The Angkor Wat alternative: exploring Cambodia’s forgotten ruins

I did a double take at the temple’s empty guestbook as it was handed to me from the small, wooden ticket booth. Nope, no visitors yesterday. And just two the day before that: one German, one Thai.

What a difference a two-hour drive can make. I had spent the previous day at one of the world’s greatest tourist sites, Cambodia travel destinations  the largest religious temple in the world, Angkor Wat. There, I’d had to use my guide’s local intel to get the best views before the crowds descended. And yet here we were on day two, just 160km up the road, with another temple all to ourselves.

I had taken a detour to the 12th-century Banteay Chhmar, which was also built during the reign of the almighty Khmer king Jayavarman VII. It is believed to have been a tribute to the Buddhist ruler’s son, who died in battle, but historians can’t be sure. It remains one of the most mysterious of all the Angkorian temples.

Tourism in Cambodia is focused on a few hotspots – those grand Angkor temples. When the country reopened its borders in the 1990s, after years of civil conflict, it welcomed just 100,000 visitors a year; by 2016, that figure had ballooned to five million, and it is forecast to rise again this year. Although barely 2,000 of those visit Banteay Chhmar, numbers were boosted slightly by the paving of the main road from Sisophon and Siem Reap in 2015.

 Banteay Chhmar, Cambodia. Banteay Chhmar was reconstructed, tour to dubai from cambodia  where possible, and reopened in 2014.

 Banteay Chhmar was reconstructed, where possible, and reopened in 2014.
Banteay Chhmar temple was neglected for years: it was looted to near-devastation, its towers had almost entirely collapsed, and it was strewn with landmines during the civil war in the 1970s and 80s. But eventually the mines were cleared, and a team of archaeologists reconstructed what they could from the wreckage, and reopened the site in 2014.

Trees sprout on top of gallery walls and creepers hang between one tumbledown gateway to the next

Today, trees sprout on top of gallery walls, lichen dapples beheaded sculptures, and creepers hang between one tumbledown gateway to the next. One of the towers has been painstakingly rebuilt, and from its top, a giant stone face looks down with a gentle, almost paternal, smile.

I booked into one of the homestays (£5.50 a night) offered by Banteay Chhmar Community-Based Tourism (CBT). Come nightfall, the CBT arranged dinner in the temple grounds, surrounded by flaming torches, their resin made from local gum trees. To a throbbing chorus of cicadas, we ate soup made from channa striata, commonly known as snake fish. The CBT’s torch-lit dinner is available as part of a two-day package for $98 per person …

However, a private dinner at Angkor can cost tens of thousands of dollars, my guide, Bunt, told me. “I heard of one family from Germany who spent $125,000 on a meal. And they still woke up hungry the next day!”
==> Read more: https://cambodiatours.com/cambodia-tours/mekong-cruises/pandaw-phnom-penh-and-siem-reap.html

 A simple homestay bedroom near the temple

My homestay, just across the road from the temple, was a stilted wooden house, with hammocks in its underbelly and an open stove in the corner. Upstairs, along a wide-open mezzanine lined with heavy wood furniture, I found a simple but comfortable bedroom, draped in mosquito nets and with a rumbling electric fan in the corner.

As incense wafted through the air, it was hard to believe the turbulent history of this serene temple

My hosts, Som and Saveoun, live there with their two-year-old, and have two children at university in the capital, Phnom Penh.
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Fatale attraction: a cocktail created for Jackie Kennedy in Phnom Penh

If Natalie Portman wins best actress at the Oscars for her portrayal of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, there’s a bar in cambodia visa  that will know how to celebrate.

The former first lady visited Cambodia in 1967 and had an honorary cocktail created for her at the capital’s Hotel Le Royal, now owned by Raffles hotels.

Called the femme fatale, it is still on the hotel’s menu as the signature drink in the Elephant Bar. As elegant as you’d expect, it’s a mix of crème de fraise des bois, cognac and champagne, topped with a tropical flower.

When Raffles bought and fully renovated the premises in 1997, they claim to have found the glass she drank from, complete with red-lipstick stain. Poetic licence? Perhaps. But there is no doubt this hotel is filled with history. It has welcomed a whole host of big names, including Charlie Chaplin and W Somerset Maugham, who name-checked the cocktail in his 1920s short story The Letter.

 The hotel’s Elephant Bar

Ngiam Tong Boon, the bartender at the original Raffles Hotel in Cambodia ,  is credited with creating the million-dollar cocktail (a mix of gin, sweet and dry vermouth, pineapple juice, egg white and bitters). But he remains best known for his other creation: the Singapore Sling. Raffles is certainly good at making cocktails, and even better at marketing them.

The Phnom Penh hotel’s other, more sobering, claim to fame is as a residence for reporters during the Vietnam war and the Khmer Rouge era. The Washington Post’s Elizabeth Becker, one of few westerners to have met dictator Pol Pot, stayed at the hotel and calls it a “historic treasure”. “During the war it was our fortress,” she told the Phnom Penh Post. She lived on the top floor, with a fan and cold water, for around $100 a month.

It’s rather pricier today, although the amenities are more luxurious. If in town, you can sample the high-life with a femme fatale  – even if Emma Stone wins for La La Land.
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Cambodia revives train service between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville

Saturday morning and Phnom Penh’s French-built station is buzzing as excited groups board the inaugural passenger train tour to cambodia from dubai capital to the coastal town of Sihanoukville. After 14 years, regular rail services between the two cities restarted in May – offering a safer option than road for travellers aiming for some beach time.

“This should be much more fun than the bus,” says 30-year-old Ouk Sivonshe. “No crazy driving!”

Twenty minutes after we’ve left the city, the views from the large windows are of bucolic scenes synonymous with the lower Mekong region – water buffalo ploughing fields, palm trees and, in rainy season at least, green rice fields as far as one can see.

The service, which currently runs from Friday to Sunday – plus extra dates for national holidays – uses two refurbished trains, holding around 200 passengers each. The 266km journey to and from the coast takes 6½ hours, but this will be cut by two hours later this year – matching the bus journey time, and at almost half the price of some bus tickets. Passengers’ motorbikes, cambodia tour from Ho Chi Minh  and even cars, can be transported on the train at an additional cost.
For now, the train stops at two stations between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville: Takeo, two hours south of the capital, and home to some little-visited Angkor temple ruins; and Kampot, another two hours on.

On the edge of Bokor national park, Kampot is a peaceful coastal town, famous for its pepper and salt farms. It is undergoing something of a revival, with a handful of new guesthouses and restaurants forcing older places to up their game. Kool Kampot is a new hostel with a riverside location (its address is simply: Riverside), and Portuguese seafood restaurant Tertúlia (Tuek Chhu Road) is already proving popular. Tiny Cafe Espresso, known for its coffees and brunches, has just started brewing its own cider and ginger beer – worth the pilgrimage.
Nearby Kep, once the playground of Cambodia’s elite, has largely recovered from the ravages of the Khmer Rouge era, and some of the renovated villas are opening as guesthouses. Walks in Kep national park, home to macaque monkeys, build up an appetite for dinner at Kep’s famous crab market.

Those following the line to the end at Sihanoukville, fly to cambodia from thailand  named after the former King Sihanouk, can stay to enjoy the lively port city, or jump on a boat to the islands of Koh Rong and Koh Rong Samloem – the latter light on modern amenities and with miles of near-empty golden sand.

With train travel in neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam featuring on many visitors’ itineraries, Cambodia’s gentle resumption of passenger services is bound to be popular. The restoration of a second line, linking Phnom Penh with the northern border city of Poipet – from where twice-daily trains run to Bangkok – is due to finish in February 2017, and prime minister Hun Sen is proposing a new line to Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat. The newfound enthusiasm for railways in the kingdom looks set to continue.
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Pope told by army chief: there is 'no religious discrimination' in Myanmar

Myanmar tours powerful army chief has told Pope Francis there is “no religious discrimination” in the country during talks at the start of the pontiff’s delicate visit to the majority-Buddhist nation that has been accused of “ethnic cleansing” against its Muslim Rohingya people.

Thousands of Catholics welcomed Pope Francis to the country’s capital, Naypyidaw, where he arrived for a three-day visit to Myanmar on Monday. The trip – fraught with sensitivity and trepidation over how he will deal with the plight of the Muslim Rohingya – could be the trickiest yet of his papacy.

The army chief told the pope that “Myanmar has no religious discrimination at all. Likewise our military too ... performs for the peace and stability of the country”, according to a Facebook post published by the general’s office a few hours after the meeting. There is also “no discrimination between ethnic groups in Myanmar”, he added.

The Vatican said the meeting with General Min Aung Hlaing and three officials from Myanmar’s bureau of special operations took place on Monday evening at the residence of the Myanmar travel archbishop and lasted about 15 minutes.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke didn’t provide details of the private meeting other than to say that “they spoke of the great responsibility of the authorities of the country in this moment of transition”.

Min Aung Hlaing is in charge of military operations in Rakhine state, where security forces have launched a scorched earth campaign against Rohingya Muslims that has forced more than 620,000 to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh in what the UN said is a campaign of “ethnic cleansing”.

Francis’s meeting with the commander had been scheduled for Wednesday morning, but was moved up to just a few hours after he landed in Naypyidaw. He is scheduled to meet the country’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in the coming days.

After touching down on Monday afternoon, cambodia visa for indians  the pope was greeted by a large crowd at the airport, many waving yellow and white Vatican flags and dressed in T-shirts bearing the slogan of the trip, “Love and Peace”. As he drove past, they screamed and chanted “We love Papa”.

But the head of the Catholic church faces a difficult diplomatic balancing act on his first papal visit to Myanmar.

12 Amazing Things To Do With 3 Days in Siem Reap, Cambodia!

So you've got 3 days in Siem Reap and you want to hit the highlights. What should you do? Where should you eat? Where should you stay? This is a carefully curated guide (created with the invaluable help of my friend Lara Dunston who lives in Siem Reap and writes for Grantourismo) gives you the best suggestions for your stay in Siem Reap! Truthfully you won't be able to do all of these things which is why I actually suggest staying for longer but you can definitely put together a fun and full guide using these suggestions.

Cambodia tours  is a fascinating country. Less well known and visited that its bigger neighbours Thailand and Vietnam, it is usually known for two things: the killing fields and temples. But there is so much more to this country and Siem Reap, the third largest city in Cambodia. From overcoming a tragic and recent history it surprises at every turn.

You are literally watching a country rebuild itself slowly but surely, the resilience of the population in which estimates say a quarter to a third of the entire population was killed by the Khmer Rouge is inspiring and full of wonderful moments.

1. Visit A Market

Siem Reap has several markets and which one you visit tends to be based upon how "local" you want the market to be. From tour to dubai from cambodia  the really local markets where there are few tourists where you can browse unbothered, to the trinket laden ones, there is a market in Siem Reap for every taste (including one that does a fabulously good num pang, the Cambodian version of a banh mi).

Phsar Cha or Old Market

Food markets can be confronting for anyone that doesn't like seeing where their meat comes from. The most easily accessible market is Old Market or Phsar Cha in downtown Siem Reap and is perhaps the best market if you are slightly squeamish. This is a market for the wealthier Cambodians to shop and there is a centre section with fresh produce. There is also an area for ready to food like noodle soups and snacks that change throughout the day. There are things like skinned frogs and things like that on display but there is a surprising lack of aroma to this market.

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The Temple Where Angkor and the Jungle Collide

Better known as the Tomb Raider Temple since its starring role in the Hollywood movie of the same name, Ta Prohm has at least as much star quality as Angelina Jolie. Cloaked cambodia travel  in dappled shadow and locked in the embrace of the vast root systems that are still reclaiming it for the jungle, the temple is arguably the most atmospheric ruin at Angkor Archaeological Park. Construction on Ta Prohm began in 1186 C.E.; it was built in honor of the mother of King Jayavarman VII. Modern-day visitors are not permitted to climb onto the crumbling galleries of its 39 towers due to safety concerns. Nevertheless, picking a route around the various structures, close courtyards, and narrow corridors sprouting with lichen, moss, and creeping plants is one of the most enthralling experiences at Angkor.

Ta Prohm Temple at Angkor
I arranged for a 5:00 a.m. ride with a tuk tuk driver and skipped the sunrise at Angkor Wat in hopes of being the first to arrive at Ta Prohm that morning. Built in 1186 A.D., its original name, Rajavihara, means royal temple. The disheveled blocks, tour in cambodia  the jungle, the mist, the quiet and an absence of distraction contributed to incidental meditation. There's a surreal beauty where nature overtakes architecture, something sensual about nature's and time's touch. I came to Ta Prohm to be close to something ancient, to feel the power of nature, to steal a moment of beauty.

Angkor Artisans offers people the chance to tour through workshops and watch artisans create beautiful soapstone or wood sculptures some taking up to a week to create. The fair trade project was designed to give artists the opportunity to hone their craft and in some cases learn them while living in their village.

There are no shortage of temples in Siem Reap and it is one of the major draws for tourists. If you are a temple trekker you will be in heaven. We visited three temples during our stay: Adventure Tours in Siem Reap  Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm.

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat is best accessed at sunrise so pick up is at 4:45am (and aim to return around midday for lunch and a rest, temple trekking is more tiring than one might think). Many of the hotels are accustomed to guests leaving early to visit temples and provide food and or takeaway breakfasts. The Shinta Mani Club gives a generously portioned 5 stack tiffin for guests provided you order it the day before.

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