If you know my family at all, you know that my brothers are a bit infamous for being picky eaters. Because they’re picky, it’s rare for them to be forced to try new things. In fact, when they were coming here, the number one question people kept asking me what “oh my gosh, what are they going to EAT???”
They survived 10 days here just fine, and they managed to eat (or at least try eating) a variety of things, including:
Vietnamese Pho
Indian food – butter chicken, palak paneer, chana masala, naan,
Khmer food (including the national dish – Fish Amok)
Khmer fusion food from a local NGO restaurant, Friends
The best pizza and ribs in Phnom Penh, at Brooklyn Pizza
Breakfast (pancakes, eggs, bacon, etc)
Fruit shakes
Western Food, served almost everywhere
Ice cream (and lots of it!)
In particular, we developed a bit of an obsession with Swensen’s ice cream. Swensen’s is an ice cream chain originally founded in San Francisco. It’s really shilling Americana, so much so that we had thought it was a chain from Singapore, but according to Wikipedia, it’s actually owned by a conglomerate headquartered in Markham, ON (apparently Burger King isn’t the only corporation that knows about Canada’s low corporate taxes). In any case, Swensen’s has a sizeable presence in the Asian markets, but sometimes that presents its own challenges, but also leads to hilarity.
In Siem Reap, we’d seen a sign for Swensen’s, but couldn’t find it on Google Maps. Being North American, I thought “hey! I’ll just check the Swensen’s website!”. Ha! On the Swensen’s website, selecting “Cambodia” opens an email window for you to send an email to the Cambodian franchise owner to find out where they have locations. Not exactly the instant information that I was looking for. Anyways, we ended up finding it by accident, around the corner from our hotel.
On our first trip there, Kevin and Kristopher were dismayed to learn that they were unable to make a few choice desserts due to lack of supplies (certain chocolate ice creams, and also maltesers). Of course, Kevin solved the latter issue by going to the grocery story, 10 feet away, and buying a pack of maltesers. Much laughter ensued.
As for our expensive Italian food – after we returned from Siem Reap, I asked (re: instructed) Tyler to choose a place for us to eat dinner the next night. Kevin and I had been doing all the research and making all the decisions, so I figured it would be good for Tyler to get a taste of that. After some research, he recommended we go to Do Forni, an Italian restaurant at Sofitel, a top Phnom Penh hotel. TripAdvisor said it was 2 dollar signs, so away we went. It was very much very fancy. It was maybe 2 dollar signs (out of 5) by Toronto standards, but it was definitely the most expensive restaurant we’ve been to in Phnom Penh (that is, a dish cost between $15 and $30). That said, the food was delicious (we had steak, lobster ravioli, pizza, carpaccio, wine) and the service was also very good. And of course, the restaurant itself was beautiful. Tyler was generous enough to pick up the tab, proving once again that he is the superior sibling in this mix.
As Kristopher pointed out, the Angkor temples that we saw were actually amazing. That is, while the word ‘amazing’ is frequently used, it rarely describes things that amaze people, but when you talk about Angkor Watt and surrounding temples, you’re really describing history and buildings and architecture as “amazing” because you really are amazed.
We had a long journey that day, in the hot, hot, heat of Cambodia. Have you ever sweat so much that you didn’t have to pee, despite drinking several bottles of water? Because that’s how much we sweat. It was gross, and it was worth every bit of it.
Before I go on and on about what we saw and how incredible the Angkorian temples were (plus maps!), here’s a brief backgrounder from UNESCO:
Angkor, in Cambodia’s northern province of Siem Reap, is one of the most important archaeological sites of Southeast Asia. It extends over approximately 400 square kilometres and consists of scores of temples, hydraulic structures (basins, dykes, reservoirs, canals) as well as communication routes. For several centuries Angkor, was the centre of the Khmer Kingdom. With impressive monuments, several different ancient urban plans and large water reservoirs, the site is a unique concentration of features testifying to an exceptional civilization. Temples such as Angkor Wat, the Bayon, Preah Khan and Ta Prohm, exemplars of Khmer architecture, are closely linked to their geographical context as well as being imbued with symbolic significance. The architecture and layout of the successive capitals bear witness to a high level of social order and ranking within the Khmer Empire. Angkor is therefore a major site exemplifying cultural, religious and symbolic values, as well as containing high architectural, archaeological and artistic significance. (UNESCO)
To learn more, I highly recommend that you check out the article yourself to read the Long Description and learn a bit more about Khmer (Cambodian) history.
Below are some maps to give a sense of how things are laid out. The East and West Barays are sometimes presented as bodies of water (especially on Google Maps), but they’re really wetlands that now exist where the Angkorian Empire had created man-made lakes. If this mixed presentation of maps sounds confusing, that’s because it is. Google Maps accuracy was not great during this trip.
Here’s a map of the adventure we took, to be followed by stories.
Around 10am on Saturday morning, after eating breakfast at our hotel, we loaded ourselves up on our motorcycles and headed off. Not so fast though – the Page kids had some difficulty getting started.
Problem 1: the motorcycles were too tall for me! It probably took me 5 minutes to figure how to actually get on the back of Kevin’s motorcycle. It involved much hysteria (on my part), and much encouragement, then frustration, then encouragement (on Kevin’s part). These motorcycles have quite a bit of suspension, to make for better riding on bumpy roads, but the suspension also makes the bikes quite a bit taller than your average motorcycle.
Problem 2: Tyler’s motorcycle wouldn’t start. Kevin and I had already gone half a block, but it was clear Tyler’s bike wasn’t starting. We circled the block, got off of Kevin’s motorcycle (also difficult), and Kevin started Tyler’s motorcycle with his magical skills. Then it was back on the motorcycle (only slightly less difficult the second time around), and set off on our day’s adventure.
From the middle of Siem Reap, we rode about 15 minutes to the ticket booth for Angkor Archaeological Park, bought our tickets, and rode another 15 minutes to Angkor Watt. This distance was the reason we opted to explore Angkor via motorcycle and not actual bicycles.
We then arrived at our first stop, Angkor Watt, where I was promptly convinced to buy a $10 scarf from a local. She assured me that it was 100% necessary to wear one in the temples. So, I bought this overpriced scarf (despite having 3 scarves in my suitcase at the hotel! I am a fool.) to wrap around my bare legs, and then spent the next hour carrying it around. I felt a bit better when I was asked to put it on to get into the main temple eventually, though I didn’t feel better when I saw a different lady selling the same scarf for $3.
Angkor Watt was incredibly large and impressive and beautiful and detailed. And then, when we looked up, we saw a ring rainbow around the sun!! We took an outrageous number of pictures, and Kevin also captured a video of us attempting to take a “jump” photo:
After spending more than an hour exploring the beauty of Angkor Watt, we made our way back to our motorcycles and headed north of Angkor Thom. We stopped at the Bayon Temple, which had been the focal point of Angkor Thom, and spent quite a bit of time walking around feeling like we were in the 90s video game, PitFall. The Bayon sits in the middle of a ring road, so we were able to film the temple as we drove around the full circle:
After Angkor Thom, we decided to take a bit of an adventure detour and head over to West Mebon, a temple in the middle of a lake. It seemed to be just a quick side-road jaunt away. We headed west out of the Angkor Thom complex, then a bit north. As the navigator, I was in charge of getting us there, and I had a pretty good handle on things. That is, until we came to a fork in the road and I chose the road that looked more serious (that is, the road that wasn’t just a thin road through a village). Once I realized I’d chosen wrong, I figured “hey, no big deal, we can take one of the many side roads that connect back to that village road!”. The first few “side roads” looked more like “side walkways” so we passed them. Finally we found a road that looked not too bad. It was so not-too-bad that it actually took us to someone’s house. And then we had to drive over their concrete side-yard to reach a path behind their house. That should’ve been a sign of things to come.
We waved to the children, and ignored the concerned look on the face of the old man waving at us. Also a sign.
The path started out okay. We passed a 5 foot ditch, we passed through a portion of path with barbed wire on both sides, but we were surviving. Then, we started to go uphill. Just as I was realizing “shit, this road is totally not a road and all I see ahead is jungle”, I realized that our bike was falling to the side and Kevin was yelling. We were now both standing on one leg, in a bush, straddling this too-tall bike. Somehow I managed not to get burned, and once I heard Kevin yelling “get off the bike, I think my leg might break soon”, I pulled my left leg into the bush, tried to hold up the bike so all the pressure wouldn’t be on Kevin and his right leg, and yelled for Kristopher to come help us (He and Tyler were stopped, safely, 10 feet behind us). Kristopher lifted the bike, and Kevin swung his left leg back off the bike to stand in the bush as well, leg intact. Our adventure on this non-road was over.
KP and I walked back, as Tyler and Kevin manoeuvred and their bikes back to the house, and back to the comparatively very real part of the side-road-path. We didn’t see that old man who’d likely warned us, but I’m sure he’s seen others make the same mistake, and it’s likely he’ll see more in the future.
Not content to quit just yet, we made it back to the main road, and tried another side road. About ten seconds into that, we realized it was too sandy for safe riding, and promptly turned around. “We’ll just google this one to see if it’s worth it”, was our resolution. Here’s the result, btw. It seems pretty awesome, but we didn’t have time to return the next day.
So, fully humbled, we rode the motorcyles back through Angkor Thom, and headed north, then east, then south, to see a variety of interesting temples. The last one was probably our favourite of the day – Banteay Kdei. It was a lot more ruin-y than the others, and it was punctuated by enormous, incredible trees growing out of everything.
Check out our many, many photos from the day. Then, book your ticket to Cambodia so that you can see these for yourselves. SO worth it. (PS: I’ll have more photos coming in the next few days from this particular adventure, as Kevin’s phone died in the afternoon, and only Tyler and Kristopher have photos from certain temples.)
the Page kids at Angkor Watt
rainbow sun circle!
our first series of band photos
temple carvings
more band photos
Climbing up to the main temple of Angkor Watt
Tyler making good use of my new scarf
Feet in the middle at the Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom
Before my brothers arrived, we’d been really saving up the “touristy” activities that we wanted to do, so that the four of us could experience such things with maximum enthusiasm.
One of the things we’d been most looking forward to was a boat tour on the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers. Kevin did his usual helpful research and found us a great yet simple boat tour – 1.5 hours, free beer, on a boat just before sunset.
We stood on the roof of a lovely boat with our two tour guides, who told us all about the culture, architecture, changes, and politics of Phnom Penh and the surrounding waterfront communities along the rivers. We were also able to see the Floating Village on the Mekong – houses that sit on bamboo and which rise and lower with the tide. Very cool stuff.
We did our boat tour with Memorable Cambodia, and I’d recommend them to anyone. You can check out their website right here.
Those of you who know my middle brother, Tyler, know that he’s a diehard hockey fanatic. Like, the whole nine yards – he plays (usually year round), he coaches, he watches, he consumes, and he knows an INSANE amount of information about this sport. Like, if I knew as much about politics as he does about hockey, I’d be in the House of Commons by now.
So, when he was planning his trip to Cambodia, he googled “hockey in Cambodia” to see if he’d get any results back. And he did! As it turns out, for the last 10 years a rotating group of ex-pats and Khmer locals have been meeting weekly on a tennis court in the BKK neighbourhood to play ball hockey.
They bill this as Hockey Night in Cambodia, and they meet up every Thursday at 7pm on the tennis court beside BKK Secondary School (across the street from City Villa hotel on Street 71).
Their website gives the wrong address, so at first we weren’t sure if we’d be able to find the proper location, but google saved us again, and we made it to the game!
Kevin and Tyler played while KP and I cheered from the sidelines. Check out the photos and video footage below:
Be sure to also check out the Hockey Night in Cambodia website and Facebook page!
the stories that I'm telling. 