However, Cambodia had piqued my curiousity. When I was booking flights I tried many times to find good tickets that would let us arrive in Ho Chi Minh City and leave from Phnom Penh. The problem was that flights routing from Phnom Penh wanted to fly us through the Middle East. That's fine-- a layover in Dubai would be fun-- but it tacked on 9 hours of travel. When your travel is 24 hours minimum you don't want another minute in transit. I kept trying to find a way for the Phnom Penh flight home to route through East Asia. Never happened, so I wound up booking round-trip out of Ho Chi Minh City.
I knew we had to get back to Ho Chi Minh, so what could we do in the meantime?
I left it open when we landed for the retreat. A lot of times you get the best direction and advice once you've landed in the region.
I wound up being so occupied with the retreat that I didn't really have time to think about travel beyond. I tried to carve out a half hour to book a flight from Da Nang, where we were, to Siem Reap, and the connection timed out. When I returned to the task the following day all flights were booked! We wound up having to book a flight from Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh and from there to Siem Reap.
I was hoping to land in daylight as I'd heard that you can see Angkor Wat from the plane. Alas, we landed in the dark to swaying palms and thick heat. The airport is weirdly nice. I'm so accustomed to landing with a plan and some knowledge about what to expect. As I said, this was probably the most spontaneous we've ever been. When we got in the airport folks were lining up for visas. Crap! I had done a quick google search and didn't see any visas that required prior arrangement, like Vietnam or some other destinations. Usually, this is the situation where my copious research makes me group leader with all the other travelers. Seriously, often other travelers are asking for help and insight. Instead, Kevin and I waited in multiple wrong lines until we finally figured it out. Visas are never made clear no matter where you are. The weird part here was that you waited in a huddle for the clerk to wave around your passport and call your name-- usually pronounced in a really new way! It was like waiting for bingo.
In my slap-dash prep, I did have the forethought to look around for the most recommended hotel. I'd heard from multiple trusted sources that the Siem Reap Hostel was one of the best in the world. If I fly in at night, I always book a room and an airport pick-up. It's safer and way easier.
After the long visa wait our luggage was blessedly ready for us. We searched for an ATM as we hadn't landed with Cambodian currency (again, I always land with some currency of my destination! All of this was out of character!). Unable to find a functioning ATM we at least found our oh-so-patient pick-up from the Hostel. I was scared he'd have left but, as I've always encountered, the rides never do. Airport pick-up folks know the drill and they're patient.
Our ride promised to get his chariot and come back for us. When he did, he was riding a motorcycle with a tuk tuk attached. Our eyebrows raised quizzically at the thought of packing our luggage-- pretty intense given all the yoga props we'd had on retreat in Vietnam. Unconcerned, our ride made it happen and even took us to a well-lit ATM on the way to the hostel.
Our first impression of Cambodia was how different it was from Vietnam. It felt a little hotter and a lot wilder. There were sex workers positioned on street corners, loud weddings happening under tents (well, that's like Vietnam!), church revivals, monks wandering the streets in orange robes, packs of revelers, dates hopping onto motorbikes, and so much life happening after dark. It felt more like New Orleans or Las Vegas, some place sort of close to the edge of sin and redemption.
The hostel was a great one, but typical. Swimming pool, gross and ample breakfast, clean, and every service you could hope for. The airport pick-up was included in our inexpensive private room fee as was laundry service! Score! It was a great place to land.
By morning, we decided that we wanted to stay somewhere with a bit more charm and less dorm ambience but it was well worth that first night's landing.
We wandered into the streets of Siem Reap, finding coffee (not as good as Vietnam's, for sure), and the early morning hustle of a waking town. We stumbled upon the Old Market, an area of deep alleyways still filled with lines of sunshine. We loved it, it felt right. We found a small budget hotel that was well reviewed in Lonely Planet and on Trip Advisor. It was less than our hostel and they had an open room. (The location was better than the hostel so I think the cost was less due to this hotel not having a pool.) We booked all our nights there and scheduled our first trip up to Angkor Wat.
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