Trip to Cambodia: Part I

I just came back from this amazing trip in Cambodia.

I dont have the time to blog about it in details so I've decided to divide this story in many parts, here is the first one.


I went first to Siem Reap which is the closest to the Angkor sites.

Siem Reap is quite a touristic city. Which means that the city life revolves around the tourism.

This fact has some importance on the way people behave as well as on the prices of goods and foods.


First thing, you have to find where to stay. We stayed at the "Popular guest house" which is actually quite popular, at least among backpackers.

The price of the rooms is very fair. A bedroom for two (two beds) with ceiling fan will cost you 8$. We pay $9 because we were three. Thats just $3 each.


The next thing you need to do is to decide by which mean you will go to Angkor. You have the choice between renting a bike (DIY method), take a tuk-tuk (usually for the day), take a taxi (virtually nobody do that) or rent a car.


For the tuk-tuk the price range is $5 to $10 each depending on how many you are.


Then you can go to discover the city. Just walk around and you will see a LOT of open-air mini shops. They are trying to sell you everything you might expect them to sell.

Bottom line: NEVER PAY THE PRICE GIVEN. You bargain, the harder the better.

The more items you take, the lower the price/unit is. For example, we get altogether 6 T-shirts for $1 each instead of the original $3 "price".


The funny thing is that they ALL trying to sell you EXACTLY the same things.

There are 8 or 10 books, and everyone is trying to sell those (there are actually photocopies but with the cover which really looks like the real books one). Same thing for the T-shirts. It's amazing really!


One thing which is not so amazing but which is nevertheless surprising the first time is that a fair percentage of sellers do speak french.

It was at first quite disturbing since we, french-speaking people, usually switch to french when we dont want others (especialy sellers) to understand whatever we say.


I wanted to speak of the food, but I'll dedicated a post on the food in Cambodia.

On part II, I will speak but essentially show you the pictures of the Angkor site itself.