After an overnight flight to Hong Kong, all day touring in Hong Kong followed by an evening onward flight to Siem Reap, to say we were knackered would be a vast understatement. Arriving in Siem Reap airport I was so glad I had taken the time to obtain e-visas online ahead of time as it saved us a good hour or more in painful queues at the Siem Reap airport. We were met by our guide and driver and made our way to our hotel in Siem Reap and slept for what felt like days. We didn't awake until after lunch the following day, and I think I clocked 13 hours of sleep. It was desperately needed. In the afternoon we packed up our bags and met our guide and driver to make our way into the country for a homestay experience that was intended to help us dig a little deeper into Cambodian culture. It didn't end up that way, but that was the goal!
We drove about 3 hours northwest of Siem Reap to the remote Banteay Chhmar Temple. It's similar to the more famous temples of Siem Reap, but its remote location means there are few, if any, other visitors. It was a pretty fantastic introduction to the beauty of the Cambodian temple heritage, as we had the place virtually to ourselves.
Trevon with our guide, Yut, jumping into Cambodian culture.
After the Banteay Chhmar temple visit we made our way to a nearby village for our overnight homestay. The idea behind this was to give us a chance to experience a more intimate encounter with real Cambodians in a rural setting that would otherwise be inaccessible to normal tourists. Great idea, but unfortunately it was a total bust. We happened to arrive in the village on the 100th funerary day of a recently deceased villager. And in Cambodia they mark such an occasion with extremely loud speeches and music. I cannot overstate how loud it was. Oh, and I forgot to mention that this goes on throughout most of the night! It was insanely ridiculous. So to say that no one got any sleep is a serious understatement. And let's also note that this homestay was already a sort of rough experience given that we were staying in a primitive wooden structure about as sturdy and soundproof as a tent, under mosquito nets in the sweltering heat. All of which we were prepared to deal with as a fine trade off to have such an interesting cultural experience, but the noise from this funerary celebration of sorts, was something we could not overcome. It was so loud that not only did we not sleep but my ears were literally ringing the entire day afterwards. It might qualify as some form of torture. I just lay there on my matt, just wishing the time would pass so we could leave. I'm sorry to say but there is just no silver lining in this experience. We are not unfamiliar with making creature comfort sacrifices to access more enriching cultural experiences, and place high value on this sort of thing. But this was a total and complete bomb. Having only just gotten over severe sleep deprivation from the jet-lag and Hong Kong touring, we were back in that place and feeling rather ill, so we ended up having to skip the morning cultural activities in the village because we were so unwell after such a horrible night. Instead we went straight back to our Siem Reap hotel of the night before for a much needed nap before the afternoon activities.
Dried rats anyone?
Our homestay
Trevon making friends with local village kids, trying to teach her how to count in English
No sleep equals lots of iPad action to pass the time.
Our traditional Cambodian dinner back at Banteay Chhmar Temple, which was lovely.
Putting the awful night behind us and after a quick nap we moved onto happier experiences! We had great fun zip lining among the trees in Angkor park.
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