Going Cambodian With A Twist Of Thai - Final Thoughts

Below are my final thoughts on the holiday. 

Cambodia - absolutely loved it, we had high expectations of Angkor Wat and they were exceeded. I know we only visited Siem Reap in Cambodia but that City is a very special place because of the temples and the history. The people are welcoming and very friendly and cannot do enough for you. The temple complexes are bucket list places to visit and worthy of a follow up visit if the opportunity ever presents itself. The food, drink, accommodation, and transport is very cheap. The food was very tasty. The traffic and their roads are a bit chaotic but seem to work effectively for them. They are going to need to do something about their crop burning and the impact this has on the horizon.

Thailand - they call it the land of smiles and that is true. The people generally seem so happy there even though, compared with our lives, a lot of them don't have much. Very basic housing in places, overcrowding, and smoky skies a lot of the time. The trains, buses, boats, and walks to hotels were as adventurous as we expected and a lot of fun. Tiring at times but fun and rewarding. We impressed ourselves with the complete lack of travel cockups or issues. We really didn't put a foot wrong and everything went as planned. The internet certainly makes things easier these days to organise a trip like this. We felt very safe everywhere we went even in the middle of the night. The biggest scares and risks were the odd stray dog or over aggressive monkey. That's assuming you are careful near the roads and have eyes in the back of your head when crossing any road. 😂 Thailand and Bangkok also need to look at how to improve their air quality and reduce the smoky smog the area suffers from. The food of Thailand was an obvious highlight, so many nice meals and such a diverse range of Pad Thai! I had multiple and they were all different but good. 

Singapore - only a fleeting visit but enough to give us a taste of a highly advanced, organised, and clean part of Asia. It's a great place to break up a trip and I'm hoping we will use it for that purpose again.

Biggest Highlight - the temple of Ta Keo, the one shaped a bit like a pyramid with super steep steps. But throw in the other temples in the Angkor Wat area too as they really are a package deal. Second favourite experience would be the Erawan Falls near Kanchanaburi. 

Biggest Lowlight - Koh Samui traffic, busy roads and general over touristy nature of the island. We did find a place there that we could go back to and enjoy things more but I doubt we ever will. You don't know until you go and we don't regret checking it out. If we had our time over perhaps one less day there would have been better. Second lowlight, but one we expected, was the treatment of plastic and rubbish in the environment and the smoky smog issue. I truly hope they can address this in the coming decades.

Best Meal - there were plenty but I'll go with the last night in Siem Reap Cambodia sitting upstairs on the balcony enjoying a beer and a Chicken Amok. The food wasn't the best we had but the overall experience, location, and atmosphere together with the food tipped it for me. 

Best Beach - the super relaxed Ao Manao Beach, at Wing 5 Air Base near Prachuap Khiri Khan, that we biked to and paid 20 Baht for a beach chair.  Such a chill and relax kind of spot and a beautiful beach with hardly any people.

Biggest Surprise - that we liked Bangkok so much. We generally don't like big cities and crowds. We purposely limited the number of nights we spent here and split them into two visits. But Bangkok is an awesome city because of the food, night time atmosphere, and the fact each part of the city where you might stay is quite different.

Best Hotel - Koulen Central in Siem Reap. A beautiful and flash hotel, 4 star, but at a 2 star NZ price.

Best Swimming Pool - Prachuap Khiri Khan. Big deep pool and not too warm. It even had a ladder!

Places to Return - Bangkok for sure, Siem Reap, and Prachuap to relax for a few days if doing this kind of trip again. Kanchanburi is not to be missed but no need for us to go twice.

Bring on more holidays and more world travel!!! Hopefully we won't wait 5 years for the next one! 

One final bit of information for anyone who managed to read this to the end. I'll let you in on a secret regarding the name of the Blog. "Going Cambodian" is a family joke. It stems from when one member of the family referred to something that happened on the 90s TV Show called Friends. The character Joey once talked about going "Commando" because he wasn't wearing underwear beneath his trousers. Our family member when on holiday in Australia one time referred to this act mistakenly as "Going Cambodian". The saying is now infamous in our extended family. Given we only packed enough underwear for a week on a 4 week holiday the title seemed appropriate. 😂

I hope you enjoyed the Blog. It's fun to write and it's now a keepsake to read again in years to come. Sarah keeps a diary too so I'll be interested to read that in the next few days/weeks to see her take on things. 

Thanks to Sarah for her proof reading of each post. Hopefully it minimised the silly phone typing errors and improved my grammar and spelling.