My blog

In the morning we went to the airport together, because our planes departed at a similar time.
We said goodbye before checkin. Anita thought for a long time whether to go with Maciek to Borneo or with me to Cambodia. She couldn't hide the fact that it was a very difficult decision for her, although for me the choice was obvious.
Ultimately and unexpectedly, she chose her husband. The fact that Maciek had planned a two-day longer stay in Asia than I did tipped the scales.
As I boarded the ATR-72 turboprop belonging to Cambodian Angkor Lines, it dawned on me that I might not be able to publish today's post. My fears, which - judging by the faces of my fellow passengers - were not only born in my head, turned out to be just fears on the sly. The plane landed smoothly in Phnom Penh - the capital of Cambodia, where I had planned to spend one night.
After landing, the passengers on our flight had their passports taken away, and after some time we all crowded in front of the window, where four officials sat, performing their duties impeccably, and who showed tourists passports through the glass - with the side with the photo facing the glass, and the applicant who identified himself in the photo (most of the passengers on this flight were a group of British retirees and they had a problem with that) slipped the counted thirty dollars through the glass, in exchange for which he could once again enjoy his passport (with a visa stuck on it).
I took a tuk-tuk from the airport. After the scooter, it's the most visible element of the landscape here. Walking down the street, every few seconds you get offered a ride in this means of transport.
This city of two million is crazy because of the huge and uncontrolled traffic. At one point, a policeman stopped the rushing wave so I could cross the street - of course, in a place where there were no crossings. As is the case in Asia, there is of course plenty of food everywhere - most of it in improvised street eateries cobbled together from a few plastic tables with a mobile kitchen on a tuk-tuk. You can get anything there: a frog, a snake, a worm.
Before closing time, I managed to visit the most impressive and glittering jewel of Cambodian history: the Royal Palace with the Silver Pagoda, whose floor is made of six tons of silver.
Then a visit to the Genocide Museum. A very powerful experience.
For dinner I visited a fancy - not easy to find here - Cambodian restaurant and ordered the most Cambodian dishes possible: takeo sausages (pig sausages with coconut and chilli), bamboo shoots and smoked fish (vegetable soup with bamboo and smoked fish from the Mekong), fish head amok (fish curry) and a dessert of kampot pepper brulee (actually three desserts: ice cream with jasmine flowers, ambok pudding and pepper brulee). And then I had to find a tuk-tuk big enough to take the two of us, that is me and my belly, to the hotel.
At the hotel I couldn't do anything else but get massaged.

To eat the hotel breakfast, you had to take your shoes off before entering the restaurant. This seemed very serious, because throughout the meal, the Cambodian prime minister and his wife, from the photos in the center of the room, looked at me.
Damn, how can they possibly think that tourists from Europe would touch barbecue ribs for breakfast?
They were delicious.
When I left the hotel after checking out, my yesterday's tuk-tuk-man was already waiting for me and after 25 minutes I was at the airport. In the domestic departure lounge I had a carrot cake with a completely European latte for a second breakfast and then got on my turboprop, which today somehow didn't arouse any greater emotions.
The flight was so short that I only managed to read one paragraph from my Asia guidebook about Siem Reap.
I have to admit that it is quite nice to be able to read your name on a piece of paper held by the driver of the hotel limousine that comes only for you when you leave the airport. When my driver first asked me "where is your wife?" I answered, truthfully, "about nine thousand kilometers from here". And he drove me in his Lexus, which dates back to the Pol Pot era, to the very center of the city, where my hotel is located. On the way, he presented me with his countless offers of sightseeing in the area: "you know, only private, not hotel".
One gets the impression that the only reason this city of 200,000 exists is to serve tourists who have come here just to see nearby Angkor Wat. And since they all eventually get tired of looking at this wonder, they eventually have to eat, drink and get massaged here.
As befits a good Khmer hotel, I was told to sit down and relax as soon as I entered. I was given a wet towel to freshen up and cold tea.
On my first day in SR I decided to focus on relaxation. But no further than a kilometer from the hotel.
I started by visiting the largest supermarket in the city. I have a thing for shopping in exotic places. And I was not disappointed: a prepared, grilled frog for a dollar and a half is something no European can resist (the dollar is the main currency here).
Then a walk around the local monuments, of which there are plenty here, a bazaar, a foot massage, a beer in town, a beer by the pool, a little laundry, a few chapters of Shantaram and I was ready for dinner.
From TripAdvisor I took the second best reviewed restaurant in Siem Reap. Khmer-French cuisine. The menu only included drinks and two five-course tasting menus, which I looked at outside while waiting for a table, because I hadn't made a reservation.

The place is called Cuisine Wat Damnak. They change the menu every two weeks. I would expect everything in Cambodia, but not something like this.
I know where I'm having dinner tomorrow.
Then, in a bar, I met a nice Belgian who had been living in Cambodia since August and was opening a new restaurant. He took me to his favorite bars on his scooter, and we ended up becoming Facebook friends.

The best way to explore Angkor is to hire your own personal tuk-tuk, which for a reasonable few dollars for the whole day will take you where you need to go.
And so I did. Right after breakfast, right outside the hotel, I picked the most English-speaking driver I could find.
For the next five hours I was driven by Mr. Tul-Tuk from temple to temple.
It must be admitted that there is definitely something to look at here. The area is huge, and the medieval buildings that formed the capital of the five-hundred-year-old Khmer empire of Angkor - the Khmer state - are impressive in their scope.
I bought a ticket for three days (I could choose between one or three days), and on the first day I did not miss any of the temples that my guide took me to today.
I would have probably given up the ghost if it weren’t for the ice-covered bottles of cold water under my tuk-tuk seat and the ubiquitous stands selling frozen citrus fruits where I often stopped.
After about eighteen thousand steps – as indicated by my Garmin – I came to the conclusion that there was no point in fighting the almost forty-degree heat any longer and told my driver to take me to the hotel.
I spent the rest of the day until dinner by the hotel pool, until my friend I met yesterday – Pascal – called me.
I suggested that we have dinner together, at a pub I had met the day before. He agreed, but set a relatively easy condition: choosing and financing the wine.
We talked about his restaurant, which he plans to open during the summer, and about Cambodian customs, language, and cuisine, which he already knows like the back of his hand.
Pascal ate set number two – the same one I was raving about yesterday. And I ate set number two. Poetry. We washed it down with Australian wine and then went to town.

After a short night, I dragged myself somehow to breakfast. My tuk-tuk was already waiting for me.
The forty-degree heat was pouring from the sky from the morning, and my driver had no mercy - he drove me to all the temples that remained to be visited after yesterday and ordered me to explore them thoroughly. So I dutifully looked into every nook and cranny and I have the impression that I saw every stone here. However, I think that one day to visit Angora would be quite enough.
I had watermelon for lunch, and at the table where I was eating it sat a sixty-year-old from Arizona who had just separated from his wife (one of the hundred reasons for the separation was that she didn't like to travel). He had been traveling for three months, and in his opinion Cambodia was the best Asian country to travel to, because they had the best food and the friendliest people.
After returning from my trip, I took a nap to regain my strength for my last evening in Cambodia.
In the evening, all those who came here for Angora, bathed and fragrant, head out into the city in search of food, drink and fun, and Siem Reap becomes a fun paradise. A ton of pubs and street food.
Since I had been following a piece of meat for a few days, I decided to check if they know how to prepare a steak in Cambodia. It turned out that unfortunately Rib Eye - Khmer style is not impressive - but it definitely improves your well-being.
My friend Pascal was already waiting for me at the Laundry Bar. We had a few drinks with the local, very nice ladyboys, played pool, and spent the rest of the evening at one of the local karaoke clubs, where after a brilliant performance of "Don't cry for me Argentina" I became a real star (unfortunately, that's just my opinion).

I am slowly starting to wean myself off scrambled eggs and bacon and today for breakfast I had Khmer soup with meatballs - Khao poun. In every Asian country the basis of cuisine is noodle soup. In each different and in each good.
My flight wasn't leaving until the evening, so I had some time to look around. I rented a bike and rode the length and breadth of Siem Reap, soaking up the suburban atmosphere. The surroundings are very poor, but the people are proud and friendly.
Pascal, who had been my guide for the past three days and had been based here for eight months, taught me a few Khmer phrases that I tried to use during my tour.
Khmer is a strange language. It has about thirty consonants and twenty vowels, and the problem is that by adding a vowel above, below, or to the side of a consonant, you create a completely new thing that is pronounced in a specific way. It's hard to get your head around it, and maybe that's one reason why almost two-thirds of the population is illiterate.
And to make it even more difficult for foreigners to learn the language, they rarely use spaces and often you have to read long lines that merge into one.
Another interesting thing, difficult for a European to understand, is their smile. For us, it is usually an expression of politeness, cordiality or joy. Here, it can mean anything, from disagreement, through indignation, to hatred. Since the smile is omnipresent here and much more of it than here, regardless of what it meant, I always returned it.
At lunchtime, I happened to be passing by a small Jungle Burger Bar. It was hard not to go in, because it smelled of grilled beef and almost all the tables were occupied.
The owner, left his wife and child in New Zealand six years ago and runs a business here with a Khmer woman. After a few days I have the impression that Cambodia exists thanks to expats.
I quenched my initial thirst with a beer, then the house specialty, Chilli Mango Margarita. Then came a really good burger, and to say goodbye, a Redberry Margarita. I promised Mr. Clayton a good review on Tripadvisor.
Just before leaving for the airport I had a package of two, what are you talking about, massages: foot and full body oil. And I was ready to leave this beautiful country with the firm conviction that I would come back here more than once.
Next stop is Hanoi.