7. Any ID with date of birth - can keep your passport in the safe if going to club
8. Housekey - if nobody's home when you're back

Hope that I didn't miss out anything...

I'm checking this list for my upcoming Cambodia trip

Last updated : March 6th, 2015.