I’m going to back up today and tell you about the city of Siem Reap before I get back to writing about all the other temples we saw.
The
population of Siem Reap is 175,000 (or 139,000 or 245,000 depending on which
website I checked); regardless, it doesn’t feel like a big city. It is filled
with French-colonial and Chinese-style architecture in the Old French Quarter
and around the Old Market.
Siem Reap was little more than a village when French explorers "re-discovered" Angkor in the 19th century. It soon became the gateway to the expansive area of temples.
It’s situated about 200 miles north of Phnom Penh and a six-hour bus ride. When our bus dropped us off, an adorable tuk tuk and its sweet driver, Sam-uel, were waiting to whisk us off to our accommodation for the next four nights.
We drove past gorgeous hotels, flowered parks filled with statues, and the festively decked out Siem Reap River.
We went down Pub Street which I’m sure is rowdy at night.
But
at that time of day, the streets were all clean and well kept. Then we turned
down a potholed road with rundown buildings. Great, I thought.
Then we stopped in front of the delightful Darling Pub Hostel. It had a clean welcoming lobby, where a woman gave us each a cup of warm ginger tea. There was a restaurant off to the right, with an outdoor pool just passed that. (How's it possible that I took over two thousand pictures and not a one of the lobby or pool at this hotel?) (It's also hard to get decent shots when you're tuking around in the tuk tuk.)
Our
room was very nice, super clean and had a small balcony. Smaller than our other
rooms, but comfortable enough for D and I. A home away from home away from
home.
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