Before starting on my travelogue and after-thoughts of our visit to Cambodia, there's a couple of terminologies and facts you wanna familiarize yourself with before you get there, to better appreciate the culture and hopefully to pre-emp you on what to expect in a 3rd world country like Cambodia.
Cambodia is famous for it's monumental Angkor Wat located in Siem Reap (literally meaning "Siam Defeated"), the symbol of Cambodia and is the world's largest religious building. Have no idea why it's not in the New7Wonders of the world list, my only hypothesis is that it would be unfair and inconsistent to term it as a wonder because the temple complexes span over an area, unlike all the other 7 wonders, they are just specific structures. This was the sole and main reason for my enthusiasm in visiting Cambodia.
Didn't do much research before I went there, only research I made were accommodation ratings and safety issues. As for accommodations, I can safely advise backpackers that it would be possible to get a hostel/backpackers/hotels in Cambodia even if you were to book them over there. You might risk having to pay more, but there won't be a shortage of accommodation places in Cambodia for sure since the country's economy is now built so strongly around tourism.
As for safety, I was so paranoid about being mugged there since the country was in poverty and advice from wikitravels made particular mention about not wondering off to places less frequented by tourists. This is due to possible street robberies and uncleared landmines. Well, after being over there, though not 100% certain, my advice is that as long as you keep to the normal tourist track, there's hardly any danger from both of the above mentioned. The only 2 safety issues you have to look out for, is your health and that you don't get too massively ripped off.
Sanitation is a huge huge issue in Cambodia, bus rides between towns in the country were a horrid experience. And I thought bus rides from Singapore to Genting was bad enough. Not only were the journeys long and bumpy (due to the uneven roads, lotsa potholes in the ground and most of the roads were dirt roads), the toilets in the buses were filthy beyond belief. The experience made me think back about my toilet outfield time in NS and it was nothing compared to what I had to endure in Cambodia. Even China's "haunting" toilets back in the 1990s felt minuscale to Cambodia's toilets. I had to use them on 2 occasions, and on both, came back to my seat feeling utterly distressed.
Since I'm already on the topic on bus rides, I might as well shed some insight. There's several established bus companies there so there wouldn't be a problem booking your bus tickets last minute (ie. over in Cambodia). What we did was seek the help of our hostels to do that for us. However, on one occasion, we did it by ourselves at a travel agency. You can, however do it at the bus station and arrange for a pickup at your accommodation if I'm not mistaken, without having the need to flag down a Tuk Tuk driver to bring you over. You get to save some $$ by doing so, but still thought it would be safer to go through the hostels.
There's a few ways to travel between towns in Cambodia, by boat, by Tuk Tuk, by bus, by Car/Van, by plane. However, not all places are opened to all the options. Generally, boat rides are much more expensive without having much view. Tuk Tuks are fairly impractical since they have a maximum speed of about 60km/hr and would take you almost forever to get from one town to another. Furthermore, I doubt Tuk Tuk drivers are willing to take you there even. The cheapest way we know of is by bus. However, on our last day in Cambodia, we realised that car/van rides aren't that expensive compared to bus rides, save you time and give you additional comfort. Therefore, I would have gone for the latter had I known about this earlier. And yes, there's no inland trains to bring you from town to town.
As for planes, they're unquestionably more expensive (can't tell you how much since I didn't enquiry) but quite frankly, if the difference isn't more than 20 USD, we might have chose this option instead of having to suffer through 5-6 hours of grueling bus rides.
The other "attraction" of Cambodia would be the Tuol Sleng genocide museum (Security Prison 21, S-21) in Phnom Penh. This was the place where inhumane tortures were conducted by the Khmer Rouge, once a ruling body of Cambodia and the killing fields (located not far away from the city centre) where the massacre occurred.
Reviews have it that Sihanoukville has one of the best beaches in Asia, which tempted us to make it our third and final town stop in Cambodia.
Having booked a 10 day visit to Cambodia, we wanted to explore more of Cambodia then just Siem Reap. Therefore, we planned a 4 day 3 nights Siem Reap, 2 day 1 night Phnom Penh, 3 days 2 nights Sihanoukville and another 2 days 1 night stay in Siem Reap itinerary. It turned out that there was some changes when we were there, allocating an extra day for Phnom Penh to cover the popular shopping spot, Russian Market (to get branded goods for cheap prices - LV, Levis, Kipling; but I think they're not original, just that they have different grades) since we miscalculated the delays and duration of the bus rides and took a day off from our return trip to Siem Reap.
Considering I returned home (Singapore) with a little "gift" of food poisoning from Cambodia, I have little reservations on sugar coating my travelogue of it. While I watched my food and diet over in Cambodia, it only comes as a surprise and an unpleasant aftermath experience of my trip in a developing country. It will always serve as a reminder for me in future if I ever wanna step foot in a country, or any country similar like that again.
Overall Experience: 6/10
People (Locals) Experience: 2/10
Siem Reap: 7/10
Phnom Penh: 5/10
Sihanoukville: 7/10
Sanitation: 3/10
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