Trip to Cambodia - advice needed
 

Hi all,

a friend and I are planning a trip to Cambodia next year in the end of March. We are planning to fly into Phnom Penh from SIN and go on to Siem Reap after a couple of days. From there we will go back to SIN.

The trip will be 8-10 days. How would you split the time between the two locations, or would you suggest some different locations at all?

We are considering to take a boat from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. Is it worth it, or should we just ad a segment to our jetstar ticket.

Any advice on hotels? Looking for some upscale places at discount prices.

Thanks in advance for your help!

I hope you get some good feedback. I live in SIN and thinking of this same trip.

I can only comment on the Siem Reap portion. I would allow at least 3 days in Siem Reap. This allowed us to visit a lot of temples, plus the floating village. We would visit temples in the morning, eat lunch, nap and then visit more in the afternoon. I'm not normally a napper, but did I ever appreciate these naps.

We stayed in a small guesthouse for around $45 a night, so not really upscale, but it did have aircon which is all I cared about.

I have been to Cambodia twice, once to Phnom Pehn and Siem Reap in 2003, and once to just Siem Reap from Bangkok in 2009.

I would recommend the boat from Phnom Pehn to Siem Reap. In 2003, we flew to Siem Reap from Phnom Pehn and took the boat back. Make sure you get the high speed boat as the others take a long, long time from what I understand. Our boat had TV screens and was showing a boot-leg version of Spider Man with hilarious sub-titles in English. Keep in mind things may be different since this was 2003. The sub-titles may be better. :-)

I would recommend spending more time in Siem Reap since it didn't seem like there were a lot of things to see in Phnom Pehn. And it was very busy, noisy and dusty back in 2003. I can only imagine it is more so these days. Most of the things to see there were related to the Pol Pot era, which are worth seeing, but definitely depressing to realize that it all actually happened. I recommend reading up on that before going. For all I had heard about it, I realized I didn't know much about it when I read about it before going.

From Phnom Pehn we hired a driver/car and went down to the beach area. That was pretty nice, but there were lots and lots of tourists.

On the last trip in 2009 we only spent 2 full days in Siem Reap, and that was barely enough time to see the major sites. If you want to be more relaxed and see more, then It would spend a few more days there. There are quite a few temples and areas to see. And the town has a pretty busy nightlife that it didn't have in 2003.

I might be able to find more information about Siem Reap and what we did there, but I don't think my info about Phnom Penh from 2003 would be much help. Like, I wonder if the bar, The Heart of Darkness, is still there?

Hope that helps.

NoisyGecko

The time you're planning, 8-10 days, is too much for PNH and REP unless you really really really love temples. PNH can be seen in one bsuy day. Any more than 2 and you'll likely be at a loss for things to do.

REP should be a minimum of 2 days for you to get to a variety of temples. I personally think the floating village is a waste of time/money, but others hold a different opinion.

The Jetstar flights are REP-PNH, not the other way around (IIRC). The boats are uber-expensive, something on the order of $35 each way per person. March is low water and you're likely to be stuck several times resulting in a long trip (~6-9hours). Once on land you then need to negotiate a tuk tuk into town. You're much better getting a share taxi and just buy the car out for $60. For this you'll need to talk with your hotel/gh in PNH if they're even willing to give you info on it. A bus ticket is $10-$12 for foreigners and should take about 5 hours (more if you have a breakdown).

Take a look at Agoda for good rates. March is still high season, though the waning shoulder, and it will be hot and dry.

Here's my plan for you:
Day 1, SIN-REP flight
Days 2-4, Siem Reap. (Floating village in March dry season will be up on stilts rather than floating, ahem)
Day 5, morning bus to Battambang (3 hrs max), rest of day Battambang
Day 6, Battambang
Day 7, morning bus to Phnom Penh (5 hrs), rest of day PP
Day 8, PP
Day 9, PNH-SIN flight

If you had a couple of extra days, you could bus down to Kampot/Kep from PP then return. Don't cut a bus-flight connection too close though.

And wherever I use "bus" you can substitute "share taxi" or "private car" depending on your budget/time/convenience value matrix.

In September I had looked into the boat from REP to Battambang. In 2005 this had been a great trip... unfortunately it no longer exists. Having smooth paved roads isn't always a good thing. :(

I like Phnom Penh (disclosure of bias: I lived there for almost 8 years) and think you can spend a couple days there easily, between sightseeing, shopping, eating and wandering around - though it depends on your interests, of course.

Three days is good for Siem Reap, as it allows you to mix temple visits with other sights, and include some downtime. I would avoid the boat from PP to SR (especially near the peak of dry season), and go by road (or fly) instead.

I also like Kep / Kampot more than Battambang. Finally, OP said they planned to fly SIN to PNH and return from REP.

With that in mind, I would consider something like this:

Day 1 - SIN-PNH (if I understand correctly, you're on jetstar, so I think you arrive in the morning, allowing time for seeing PP in the afternoon)
Day 1-2 - Phnom Penh (Tuol Sleng / Killing Fields, markets (Russian & Central) / higher-end shopping (e.g. Ambre), Mekong Cruise, Palace and National Museum, walking / cyclo tours, etc.)
Day 3 - to Kep / Kampot (around 3 hours drive; ideally via private car, if you want to do sightseeing / detours along the way)
Day 4-5 - Kep / Kampot
Day 6 Kep/Kampot to Siem Reap (full-day drive; avoid stopping in PP; lunch / rest breaks on the road around Snuol and/or Kampong Thom)
Day 7-9 Siem Reap
Day 10 - REP-SIN

I hope this helps!

Michael

Dear everybody,

thanks so much for the very helpful input! I´ll have to ask a friend in SIN to check with Jetstar wheter it is possible to book a SIN-PNH-REP-SIN itinerary, otherwise we would loose one day, as Jetstar has no flights SIN-REP on the day we´d like to start the trip.

If the SIN-PNH-REP-SIN itinerary works out, the plan looks pretty much like this:

Day 1 SIN-PNH flight
Day 2-3 PHN sightseeing
Day 4 PNH-REP flight
Day 5-9 REP sightseeing with a sidetrip to Battambang
Day 10 REP-SIN flight

Once again thanks for the valuable input!

Instead of flying PNH-REP, and then doing a side trip to BTB, you're better off going by land from PP to BTB and then on to SR. It will be quicker overall and you will see more of the country, without repeating (e.g. going SR to BTB and back).

Enjoy your trip.

What Michael said and in this order. Don't backtrack. Do this as a one-way circuit and do it by road (either bus, share taxi, or private car as per your budget). PNH-BTB is 5 hours (there will be a pitstop enroute) and BTM-SR is 3 hours (ditto). So on each travel day, figure the morning is devoted to the intercity bus. That still leaves you pretty much a useable afternoon on each of those days. If your SIN-PNH flight is in the morning, and you get an afternoon in PNH, then that afternoon plus one more full day is probably enough for PP. Then just book a return open jaws SIN-PNH and REP-SIN.

We recently spent 13 days in Cambodia, and similarly got the Jetstar flights (into Siem Reap, back from PP), We had 5 days in Siem Reap, 4 in PP, 2 in Kampot and 2 in Kep. for us this was great though I could probably drop Kep if pushed. Siem Reap is amazing and you can easily spend much longer than 5 days but we decided to picj just a small no. of temples a day and then enjoy the hotel/eating and the very cheap drinking. Would not bother with plane SR to PP, our hotel arranged a mini can (about 12 people which took 4 hours at $9 pp!). With the need to get to the airport early the flight would not be much faster and frankly its a realy good way to see the real Cambodia.

Hotels, check tripadvisor, we stayed in a really nice hotel (Frangipani Villa) in SR for only $25 per night, there are a number of very cheap yet very nice hotels in SR a good place to upscale a bit. Ours was a great Colonial place, pool and all and just lovely staff. PP was more expensive but places like Hotel 252 looked great at a very reasonable price. If I can persuade you to go to Kampot Rikitikitavi is defeineitly the best and probably best food we had in Cambodia (and cocktails were great and cheap too).

As of last month, my new splurge in Cambodia: I buy two bus seats for myself. :p

First class for $20 for the six hours from SR to PP or vv. :cool:

Agreed, thats the other option, out Hotel suggested the van was slightly cheaper and faster but only marginal. Boat however is much slower (35pp) and after the first hour apparently somewhat boring!

I can second Burmans that in Kampot, Rikitikitavi Guest House has nice rooms and great food. I did Kep as a daytrip from Kampot, by finding a local with one of those motorized 3-wheelers to take me around and back.