This post marks my final entry on the “Amazing Cambodia” series. Click on the links below to read the previous entries:

• Amazing Cambodia: Crispy Fried Insects
• Amazing Cambodia: The Dirt Cheap Beer
• Amazing Cambodia: Boat Ride on Largest Lake, Tonle Sap
• Amazing Cambodia: Angelina Jolie Was There

On the fifth day of our Cambodia trip, Rainbow and I had to travel back to Phnom Penh from Siem Reap as out flight back to KL took off the very next day from the Phnom Penh Airport. Our tour ended on the fifth day, so after our journey back to Siem Reap, everything would be on our own.

The tour guide was super kind to have purchased for us the bus tickets to Siem Reap. And we didn’t even have the chance to give him some tips before we departed. Le sigh.

Honestly, I kind of prefer Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. Although Siem Reap has more places of attraction, Phnom Penh is slightly more developed and dynamic although a little messy like Malaysia’s Pudu Raya.

After reaching back Phnom Penh, we proceeded to its famous Russian Market (see the only bad photo below) to do some shopping, where we bought a load of T’s. They were damn cheap and the choices were so good Rainbow and I had a hard time deciding which ones to buy. We also spent a good amount of time bargaining prices with the sellers!

I realised a lot of the stall owners were Chinese Teochews. And since I’m also a Teochew, most of them who knew would tell me in the dialect how I made a good bargainer.

Damn paiseh can? Their praise sounded like I was a cheapskate or something, but whatever lah.

At night, I met up with a Cambodian friend, Hav, and his friend whom I have forgotten the name. I met Hav during our internship at The Star and we had not seen each since 2007. We had some good chats and beer at a petrol station.

I was rather shocked to find out Hav is actually a Chinese, although he doesn’t speak Mandarin. HOW COME HE NEVER TOLD ME ONE?!

And the second shocker – Hav has been already married for over a year and his wife was already several months pregnant when we met. Congrats my friend!

During our last day in Cambodia, I also got to meet up with another Cambodian friend, Buntha, who was also an intern at The Star but at a different time as Hav and I. Hav referred Buntha to me before he came to Malaysia and I had helped him look for accommodation.

Hav, his friend, and Buntha brought me around town for brunch and to visit several places on their motorbikes, while Rainbow insisted to stay at the hotel room.

The easy-going Cambodians also brought me to try their popular roasted pork rice. I got to also taste the pig brain soup for the first time in my life.

Thanks to their hospitality, I also had the chance to taste the Cambodian version of Kopi-C, which was totally fab! In fact Hav had brought us to one of the most famous stalls in town, situated at a backstreet in the hustle and bustle of the Phnom Penh city.

For the rest of this entry let’s focus on some other Cambodian delicacies.

While still in Siem Reap two days before, we caught our tour guide secretly eating fried noodles away by the roadside. Being someone who loves street food, I quickly made my guide to order me a pack. It was really simply but very delicious!

We paid only 2,000 Riel (slightly less than USD0.50) instead of the tourist price of 2,500 Riel for the fried noodles because our awesome guide ordered it for us.

And and and…

Whoever says Balut (fertilised duck egg) is disgusting is so wrong lor! It may look disgusting but the taste is damn good okay! Looks can be very deceiving, haven’t you learnt? Haha…

Last but not least… allow me to introduce the Neak Poan bread. It’s the king of all Cambodian foods we’re talking about!

Just kidding, I made that up.

Widely found in Cambodia, the Neak Poan bread comes with really tasty and juicy mincemeat kiapped inside the French toast that is usually crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. It is served together with some generous pieces of ham and prickled cucumber.

If you have strong taste buds for hot spicy food, adding in some chilly and spice powder provided at the stall is definitely a plus! A set of the Neak Poan bread costs only 2,500 Riel (USD0.50).

This is a continuation of my entries on the “Amazing Cambodia” series. Click on the respective links to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Shortly after I came back from my trip, about 80% of the photos I took in Cambodia – which you’re going to see in this post and the next – were accidentally deleted off Rainbow’s memory card.

There was no backup.

And the photos deleted were the GIST of my Cambodia trip.

I was really upset about it and about to give up, until one fine afternoon when I was told by Rainbow that she had not taken any new photos with the memory card consisting of the deleted photos.

I was elated, as I was suddenly reminded that photo recovery is possible if no new photos are taken with the memory card where photos are deleted.

On the same night, I worked extremely hard searching for and cracking photo-recovery softwares with Rainbow on the other end of MSN.

In the end, a total of 834 photos were successfully recovered, although 40 or so were corrupted.

The reason why I said this post is the gist, is because it consists of a shitload of photos I took in Angkor Watt – one of the wonders of the world! Mai siao siao!

It was only our third day in Cambodia when my 2GB memory card already ran out of memory at the Tonle Sap lake. I totally forgot to bring along my other 2GB memory card and had to borrow Rainbow’s extra memory card in the end.

So on the fourth day we finally got to visit the legendary Angkor Wat, where we entered through Angkor Thom (they call it the “big Angkor”) via its South gate. Photos below depict scenes at the South entrance.

If we hadn’t been told which gate it was that we were entering, we wouldn’t have any idea anyway. The whole site was just gigantic and the monuments looked so much similar from one another.

Apparently Angkor Wat (“City Temple”) refers to the monuments as a whole, which consists of Angkor Thom, Bayon, Baphuon, and more.

We spent half a day exploring Angkor Thom, after which we went out for a lunch and took a shower break before coming back in the evening to visit Bayon and Baphuon.

Faces of King Suryavarman II were carved on the stones of the monuments. Of the many faces of the King, the following is said to be the one and only smiling face of him:

Damn arrogant lah this King Suryavarman II!

From this point onwards I shall let the photos do the talking since I can’t remember so many details. Hence I’m also unable to give each and every photo an accurate description.

These photos consist of scenes from Angkor Thom, Bayon, and Baphuon.

At the “Tomb Raider Temple”, where Angelina Jolie shot certain scenes for her hit movie Tomb Raider, you can see century-old big trees that look exceptionally phenomenal.

Some of the trees seemed to be slowly eating up the temple buildings. It is sometimes bewildering how time can do wonders.

In the picture below, the tree is given a name – called the “couple’s tree”. The tour guide, who was so very patient in helping us take a bazillion of photos, asked us to pose under the couple’s tree thinking we were a couple.

We didn’t bother explaining and just pretended to be a couple anyway.

Whenever Rainbow and I thought of our tour guide, we would feel a sense of guilt. This guy was super helpful and all, so we decided to give him some tips before we left. But during the day when he was supposed to send us off, he arrived at our hotel a minute late. By the time we saw him turning into our hotel on his motorcycle, we were already on the bus and taking off.

Tour guides in Cambodia generally earn much less than one can imagine and their main stream of income does not come from their allowance but from the tips offered by tourists. Furthermore their allowance is based on the number of tour days they have in a month and not on a per-month basis.

Anyway, we were quite lucky to be able to have visited Cambodia in April because it was actually during the off-peak season and there hadn’t been many tourists. Less tourists certainly means better photo opportunities!

Besides, tour package was so much cheaper compared to if you bought it during the peak season. And most important of all, there were just the two of us during the whole tour – we had been very well fed and well taken care of!

In fact I had gained some weight during our six-day trip in Cambodia, haha!

Anyway during the second half of the day, it was drizzling. But I thought it was okay because the scenery at Bayon was still pretty!

Within the vicinity of Bayon they were selling amazing paintings of Angkor Wat. Very nice lor but they were very costly okay!

The photo below was taken at the highest point of the Bayon temple if I’m not wrong. It was supposed to be closed either due to rain or safety reasons but some dude went ahead and removed the “no entry” sign and visitors who saw it started rushing up.

Of course, Rainbow and I were among them. Hahah!

Last but not least, let me show you an unexpected “winter sonata” scene at Bayon:

Part 5, also the last entry from the “Amazing Cambodia” series, can be read here.