SR Itinerary and souvenirs to buy

I have a rough plan on my SR (Siem Reap) itinerary way before i purchased the air tickets haha but that stays as a plan till the biggest RM0 AirAsia's sale materialized it, turned out, there was never rm0 ticket for international flights duh. Nonetheless, we paid RM420 return tickets for 2, KL-SR only, with luggage(s). Good catch i must say. The only setback were the domestic flight tickets, return tickets for 2 costs us more than the international tickets -_-".

So, this was my planned itinerary. It's good to have this as a guideline for your trip, just to provide you with the sense of confidence of knowing what to do in foreign country. This is when you need a lot of researching which is one thing that i'm good at. Here goes

Day 1

- Reach SR, check in at GTV (refer previous post)

- Visit war museum (entrance fee usd5/person- as of Sept 2011 coz it was usd3 before)

- Visit cultural village (entrance fee usd11/person)

- Lunch at Villa.

- Go Angkor to purchase ticket, and use the free 1 hour to roam around Angkor Wat.

- Dinner at Khmer Kitchen resturant, Pub street.

Day 2- Angkor day

- Angkor Wat for morning view

- Visit Angkor Thom, enter through south gate

- Central Angkor Thom (Bayon, Phimeanakas, Terrace of the Elephants, Terrace of the Leper King)

-Ta Phrom (Tomb Raider)

- Angkor Wat for sunset

(Red ones were skipped, it was raining hence no sunset pics. Phimeanakas, Terrace of the Elephants are reachable by climbing and it was slippery.)

Day 3- Free and easy

- Old market, Pub street ( we spend the whole morning there buying souvenirs, went back to Villa about 2pm)

- Artisan D'Angkor

- Angkor night market (skipped  this due to heavy rain grr, dinner at Villa's restaurant)

Day 4

- back to Malaysia.

We hired a driver to bring us around, and his name is Mr. Same Savat, which i discovered after reading good feedback about him in tripadvisor. I opt for a car rather than tuktuk coz it was raining season and i was glad about the decision after i witnessed how 'amazing' these tuktuk drivers on the road ohmai.

If any of you want to try Mr Same's taxi/tuktuk service, you can reach him via his facebook : search  Angkor Best Driver (Cambodia best driver), alternately you can email him which is provided in his FB profile as well. He was punctual all the time, and he told us with so many local stories/ histories only khmer people knows . He speaks english well, considering he only went to school at the age of 15 due to war. 

' I had to run to school everyday' he said, which i believe to avoid him being the victim of stray bullet.

He also advised me on my itinerary and suggested me few places that are famous among the foreigners. If you decline, he wont force you to do it. 

Moving on, these are the souvenirs that we brought back home.

click to enlarge

Painting, rolled inside the mengkuang case.

Spices for own/gift, teas as well

Jasmine rice -_-

T-shirts, cambodian shawl, 100% cotton blanket -_-

Keychains, bookmark

Fake (or excellent imitation?) khmer rouge story-based book. They even have fake lonely planet here.

I got all these from the old market. You'll heard this often. 'Lady/Sir would you like to buy samsing' :D

Be their first customer of the day, and they'll agree to any price that you offer (depending on ur skill :p) coz they believe that, if they give you lower prices, you'll tell that to your friends. And that leads the friend to buy things from the same stall again. Double the traffic but not offering the same price anymore. Clever. I dont know if this is based on religion belief (perhaps morning has some kind of special symbol of smthg) or business strategy, cant tell but this sure benefit me a lot haha.

'lady, i give you morning price. afternoon, price is not same. morning price and afternoon price is different', the seller said. So i can conclude that if they use the term ' i give you morning price' to you ,simply means you are their first customer. Like me and my husband hahaha. At first they offered me a piece of cambodian silk shawl at the price of usd10, but at last they lower the price down to usd4 after i pretend not to seem interested...padahal :D

Ok, i think that's all for now.

Till next SR posts. This SR mood is going to stay for a while :p so please bear with me :)