Discovering Angkor Day 2 & 3

Our first day in Angkor was one heck of an adventure, we covered pretty much all the main highlights in the place, so we wanted our 2nd day to be different.

After we’ve done some research about the most “hidden” gems in Angkor, we found out about a very interesting place called “Beng Mealea“.

So we decided to spend our 2nd day in “Beng Mealea” and a group of temples called “The Roulous Group”

 

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1) Road Trip

Beng Mealea is a location for a temple is that is around 50-60 KM away from Siem Reap, so the only way to go there is by Tuk-Tuk, This place is not really “maintained”, which means that the place is mostly ruins.

We got a very nice deal with a tuk-tuk guy to take us all the way there and back to Siem Reap with a stop at Rolous group of temples on the way back for a total of 21$ (7$ each)

The road to Beng Mealea is LONG!!, and i mean reallly long (2.5 hours), the tuk tuk also took us through some really rural areas, villages, and various paths off the beaten track, i have to say that the ride there was VERY VERY interesting and we’ve seen so many cool stuff and passed by many Cambodian people who are living a very simple life away from the cities.

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We’ve seen farmers, friendly little kids and lots of Cows on our way 😀 ….. till we finally made it

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2) Beng Mealea

After we reached Beng Mealea, we’ve headed for the ticket counter, tickets to Beng Mealea cost 5$.

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The place is NOT included in the Angkor tickets, as it is maintained by a private company which is trying to raise money in order to re-instate the place -which i find a baaad idea- coz the awesome thing about this place are the ruins !!

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The best thing about Beng Mealea is that it’s not strictly “maintained”, in other words it’s not very “westernized / touristy”, so you won’t find so many people there, yet the place is still HUGE and exciting to discover.

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So we got inside and walked for a while in a paved road, till we reached the start of the ruins …. you can only go so far till you stop facing a huge pile of rocks with no place to go except ………….. over them!!

So we started climbing the rocks, a Cambodian guard/worker was there and he saw us, so he accompanied us and lead the way to explore this awesome place.

This guy was amazing, he knew every little interesting part about this place, he took us exactly to the places we’d want to take photos in, we were literally the ONLY ones inside discovering these ruins which was pretty cool.

We took heck load of pictures in many places, and pretty much covered up the whole place and it was well worth the road trip coming here.

After we finished and head out, we sat in a stall beside the temple to have our lunch, we ordered coconuts and some type of “Grilled banana in rice covered with banana leaf” which was quite delicious.

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3) Rolous Group

On our way back, we asked our Tuk-Tuk driver to take us to Rolous Group, which can be accessed with our Angkor tickets, they had 1 main big temple, it had a breathtaking view from the top, also our Tuk-Tuk driver told us that this temple is a very famous area where all the couples go in the Khmer new year to hang out there and enjoy the company of each others 😉

After relaxing there for a while, we called it a day and took the tuk tuk back to our hotel in Siem Reap, the day for us started at around 8-9 am and finished at 5-6 pm and it was a pretty great day.

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4) 3rd Day

For our 3rd day …. we still had 1 day access to Angkor AND we had our bikes, so we decided to go to Angkor again, but this time …. not stick to a schedual or an itinerary or anything … we just took the map and pinpointed the most “un-interesting” places … since we had a theory that NO ONE actually cares to go there, hence they will have this “secluded” feature in them and they would be more interesting to visit …. and well ……. we were RIGHT !! 😀

 

 

Let me just say that we did cycle A LOT off the beaten track and into jungles and unpaved roads to reach extremely tiny temples and sometimes we won’t even find them, however it was one heck of an adventure and we actually loved every minute of it, i would honestly recommend you to go for something like that ….. it gives you this exciting feeling of “discovery and mystery” and well …. i’m always in pursuit of AWE, and that’s exactly what i found there 🙂

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5) Massage

After going around for a while in Angkor and having an AWESOME time, we decided to head back to the city early to check the markets.

On our way back we found a “Blind Massage Learning Institute” in the middle of the highway, which offered blind full body massage for 7$ per hour (normal rate in the city is 6$ per hour).

I’m a massage-lover, yet I’ve never tried blind massage … so we’ve decided to go for it.

I gotta admit …. lots of people said that the blind people have a gift for finding the exact spots in your body that needs massaging, and i had to try it for myself to believe it, those people were PHENOMENAL, their skill was off the charts and i was THIS close to sleeping (actually my friend did doze off for a while and snored for a bit :P) …. yes it was THAT good !!

I would honestly recommend going for this massage, it’s only 1$ more expensive which is BEYOND worth it, and it all goes for a great cause 😀

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6) Siem Reap

After we finished our massage, we head back to the city to chill for a while and check the markets till our late night bus to Phnom Penh.

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This concluded our 3 days adventure in Angkor, It was definitely a benchmark in our trip, the whole “discovering” of Angkor and trying out a completely new way of seeing temples and ruins was worth it, if you think you can do it … seriously GO FOR IT!!

This also conclude my posts about Cambodia, and sadly my whole graduation trip :'(, HOWEVER i’m working on some posts about Malaysia since i stayed there for 6 years or so … i have “few” things to say about that beautiful country.

so stay tuned and till then ……

Basel …. OUT

(All pictures are taken by Samsung Galaxy NoteI & NoteII phone cameras)