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Couple of weeks ago I was in India to attend the wedding of my niece (some photos shortly)
and on our way back to US, we took a 3 day detour to visit Siem Reap, Cambodia. Siem Reap
is one of most tourist friendly places, on par with Peru and Costa Rica, IMHO. Very budget friendly
place where one can get by with a daily budget of US $15 per person per day on 3 meals at a 3 star
equivalent restaurant.
It was a surprise to see this pop up as soon as we got down our tuk tuk in Old Market.



Old Market


Pub Street. This street is full of restaurants massage places (of therapeutic kind) open till 2AM in the morning. After long day of walking in hot and humid sun, one ends up on Pub Street for an hour of foot massage (US$4 for 30 min. and US$6 for 60 min) and then mosey on to one of the restaurants where you can get a pint of chilled beer for $US0.75 or a pitcher (equiv. 4.25 glasses) for US$2.25 .
Did I say it is a very budget friendly place?

Interesting shots. Did you try the Mexican food? I never thought of Cambodia as being a tourist friendly area. Looks like I was wrong.

Interesting pictures, Sury

Thank you Jeff and Andy. Jeff, no we did not try the Mexican or other familiar (American/Italian) food. Stayed with local
options throughout including (Angkor Beer). Siem Reap province gets 90% of its revenue from tourism. Since I visited only Siem Reap, my observation is based on that stay. Right from Visa upon arrival (need a passport size photo) to exit, and everything in between is catered to the comfort of tourist. Though there is Cambodian currency, we had all our transactions in US dollars. Just carry lot of $1 bills.
It can't get simpler than that.

Angkor Wat. Early morning before sunrise.


Angkor Wat. Day light.



One of the towers.



Part of temple complex



More info. on Angkor Wat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat

I have heard that tourism has really taken off there in the last few years. I was in Cambodia in January 2008 and would like to go again. I don't recall any Mexican food in Siem Reap at that time though.

Moving on to the next iconic temple Bayon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayon
This temple has quite a few towers with 2 - 4 faces on each tower.

East side entrance to Bayon Temple.



Bayon Temple



One of the towers.

On the lighter side....
The ubiquitous touching nose photo.



This is as common as many Tower of Pisa photos with tourists "pushing" the tower straight. Like this one

Sury you should definitely clean your sensor.
Visiting Ankgor Wat is in my bucket list.
Well done my friend.

Thank you Doc. I will take care of the sensor.

Sury

Great photos Sury . Fascinating place.

Thank you Andy.
Ta Phrom. More info. at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta_Prohm.
This temple was in Lara Croft Tomb Raider and since then it has been called Angelina Jolie temple. In fact,
I have heard people refer to Angelina Jolie temple, a travesty. It is amazing how the trees have taken over
the structures in order to survive and thrive.

Thanks for sharing these great photos Sury.

Thank you DA. It was a wonderful trip.
We walked quite a bit every day and in
Evening go to Pub Street have a pint or two,
Get a foot massage to relax. The routine was
Very enjoyable.

.

Hi Sury;

A great series on Cambodia's cultural heritage and daily life.

I was reading the other day that Cambodia was losing some of its most significant limestone cliffs that house some of World's most wonderful natural caves and carved temples with the natural fauna they secured because they were being pulvarized to make concrete. All the endemic rare plants that found life there were under threat of extinction, not to mention the number of trees cut although logging was prohibited. The poor economy and poorly administrative qualities are causing serious, irreversible damages to the already fragile natural plant and animal life.

Seeing in your photos, how the roots of the ancient trees gnarled around the carved temples made me think that maybe we won't be fortunate enough to see many of these preserved antiquities in some near / distant future if ignorance prevails among those that may be in charge.

A link to the article: "A Race to Document Rare Plants Before Cliffs are Ground to Dust"- NY Times-13.Feb.2017

Thanks for sharing,

Yildiz

Yildiz,
Thank you and the link is appreciated. It is a pity that such actions are taken. I have seen it
quite often in India too. Unfortunately, it is often too late we realize the severity of these
actions. On a positive note, Siem Reap province seems to be very proactive in preserving and
even restoring these temples. They are teamed up with various countries (Japan, Taiwan, and India
to name a few) to restore the ruins.

Sury