Tony and Petra's Travels: Same same, but different...

After Koh Rong we caught a ridiculously long bus to Siem Reap. Due to lack of roads we pretty ended up going through Phnom Penh, which made it into a serious detour. Anyway, we did get to Siem Reap to be greeted by our Canadian friends, as they were a few days ahead of us in their travels.

The next morning we arranged us a private tuk tuk driver to take us to the world famous Angkor Wat, a crazy big ancient temple complex just outside Siem Reap. As most visitors decide to, we also started our tour at sunrise. This meant getting up at 5am to get there and share this romantic moment with 500 other camera-obsessed tourists, mainly Chinese. We ended up finishing our tour around midday, and for us the time we had was plenty enough to see the highlights of the main temples. If you are into ancient temples enough, you can spend up to a week walking around them, for a price of $60. For one day you get charged $20, unless you’re Cambodian when you get in for free.

This day also happened to be St. Paddy’s day, which of course cannot be missed no matter where you are in the world. Hence we ended up celebrating this important religious holiday according to the Irish custom. Making this happen was rather easy considering what a party town Siem Reap is. Apart from doing a ton of activities aimed at tourists; getting drunk of Pub Street, haggling with market vendors all selling identical products, getting a pampering at a spa (which was totally awesome) or a street massage chair and eating fairly good-quality Western food, there is not a whole lot to see in Siem Reap. Except Angkor Wat of course, which you HAVE to see if you go to Cambodia.

busy market in Siem Reap

About time the sun came up!

inside the Angkor Wat

hundreds of tuk tuks taking tourists to the next temple

at the scene of Tomb Raider

Petra and Kate enjoying green beer at the Irish pub in Siem Reap

Tony's hangover meal, crispy frog

The next day we had arranged to go do volunteering at a nearby orphanage. This is a trend that has been growing massively in Southeast Asia, and perhaps mostly in Cambodia in the recent years. Unfortunately with a trend come a load of unwanted baggage, which means there are a large number of really dodgy organizations that claim to do good for kids but in fact do more harm than anything. Hence, just like we did, you really need to do a bit of research before you sign up for just any NGO. We were very lucky with our choice at Rainbow Orphanage, as it turned out to be exactly what I personally want from an orphanage project. Locally run, self-sustainable, small in size, healthy environment for children and free to volunteer at. So for 10 days, we taught English mainly at the village school to kids from grades 1 to 6 but also at the small Rainbow school that was luckily a bit more advanced in English.

The experience itself was an amazing way to see a whole new side of Cambodia. I almost feel bad for tourists that travel to Cambodia and completely miss the rural side of it. Its completely different from anything you see in Phnom Penh or Siem Reap (where the vast majority of people go). Mostly we loved that fact that people are incredibly nice and don’t have hidden agendas when approaching you. No one tries to sell you anything, which was such good change. Food was very simple, as most stuff they eat they grow themselves. Again, a great way to experience truly local cuisine you won’t find in any restaurant in the cities. Note that every single meal consists of rice and some sort of side, which too often turned out to be fish. We were also the only Westerners in the entire village so you can imagine the attention we got from the locals. It was pretty overwhelming how excited everyone (adults and kids) was to see us walking around.

No one really spoke English either, including the 2 English teachers at the village school. You could have a simple conversation but nothing too complicated. This meant we were forced to learn some basic Khmer (language in Cambodia), which is something to brag about. The days were all identical, speaking of routine! We would get up at 7.20, get served breakfast by the lovely kitchen lady at Rainbow, head to the village school, teach 3 classes, come back to Rainbow for a 3-hour siesta when we also had lunch, go back to village school to teach another 3 classes, head back to have dinner and go to sleep at 9pm. This may sound simple, but add the daily 40C heat to it and maybe you can imagine how exhausting it was. So by the time 10 days were up, it truly felt like a great accomplishment, although a very rewarding one as you got to see from the kids’ faces how much they enjoyed learning new words like ’banana’, ‘apple’, ‘cow’ and ‘dog’. After a hassle of trying to get us a ride back to the city (note that no cars or tuk tuks can access the country roads) we managed to get ourselves back to Siem Reap, where we rewarded ourselves with ice-cold diet Coke and pizza. Overall, we definitely recommend everyone (although you cant be a total diva) doing similar volunteering while travelling, just make sure you are 100% certain about the organization you do it with.