Go to Siem Reap before tourism takes over
"Go there before tourism ruins the place", a sentence most have probably heard over and over about various places, but you can't really see it before you return to one of these places where you've felt it could fit the descrition.
Siem Reap was one of these places when I visited in 2011, and now 4 years later it is unfortunately on it's way to becoming true.
That being said, I still think the ones who go there for the first time will have a great experience, but to me part of the charm of the city, but not the temples, was lost.
First impressions this time was really bad. Arriving at the airport and having already filled out 4 different forms, they did of course need another one on arrival. Not the biggest problem of course, but you do get tired form filling out the same information in multiple forms for the same arrival. A more effective way would of course to combine them, but this might also be a way to trace illegal behaviour.
Then off to the visa-stand where they looked at all the tourists as the worst thing there ever was, and in retroperspective when thinking about the changes to the city, maybe they were right.
After getting through that papermill, we headed over to immigration. I got in line, but another line was empty and a guard asked me to move over there. To swap lines was in no way okay by the officer sitting in that booth, and I got a decent scolding from him. Told him I could go back if that's what he wanted, but he just mumbled something and checked my papers anyway. I do of course understand that I do not have any right at all going to another country, but I fail to see what benefit he or his country can have by treathing tourists this way.
Did however get in, just to find that our hotel had not sent the car we'd booked to pick us up.
Angkor Palace Resort & Spa is one of these great 5-stars resorts that can be brilliant, but here most was just a little disappointing. Maybe my expectations has grown too high, but when looking back at the 3-stars hotels we had in Myanmar who are not used to tourist in the same way as Siem Reap, I would expect them to be able to be as friendly at least, and I would expect a 5-stars resort to be able to clean at least as good. An example was that I could without really looking for them easily spot 20-30 dead cricets in the gym.
The pool area and the room was however good, or as expected from what they'd said on their site except for the fact that "pool view" meant that we saw a bunch of trees and maybe a glimpse of the pool somewhere between the branches. The city Siem Reap itself had exploded, in a way that does make sense due to the growth in tourism, but not in a charming way. There was several massive pub streets which kind of reminded me of the greek island's booze soaked streets with drunken teenagers. Although the drunkards were probably a few years older here. The night market was many times as large as 4yrs ago, also understandable, and (start) prices had gone up several hundred procent, end prices were however not to far from what they were back then. And the very professional kids who were selling 10 postcards for one dollar (dollaaaaah) was still as active and still as professional as ever.
We had however gotten decent training with dealing with them both from Cambodia earlier and in Bagan a few days earlier.
