Revisiting Siem Reap after 14 years

We walked from the Tune Hotel to the check-in area at KLIA2 and did our bagdrop 1.5h prior to departure. Going through security, they were really slack with LAGs and metallic objects but we realised later that there was a stringent check-point near the gates.  I later understood it to be a customs exit checkpoint.

The spa-lounge (accessible courtesy of the credit card) was closed so we grabbed a cuppa at McDonald’s. I allowed time for the long walk to the furthest gate plus a bit of spare, and that turned out to be a wise move as there was a security checkpoint with queues held up by a few people who must have been first time flyers.

We boarded a QPR-decorated aircraft; that’s Queen’s Park Rangers football team FYI. It had the blue stripes on the inside to on the ceiling panels! The flight was turbulent in parts, which meant that the crew had to suspend the meal delivery/sales. We landed at Siem Reap’s flash airport and went through arrival formalities pretty promptly.

Complimentary pickup from Angkor Hollywood hotel was nowhere to be seen. We used someone’s phone to ring up the hotel and they said to take a tuktuk and they’d reimburse us.

At the airport this morning, we bought a local SIM for USD5 which included USD5 of calls (at USD0.05 per minute internationally to many countries) and 1.5GB of data. That turned out to be most useful as we had calls to make home since a tenant had just gave notice to vacate our rental property. The card was cheaper than free!

We got to the hotel by taxi and it was as lovely as we had seen in the pictures. They were most apologetic and offered to drop us off at the airport on the last day in lieu of the missed pickup. As we have an early departure from Siem Reap in four days time, we asked to have breakfast today instead.

Our room was available so we rested briefly before heading out to explore Siem Reap. The town had grown many-fold. We found the street where we stayed in the Old Market area; it wasn’t difficult as it was the only area with old shophouses. However, it was more difficult finding the exact property where we had stayed.

We skipped lunch and rested some more in our lovely room (which was an upgrade from the class we had booked). With a 0430 wake-up (or 0330 Cambodian time), we needed the rest. We ventured out again about 1500 for a massage and took a tuktuk to buy our Angkor tickets. They cost USD20 for a day (unchanged from 14 years ago) I think, or USD40 for three non-consecutive days over a week. A weekly is also available but that was unnecessary for us.

The arrangement hadn’t changed whereby one can enter Angkor in the evening immediately after purchase of the ticket. We got dropped off at Angkor Wat itself at 1700 and wandered around briefly before the areas inside progressively shut down.

Dinner was in an alleyway with many restaurants. Good meals targeted at foreigners started at USD2.75 (eg. fish amok or chicken curry) and beer started at USD0.50 (not just happy hour but happy day, ie all day). It isn’t as cheap as Vietnam but to be fair, this is tourist price and the lower prices in Vietnam are local prices.