Thursday, October 16, 2008

Cambodia Part 2 (pai sei took 1 month)

Molly Malone, our guest house for the 3 days ..... cost us US$40 per night for a family room of 1 post bed and 1 single bed ... inclusive of US$5 charge for additional bed. However it seems like the US$5 depended on the number of people and not the bed.....





Looks nice in the photo but actually not that clean especially the toilet which seems to be quite grimy ... the wooden door of the toilet also corroded.... for US$40 I'll say its not that worth it .... So those thinking about staying there, I'll say you can find better...







Location of the hotel is damn good though, near pub street, near old market, in fact, those 2 tourist areas or fun areas are just a street away .... There are restaurants or road side hawkers, massage palours, 24 hours convenient stores, only 30 mins away from Angkor Wat and Angkor Thome... most importantly, there's this Bubble Tea shop just beside the guest house. Owned by Taiwanese lady, the tea sold there were nothing like those in Singapore. These were real fruits and exotic flavours like Longan to choose from.


Advisable to buy water .... once you reach. Its best to get your driver or tour guide to help you buy water by carton from the local shops there. They can get the water at cheaper price. Our driver helped us buy 3 cartons of water at only US$1 each carton.

He also took us to get books on Angkor Wat and temples of Angkor Thome from the nearby shops. He claimed that books sold there rather than at the temples will be cheaper. Seems like tourist sites and other websites stated that too. However, what we went through was totally different. We bargained before the shop keeper is willing to let go at US$4 per books. However, we can actually find people selling the same kinds of books at only US$1 per book at the temple. Without bargaining some more! My advice will be to buy at the temples cos the books are all the same, you save on $$ at least US$3 per book. You can also help the children there get some money to eat. Those children lived in bad conditions, some of them just lived in houses built with straws and wood right inside the forest at Angkor Thome with poor hygiene and facilities.



Nevertheless, I will recommend this book as the information in this book is less dry, giving information in the form of stories and pictures though not a lot, are quite fine for browsing. It made me want to know more about the temples.


The book also revealed that many parts of the temples' ruins were taken away or replaced with new/fake parts as the original parts were taken to this National Museum for preservation. This place will also be nice to visit though we weren't able to go.





Here is another place that I would love to visit. Its a free children's clinic that holds concert everyday at 715pm. I guess it will be a new experience too.




Area to purchase tickets to Angkor Wat and Angkor Thome. Through readings on the websites, we were quite confused about Angkor Wat and Angkor Thome especially the ticketing. In the end, through words from those who went, its actually that we have to buy tickets for both Angkor Wat and Angkor Thome. Angkor Wat being a temple ruin and Angkor Thome being a "city" and contains a lot of temples like The Bayon, Banteay Sreay, Phnom Bakheng etc. So you have to buy and keep the ticket and show it whenever the staff at each temple asked for it. You can buy a 1 day ticket at US$20 or 3 days ticket at US$40. All tourist have to take photos for the ticket no matter how many days they bought for.


We bought 3 days tickets as we were told that its better to go Angkor Wat to watch Sunrise and Bakheng to watch sunset also, 1 day is not enough to go to most of the more significant ruins. Since its already too late for sunrise, we decided to watch sunset the first day and sunrise on the 2nd day. Even though the 3rd day's ticket was wasted but since the price of 2 days and 3 days are the same, its more convenient to buy for 3 days.




to be continued.....

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:34 PM

    I stayed in Molly Malone's too! Great location!! :-)

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  2. Looks nice!!! I stayed at another Guesthouse ran by Australians. I wanted Molly's too but mine was nearer to our favourite cafe.

    Looks like you had a good time!

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  3. Anonymous8:36 AM

    well, I think what ever the less-comfortness point you're having, or what ever the hardship the local gave you.. each travel will teach you a new lesson

    or so, would I say :)

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  4. wanted to go to cambodia last time but when my friends arranged for the trip, I was pregnant so couldn't go... they said it was quite pretty scenery :-) waiting for part 2... :-)

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