Travel Day – Phnom Penh to Siem Reap: Week 11 / Day 69 / March 20
Siem Reap, Cambodia: Today we are off to the city of Siem Reap to visit the nearby temple city of Angkor Wat. The travel is actually pretty easy as it is only an hour plane ride.
We took a short walk around the area and visited the park we saw in the dark last night.
There was a large police presence at one section of the park, but there did not really seem to be much going on.
The plane ride was incredibly short. I think we leveled out for about five minutes before starting to descend, and the total flight was about 25 minutes from takeoff to touchdown. Upon arrival, we rode a tuk-tuk to the hotel. Our hotel is right near the river that runs through Siem Reap, although the term “river” would imply a level of flow that seems to be lacking in the body of water near us.
We went to a laundromat near the hotel and were presented with a solution to a problem I did not know existed. Some things in life do not seem like they need new solutions. As an example, I was introduced to the kasekreiner sausage and how it is served when I was in Vienna a few years ago. I thought the whole hot dog + bun thing was pretty well worked out already. But, no, there is a better way. They take a cylindrical piece of bread, slice the tip off partway on one end, push the exposed bread down onto a long metal rod creating a hollow tube in the middle of the bread, fill the hole with a ketchup and mustard mixture, insert the hot dog (or sausage), put the bread cap back on, and eat. My mind was blown. This was a solution to a problem I did not even know I had.
The laundromat in Siem Reap was a similar experience. A laundromat is where you go to do laundry, sit around bored, and, if in a tropical country (say Thailand for example), sweat to death. Nope, this was an air conditioned place, with a full menu, and beer. We both ordered waffles, which are their specialty, and I had a beer, while Linda had a fruit drink. This is how laundry should be (Missing Socks Laundry Cafe).
After the laundromat we wandered around town a bit more in the evening, but did not really see anything remarkable.
There is a large tourist area (Pub Street) that we walked through. And, a can, that I am still trying to figure out if the label depicts the target market or the ingredient list.
