Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Khmer Rouge associations, and as the site of Pol Pot's death. Further east, the affable
little town of
Kompong Thom
provides a convenient jumping-off point for visits to the
great pre-Angkorian temple complex at
Sambor Prei Kuk
, along with other nearby sites.
Gateway to the temples is
Siem Reap
, a former backwater town that has reinvented
itself as Cambodia's tourist honeypot par excellence. It's crammed with tourists and
touts, but remains one of the country's most enjoyable destinations - if you don't mind
the fact that it bears increasingly little resemblance to anywhere else in the country.
Siem Reap is also the starting point for visits to the remarkable
floating villages
on the
great Tonle Sap lake and to wild
Phnom Kulen
, at the borders of the Kulen Mountains,
which divide the lush lowlands from the barren north.
Three days is enough
time
to visit most of the major sites in the vicinity of Siem
Reap, although adding a day or three allows time to visit one of the nearby floating
villages and to take a more leisurely approach to the Angkor archeological site itself
- temple-fatigue can set in surprisingly quickly if you go at the ancient monuments
too fast, and the slower you approach the vast treasury of Angkor, the more you'll
gain from the experience. This is one of the world's great sights, and well worth
lingering over.
3
Siem Reap
The once sleepy provincial capital of
SIEM REAP
(pronounced
See
-um
Ree
-up) is
Cambodia's ultimate boomtown, its exponential growth super-fuelled by the vast
number of global tourists who now descend on the place to visit the nearby
temples
of
Angkor. The modern town is like nowhere else in Cambodia, packed with wall-to-wall
hotels, restaurants, bars, boutiques, tour operators and massage parlours; its streets
thronged day and night with tourists, touts and tuk-tuk drivers in a giddy bedlam of
incessant activity, with endless quantities of hot food and cheap beer, and a nonstop
party atmosphere.
It should be tourist hell, of course, but what's perhaps most surprising is that Siem
Reap has somehow managed to retain much of its original small-town charm. It's easy
to spend much longer here than planned, wandering the city's lively markets, colourful
wats and peaceful riverside walkways by day, and exploring its restaurants, bars and
boutiques by dark. Major attractions in the town itself may be thin on the ground, but
there's much to enjoy apart from the oligatory temple tours. The nearby
floating
villages
on the Tonle Sap lake shouldn't be missed, while there are plenty of other
activities
and attractions to keep you busy, from horseriding and quad-biking through
to cookery courses, apsara dances and shadow-puppet shows.
Brief history
Little is known about the
history
of Siem Reap, said to mean “Siam defeated” in
commemoration of a battle that possibly never happened. Sprawling to east and west of
the river of the same name, the town has only recently grown large enough to acquire
its own identity. Visiting in 1935, Geoffrey Gorer described it as “a charming little
village, hardly touched by European influence, built along a winding river; the native
houses are insignificant little structures in wood, hidden behind the vegetation that
grows so lushly… along the river banks.” The only hotels at the time were the
Grand
Hotel d'Angkor
, then “a mile out of town” according to Norman Lewis, who stayed here
in 1951, although it's now been swallowed up by the expanding town, and its sister
establishment, the
Bungalow des Ruines
, opposite Angkor Wat. Siem Reap remained
relatively undeveloped during the first
tourist rush
of the 1950s and 1960s, and much
was destroyed when the town was emptied under the
Khmer Rouge
, although the
Grand
, the shophouses of the Old Market, Psar Chas, and the occasional colonial villa
escaped unscathed.
