Breakfast with the Crew

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When traveling with a chartered tour group, typically there might be a tour guide and support crew (e.g. driver) who would take the group from place to place. But when it comes time to a meal time during the tour, when the group goes to a restaurant or a particular place to eat, the crew would either be the ones serving the food, or else they would leave the guests eating at the restaurant while they would go separately or wait elsewhere. I noticed that during our first couple of days in Siem Reap; our tour guide Vanna and driver Hour would take us to a restaurant, and then would leave us there to enjoy our meal and meet us outside the restaurant once we’re done.

On our last day in Siem Reap, after we spent the early morning at Angkor Wat experiencing the first sunrise of the year, it was time for us to head back to the hotel to pack up and later on continue with our tour for the day. However, since it’s a private tour and we got to call the shot on the itinerary for the day, I asked Vanna and Hour if we could go to a good place where local folks would go for breakfast, and I told them that Kristi and I would like to have them join us for the meal — our treat. The only ‘requirement’ was that the place we would go to has to be one that both of them would go themselves if they were to go out on their own.

Vanna suggested a restaurant in downtown Siem Reap that was popular with the locals. The price was not cheap for them, but it’s still reasonable enough that he said he would go there once every few weeks or so when he would like to eat out. So we went to a restaurant called Kids Plaza — named that way because it had indoor playground for the kids. Vanna said it’s one of his favorite restaurants in the city, especially good for breakfast.

We had really good breakfast there. Good food (noodle soups, rice porridge, fresh juice) and also good conversations. We found out that our driver Hour used to be a driver at the Amansara, an ultra-luxurious but low key resort in Siem Reap. The Amansara is part of the Aman Resorts, which is a small but among the highest rated hotel groups in the world. The founder of Aman Resorts, Adrian Zecha, is part Indonesian. Hour told the story how Mr. Zecha was very down to earth and friendly to his employees and guests.

The photo below was taken right before we enjoy our meal together. It was a nice experience as we got to thank them for their service taking us to places during our visit to Siem Reap. We also got to learn about their life stories; now we consider them as friends rather than simply people who serve us during our trip. I think if you can, that would be a great idea to do when visiting a place, try to make it personal by building friendship / relationship with the locals you encounter. It makes for a unique, unforgettable experience.

Breakfast with the crew

First Sunrise of the Year

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After going to bed early the night before, we woke up early for the experience we had been planning for the trip, seeing the first sunrise of the year 2011 at Angkor Wat. We were ready to go before 6 am when it’s still dark. Our tour guide Vanna and Hour came on time to pick us up. They looked quite sleepy; it turned out that they actually went to celebrate New Year’s Eve in downtown Siem Reap as well, and they stayed there until after midnight.

The short drive from the hotel to Angkor Wat went like the day before — we waited a little bit at the entrance of the Angkor Archaeological Park to get our entrance passes checked. When we arrived at Angkor Wat, however, we realized that there were significantly more people compared to the previous morning. We’re not the only ones with the idea of going to see the first sunrise of the year at Angkor Wat. Perhaps some people even went directly from celebrating in downtown Siem Reap to end their New Year’s celebration with watching sunrise at Angkor Wat.

The picturesque north pond near the temple was already surrounded by the crowd waiting for the sun to rise and seeing the reflection of the temple on the pond. We decided to go to the south pond across the walkway instead. It was less picturesque as the pond’s water surface seemed a little murky, but there were not that many people there. So I set up my tripod and camera to wait for the sunrise. As we waited for the sunrise, we saw a group of Cambodian children with some adult chaperones gathering near us. It seemed like they were a group doing a field trip — perhaps children from villages or from an orphanage. They seemed to have fun; entertaining and great to see on the first day of the year.

The sun finally came up. The sky was a little cloudy, so the sunrise was not as clear as the day before. I was glad we were there the previous day and got the nicer photos already, but it’s still nice to fulfill our plan of celebrating the beginning of the year at Angkor Wat. It’s definitely a New Year’s Day to remember.

The photo below was taken after we took some photos on the south pond. We walked to the other side to watch people watching the sunrise there. You can see the crowd waiting to see the magical moment near the pond.

New Year's crowd

New Year’s Eve

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New Year’s Eve is one of the unique times of the year when you have an event that is celebrated widely around the world. There are some iconic places in the world where the passing into the new year would be celebrated and likely shown to others around the world on television (e.g., Times Square, Sydney Harbor, Eiffel Tower, Moscow Red Square), but regardless where you are, there is likely some special events organized to celebrate this event.

When planning for the Southeast Asia trip, Kristi and I knew that we would be passing into the new year somewhere during the trip. So we decided to pick a place that would be memorable to do so; we thought it would be neat to experience the first sunrise of the year at one of the most recognizable landmarks in Southeast Asia, the temple of Angkor Wat. That was the anchor place on our itinerary, and the rest of the travel plans was put together around that. And that means the New Year’s Eve would be spent in the nearby city of Siem Reap.

After a full day of visiting the temples of Angkor, we went to downtown Siem Reap for dinner, and after a nice dinner at the Angkor Palm Restaurant and dessert at the Blue Pumpkin, we walked around in the Old Market area for a while to see the activities around. There were a lot of people around, but that’s probably quite normal in that touristy area especially at that time of the year that’s considered a high season for tourism. When we got closer to the popular Pub Street, however, we started seeing places decorated and crowd started building up as it’s getting closer to midnight. We walked passed the street earlier in the evening and it was still quite empty. As we continued on to another street nearby, we passed an area where there were restaurants set up on the side of the road with open kitchen where cooks were preparing grilled foods. The aroma of the food cooking on the grill was very inviting for the passersby; too bad we already had our dinner.

We decided to head back to our hotel after that, around 9 pm or so, since we didn’t want to oversleep and miss the moment we’re planning to experience the following morning. So we celebrated the passing into the new year… but with the folks in Australia on television.

The photo below was taken near the Pub Street. You can see the crowd starting to build up for the New Year’s Eve celebration.

New Year's Eve

The Blue Pumpkin

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The Blue Pumpkin is a pastry and ice cream store chain in Siem Reap, Cambodia. They serve freshly baked pastries, cookies, and breads, but people especially come to this place for its ice cream and sorbet. They serve sorbet with all kinds of unique flavors (many based on local fruits), and in a place like Siem Reap where it can get pretty hot outside, having something refreshing like some sorbet is definitely appealing to a visitors.

We found out about the Blue Pumpkin from the same British couple that suggested the Angkor Palm as a place for dinner. The Blue Pumpkin store location in the Old Market area of Siem Reap was right next door to the Angkor Palm. The British couple told us that they thought the Angkor Palm was a good place to eat, but regardless whether we eat there or not, they said save some room for dessert and don’t miss the Blue Pumpkin with its sorbet.

After finishing our dinner at the Angkor Palm, we were served some sorbet there to complete our New Year’s Eve special meal. We didn’t ask where the restaurant got their sorbet from, but we suspect it came from the store right next door from them. After we finished with our meal at the Angkor Palm, we went next door to the Blue Pumpkin, and we were quite amazed seeing the array of unique flavors that they had there — lots of local, tropical fruits that you wouldn’t find in a similar store in the US, like dragon fruit, passion fruit, jackfruit, durian, etc. I ended up getting the Khmer fruits sorbet, which was a combination flavor of several tropical fruits that actually worked quite well. The sorbet was quite light and refreshing; it didn’t feel too much even when having it after a dinner beforehand.

You can see on the photo below some of the flavors that they had at the Blue Pumpkin. It’s definitely a good place to go when you’re in Siem Reap, especially to cool down during or after a hot day sightseeing in the area.

Blue Pumpkin Flavors

Angkor Palm

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Angkor Palm is a restaurant on Market Street in downtown Siem Reap, Cambodia, not far from the popular Pub Street. This restaurant server Khmer food. We ate at Angkor Palm per recommendation of a couple of travelers whom we met at our hotel. It was New Year’s Eve when we went to the restaurant, so they had a special deal that included several dishes, a cocktail drink, and dessert. The price for the combination was pretty reasonable (USD $15), so we decided to try it out.

The owner of the restaurant was very nice and welcoming to his guests, but it seemed that several of the wait staff didn’t have as good command of English, so there were times that he had to intervene to help the staff. They were all very polite and courteous, so for us that was not a problem.

When we ordered, there was a miscommunication and we ended up with one set of the combination meal (but with individual cocktails) instead of our intended order of two sets. The one set of dishes was big enough for us to share, so it ended up working out well. But I could see such miscommunication causing problems for other guests.

The food was really good, even though some of the dish names on the menu were a bit strange or misspelled (eggplant caviar (?), calamary, stir-fried mixte vegetable). The ice cream dessert was excellent — I think it was supplied by an excellent ice-cream shop next door, The Blue Pumpkin.

You can see in the photo below the New Year’s Eve special dish that we ordered. Onesampler dish was plenty for both of us. The sampler included: cocktail drink (we had mojitos), Khmer spinach crab soup, mango salad, eggplant ‘caviar’, calamari, amok fish, satay scallops, stir-fried mixed vegetables, steamed jasmine rice, and ice cream.

New Year's Eve sampler