Siem Reap, Cambodia

When Fred showed me his essay on Angkor, I was moved. He had caught something about Cambodia that eluded me by homing in on our guide, connecting his eventful past with ancient past. I had heard these same stories too, but they had not had the same impact on me. Looking at our guide’s thoughtful, intelligent face and composed demeanour, I could only see who he was today—our gentle instructor in Angkor history, our kindly protector keeping us safe as we navigated steep temple steps and uneven paths. When he spoke of all the travails he had experienced in his youth, it was with an easy laugh that suggested he had long moved on from them. How bad could things have been if he could joke about jungle life and war? I was not sensitive enough to sense that there were more difficult memories still lurking. Perhaps I wanted to be fooled by his wiry frame that radiated health and resilience and by his calm smile. Perhaps I was eager not to dwell on the horrors of Cambodia’s more recent past. Let’s forget about the bullet holes in the temple walls. Let me just look upon the glories of Angkor. 

Sometimes, you travel to a country and draw a blank, even though you find the people genuinely warm and welcoming and the place lovely. There is an odd disconnect, a key that I am missing, and I am not sure how to remedy this. Reading up on this history of Angkor and Cambodia only gets you so far. I know there are textures I am blind to, sounds I am deaf to, nuances of local politics I am ignorant of. This is travel that alerts me to my own limitations in understanding the foreign, to my own inabilities to engage. Reading Fred’s essay lifted the veil a fraction for me to see Cambodia a little bit more clearly, however, and for that I am grateful. But there is a great deal to Cambodia and Angkor that I have not yet come to grips with. 

Temples

The question many readers will have is: which temples to focus on? We did the small and big circuit, but chose not to go further afield. These other sites we will leave for another time. Each temple has its own sensibility and your response to each will, likewise, be individual, so it is hard to mandate which are must-sees. What I will say is that I wish that I had more time at Angkor Wat and Bayon. Angkor Wat is justifiably famous. The bas-relief carvings are gorgeous and there is something to the place that radiates serene power. Bayon has those wonderfully mysterious smiling Buddha faces on the temple towers and incredible carvings that detail everyday life.

You could spend hours poring over them trying to get a sense of Khmer realities in the thirteenth century. An honourable mention goes to Pre Rup, a tenth-century funerary temple. We climbed to the top to catch the sunset. There was a raw energy here that impressed me.

Where to eat

It astonished us that Cambodian food is so little known because what we ate in Siem Reap was superb. Cambodian cooking is akin to Thai but has a delicacy and refined subtlety that makes it a gentler cuisine for those who cannot handle a bolder use of spice and chilli. There is an emphasis on herbs and vegetables too, much like in Vietnamese food, which meant our meals in Siem Reap were well-balanced and healthful. 

Here are some of the eateries that we enjoyed and that we would happily go back to:

Chanrey Tree

Jomno 

Pou Restaurant & Bar

Where to stay

Viroth’s is a really lovely boutique hotel and we would highly recommend staying here. It’s not the cheapest option for Siem Reap, but it makes for a comfortable base for exploring the city and the Angkor Temples. The rooms are spacious and breakfast is excellent. The guides and drivers that Viroth’s work with are top-notch. You will be in good hands here.

Activities

We would highly recommend a cooking course that includes a foray into a local market. We did ours with Pou Restaurant & Bar. Visiting the market was one of the highlights of our stay and it was impressive to see how locals shop and eat. We were also taken by the many unusual greens on sale. Some of these were even foraged from the forests that surround the temple complexes.