Just like most tourists around, we got here to visit the amazing ruins of the temples from the popular Angkor Wat to the small ones hidden in the middle of the jungle.
We started off with a tour we reserved at the hotel. We chose the small tour first (in purple), that costs $15. The tour is basically a driver that takes you in his tuktuk to the temples on the map. The Bigger tour(in red)costs $18. The driver is not a guide and the only thing included in the “tour” is chilled bottled water. Do pay attention at those bottles as some of them looked like they were “recycled”.
Before starting the tour, we had to buy our tickets. We opted for a three day visit ticket valid for one week.
The small tour included the main temples such as Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm ( where they shot Tomb Raider). I was personally very overwhelmed and not in a good way by the small tour. There were just too many tourists, too many guides, and way too many harassing hawkers selling anything and everything and when everything fails try to sell you their “guiding skills”.
The temples were witnessing what seemed to be some last minute repairs and made the whole experience look fake, in my humble opinion.
I would also recommend you bring your own snacks or else you’ll get stuck eating at some very shady flavorless and overpriced “restaurants”.
The bigger tour on the other hand was a delight. Since we were already done with the temples on the small tour, we got a discount for skipping them and going directly to the exclusive ones on the big tour. The temples were further, making it more difficult for big tourist buses and street vendors to get there.
The temples are more worn down but in a good way. We could see the jungle growing over the ruins making of it a true to life Indiana Jones scene. I loved every minute of it.
