War Museum & The Sacred Temples -Siem Reap June 2015

We didn’t go to a lot of places when we were at Siem Reap. To some, 4 days and 3 nights seems like a fairly long stay for a buzzing, small city in Cambodia but for us, it wasn’t enough. I honestly should have taken more pictures on everything we did, ate and went, but I was too busy enjoying the serenity and excitement of a long-awaited holiday.

First up, the War Museum. The War Museum’s entrance fee is about $5 and it’s pretty worth it, especially if you’re a soldiers-and-guns fan like my boyfriend. He sure had a fun time here. We got to go around the whole park filled with real, physical references of old guns and rifles with old empty bullets. There were also a lot of pictures and information on billboards of the olden times and the Khmer Rouge back in the day.

On our way (on a tuk tuk, of course) to the temples

It was quite late into the afternoon when we arrived at the ticket counters to get our entrance tickets to the temples and Angkor Wat. Since it was such a time-constraining day trip for us, we only managed to visit 2 temples; Ta Prohm and Angkor Wat. For those of you who have forgotten, Ta Prohm was the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed! It was reported that bomb shell, Angelina Jolie, fell in love with Cambodia during her filming of Tomb Raider there. She embarked on her beautiful journey and adoption of her first child, Max, who is from Cambodia. See guys, this is what traveling does to you. :’)

We decided to go to Ta Prohm first because we thought we wanted to catch the sunset at Angkor Wat.

Our helpful tuk tuk driver recommended us to a lot of touristy places to visit but personally, we thought $12 per person for a mediocre buffet (as rated by my parents who visited 2 weeks before us) was not worth our budget. This was the ride on our way to Ta Prohm.

I loved how the mini temples we saw along the way had such detailed Buddha faces sculpted on these sacred and ancient rocks.

Ta Prohm; beautiful and smaller than I expected for a film production crew to work their way around it.   

The insides of the temple remain raw and untouched; the main entrance was going through a revamping renovation and visitors were not allowed to go in.

One thing I noticed about these temples were there was at least 1 guard in every temple to supervise and assist tourists on relevant matters. I liked the fact that Cambodians are so protective over their ancient ruins; it gives me a sense of patriotic security that I don’t feel in my own country. Oops.

In the pictures below, we’re on our way to Angkor Wat. Finally, right?!

Even the bridges seem untouched as some parts are missing but still, beautiful.

The entrance of Angkor Wat!

One of my favourite pictures of the whole trip.

There were 2 horses available for riding services at $5 for one round around the lake. Of course, I wasn’t interested. Cambodia has a lot of tourist attractions involving elephants and horses to take tourists on rides. These poor animals look dried out from the sun and tired. Imagine taking someone on a piggy back ride under the scorching heat!

Overall, (besides the heat) I had a great time at Siem Reap. Cultural, educational and eye-opening for a city kid like me to have her heart warmed up and believing in the beauty of simplicity again. Till then, Siem Reap!

Much peace and love,

Stephanie