Cambodia Holiday – Arrival and First Night

Well the JetStar flight was booked (via Siem Reap on the outward leg), but the accommodation  wasn’t, but most importantly I had plenty of Singapore dollars in the wallet – hopefully it will all sort itself out in the wash when we arrive.  That was the plan anyway!  True backpacking style, hey? 🙂

This trip, I wanted to  treat my mum, so decided to take her to Cambodia for the long weekend.

The flight wasn’t bad at all, and we left on Sunday late morning to arrive late afternoon at Siem Reap (SR).

I think if I had thought about it better (more speed, less haste) and knowing that this particular flight stopped-over at SR, I should have arrange a day or two stop over before heading off to Phnom Penh (PP).  As I didn’t, we had a bit of a quandry, could we forfeit the SR to PP on our ticket, and basically depart at SR and then find our own way to PP separately, or continue onwards to PP on the transit passenger and come back to SR another time (another trip, or later on this trip).  Decisions, decisions?

Before we left Singapore, we asked the question at Check-In, and was told that our ticket wouldn’t allow this and we would have to buy a new ticket specifically to SR (I think they say this to try to get you to buy another ticket, and not necessarily meaning that what we wanted to do could or couldn’t be done!  I still believe that we would have been able to clear passport control and customs at SR, as if we were ending our outward leg there, without issue, and then simply utilise the return leg from PP to Singapore leg as planned (of course we would still need to find our own way between SR to PP).  We didn’t want to risk it, so decided to continue through to PP on this leg and think about the SR plans later on.

Anyway, having arrived in Phnom Penh, we then paid our entry Visa, at USD $20 a pop, that was pretty pricey (they needed a photo as well, which is kinda weird!)!  This does seem to be where these Countries make their initial revenue, charge all tourists upon entry!

We then left the airport terminal and were besieged with Taxi and Tuk-Tuk owners trying to sale their services.  We decided to go for the Taxi option and asked the driver to take us to the area around the Central Market of PP, and to the area where a number of hotels were located.  He understood and whilst we were quite apprehensive at first, we simply enjoyed the scenary and journey into the City.  The concern that we have with these types of accommodation requests is that the driver would take you to a hotel that they have an ‘arrangement’ so that they can take a cut of the (hotel) charge, or similar.  We weren’t sure, but we had to take the risk!

He took us to a hotel, which was just down from the Central Market, and we noticed that a couple of hotels and guest houses were nearby.  The hotel looked pretty adequate, so he agreed to wait to allow us to ask about the prices and check out the room and if we didn’t like it, he would take us to another one.  That was quite nice of him to do this actually!  We ask the receptionist of the price, and was told it was USD $20 a night (ergh same price as the Entry Visa!  Ha!)  Anyway, the room looked find for our needs, i.e. a clean bed, a shower and bathroom to refreshen up.  Perfect!  Anyway, we told the driver it was fine, paid him and he went on his way!

The hotel was called Khmer City Hotel, and it seemed to have been owned by a Chinese couple.  The staff were very friendly and made us feel at home.  I wouldn’t say it was the plushious of hotels, and would class it as a 3 star accommodation – but the bathroom, shower and facilities were generally ‘pleasant’, and everything was clean and operational.  We decided to stay for the first night, as we were uncertain what we were aiming to do on Day-2 and in case we decided to go to Siem Reap or stay at another hotel in Phnom Pehn.  You pay in advance for the room, and the room included air conditioning and a small flat-screen (17″ or 18″?) LCD TV, not bad at all!  A more detailed review is as follows, which I just posted to TripAdvisor:

We stayed at the Khmer City Hotel in Phnom Pehn for 2 days, to enable us to have a base for our visit to the City, and we weren’t disappointed.

The hotel looks quite appealing from the outside, and upon arrival we were shown a twin-room, which was very clean and adequate for our needs.  There was an en-suite shower and bathroom, and an LCD TV in the room, with satellite TV for our of the major and regional channels.

The air-conditioning worked without any issue whatsoever, though we had to get used to how to lock the door (silly us!), as you press the button before on the inside before you close the door to lock it.  It seemed to be quite secure in any case.

The only issue we had in the room 305 was that the sink was leaking, we forgot to tell the staff before we left, but we simply put the bin in the bathroom underneath – hopefully they realise or another guest will report the issue eventually.

They had a breakfast facilities but we didn’t try to this, so cannot comment, but noticed that there were a couple of guests who did, so assume it was okay.

The staff were very pleasant, and in fact very informative providing us details on local things to see as well as supporting our hunt for details on how to get to Siem Reap and back again.  The receptionist (who conversed with very good English) kindly booked a hotel room in the City hotel Angor Saphir Hotel in Siem Reap, as well as the Bus/Coach to take us to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh.  They also arranged a pick-up from the Hotel to the Bus Terminal, and a Tuk Tuk from the arriving point to the Hotel at Siem Reap – all-in-all a complete journey and accommodation booked with relative ease!

For USD$20 a night – there isn’t anything we can fault about this hotel.  Very charming and would recommend a visit if you were wanting to stay in and around the Central Market area of Phnom Pehn.

We had received a City guide outline from JetStar and in this, we read the accommodation section, and noted there was limited International hotel chains present in Phnom Pehn.  We didn’t expect that many, if any, and we knew that the Country and Phnom Pehn was still developing.  InterContinental was listed, and we subsequently saw a sign stating that Marriott Courtyard was coming to town soon.

We didn’t really want to stay in a Guest House, and there was several of these listed, but Pavilion Hotel was listed as Good Value, but we never managed to find where this was.  Another one that came up when we did a web search on recommended hotels before we left was Paradise Hotel, and we noticed that this was also located near to the vicinity of the Central Market.  We asked about the price on this later on and learnt that it was USD$24 for a room, plus another USD$4 ($28) for a Deluxe room which comes with Breakfast too.  I think we did well for the price we paid.

We wandered around the area on the first night, to get our bearings, and decided to eat some at a local eating establishment near down one of the side-roads.  It cost us 20,000 Cambodian Riels which is equiv to about USD $5. We had two dishes (beef and basil (a very fragrant dish), and seafood with vegetable, served with a plentiful supply of rice and we also had two cans of drink.  Not bad for about £3! 🙂

We had a walk around the Central Market, which was generally closed up, but a few of the food stalls remained open, so we decided to come back here for a meal during our stay.

On the subject of currency, we noticed very quickly that everything was ‘priced’ and communicated as USD first, the supermarket, the restaurant, the Tuk-Tuk, Taxi’s, hotels… you name it… I’ve heard of pegging a rate before, but actually using another currency as your own as the primary currency is quite intriguing.  I wander if Barak Omaba knows about this – no wonder there is a shortage of currency in the US – a few Countries are using the USD as their own – lol!  We started to realise that it would be better converting to USD and using this as our travelling currency whilst we were here, rather than the Cambodian Diel – at least if we have left over, we can still utilies it elsewhere 🙂

All in all – a very pleasant first night!