Is Siem Reap the Best City in Cambodia?

Good morning from Siem Reap, one of the most popular cities here in Cambodia. We have a lot planned today but first our Tuk Tuk needs breakfast. So now that Noodle has her breakfast and let's just say she really needed it. So anyway now we are on our way heading to a floating village I believe but today we're going to be exploring the city outside of the temples and we'll, yeah, we're going to do the temples another day. But let's go! So we just arrived to Khopung Klaon village. So the way it works here from my understanding it's like a part of an eco-tourism project. So you actually pay an entrance fee to go visit the village. It's 20 or 25 dollars, I'll let you know in a minute, and that comes with the boat tour and some of that money actually goes back to the people in the village which is super cool. So it is 20 USD a person. It just gave me on google map a place called just boat parking and hopefully we're going to be able to catch a boat from there. Let's go! So we got a little bit lost in the village but it's just mainly because we're going off google maps which is totally fine but direction-wise there are so many roads that are not on google maps. So we just went one block, not far enough basically. But I think we found it and we are at the boat parking lot. Thankfully locals are very helpful. Yes, locals are very helpful. Now let's figure out where to get the boat. Can't be that far from these big buses. Thank you. We got lucky there's nothing else on the boat just me and Tracy. Private tour right there. So to be honest people who live in villages are some of the smartest people we ever meet. Like even the way this boat is run right now when he turns the wheel the rope goes around to the back to make us turn. Now that being said it just takes all of this like we're so used to relying on electronics and everything like this but this if it breaks you know exactly where the rope is going to sit. So this specific village is the largest floating village in this province. As you can tell all the houses are on still very very far from the water because right now we are kind of in the dry season but when the river goes up it goes all the way up very close to the houses. Otherwise this village is home to over 10,000 people. Obviously the main source of income is fishing and you can see fishermen everywhere catching all kinds of different fish. We also saw them from the road selling what they're catching. They seem to be doing a lot of smoked fish as well which is really really nice. So there are multiple villages that you can visit. This one is the least touristy one from what I saw because it is the furthest one away about 55 kilometers from Siem Reap. But tourists will always find these hidden gems for long morning so I brought a protein bar. I didn't think, I didn't know it was gonna be hot but I didn't think it was on the bottom of it. Quick stop because her propeller got stuck in the net, an old net I think. And we are back online and by the way this where we are right now is part of the Mekong River network which is the longest river in all of Southeast Asia. It goes from China to Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. And just like that about an hour and a half later we are back. Well worth it. So fun. I highly suggest it to be honest. Like it's very interesting to see like a different way of life. Like these fishermen are working hard. Thank you so much. Pleasure. Back on the road. So it's getting, actually it's past lunchtime. So we stopped at a little market here. I saw it on their first time down going into Siem Reap. So this time that we're going back I definitely want to stop and get some food. More specifically noodles. Not that noodle, just eating noodles. So we've got a bowl of ramen with a lot of different meat. I'm gonna be honest like most of this to me is like Mr. Meat. I have no idea what it is. I would say probably a little bit of organ meat. Some sort of like meatball. No idea what it is. Tastes good though. But the highlight as usual is the broth. Like oh it's so full of flavor. I think the name of the game here for food in Cambodia, for me at least, is all of their noodle soups. They're my favorite to be honest. So that was a pretty good noodle. Once again I'm not 100% confident on like what we ate but it tasted delicious and it costed 5,000 per bowl which is a really good deal. Agreed. Back on the road. Okay so on the main road that takes you from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, very close to Siem Reap, there's like all these ladies. There's probably like over 50 of them roasting bamboo stick. For the longest time we didn't really know what it was but we googled it and apparently it's some sticky rice. I asked her how to eat it because I have no idea and she just says you peel it. Okay and see there's leaves inside and stuff. She's gonna show us. Perfect. Thank you. There you go. So inside it's like sticky rice with beans. I guess I just like... I think you just bite into it to be honest. It's pretty nice. It's kind of sweet a little bit. It's good. Yeah it looks like black beans in it I would say. Oh it has coconut. Yeah. For sure it has coconut. I like it. It's pretty good. So that was actually really really good. Like sweet spot craving. So quick stop at our hotel to freshen up because after that we're gonna go to the night market but as you can see it is not night time yet so can't go to the night market when the sun is out. Welcome home. Sun is going down meaning it's time for the night market. So what we can see so far it seems like the city is coming alive at night. I mean we haven't seen this many cars on the road or motorbikes anything like that honestly since we arrived and we've been here for two days but yeah so it's definitely alive in the evening. Okay so where we're at right now there's a little bit of everything. You want street food, you want to sit down a restaurant, you want to buy souvenir or you want your dead skin on your feet to be eaten by fish. They have that too. Real Nord face right? Tracy's officially a criminal. She bought a counterfeit bag. No one needs to know. So there are tons of counterfeit items here in Cambodia. The thing is is like I'm not even sure if they're cheaper quality because most of these products including Nord Face are actually made in Cambodia and a lot of them are just have like little default or just literally made in the same factory and then they just sell them as knockoff. So for 10 bucks that's a pretty good deal. I don't care because here's the thing someone might be able to tell the difference but I can't. I don't think there is a difference. There's even the tags and everything so yeah good deal. Thank you so much. Have a good day. As I always say every country that I go to I buy a shot glass not because I use them to drink not at all I just think it's a cool little souvenir and they had like beautiful hand-painted one. They were 5 USD so I didn't even bargain. I don't even know if it's a thing to bargain here but I didn't try because it was a good deal. I mean it was handmade. So we stopped to get a bite to eat and honestly so we're at Riverside Market. I would say the inside with like Pub Street and everything is your souvenirs your actual marketing things. On the outside along the street are all the street vendors for food so if you're looking for food that's the place to go. Yeah we came out and then the guy was like do you want Cambodian noodles and I said yes. Here we are. So they're making everything from scratch like in portion there and I do have to say the first thing I noticed is like I have never seen a cleaner street vendor utility space ever. I was mind blown. I got a beautiful chicken fried rice and I was brought like a broth too. I don't know if I'm supposed to like pour it on top but I decided that that's what I'm supposed to do. That's very good. Yeah? Yeah. Each dish $1.50. Can't go wrong. It's so light. I mean like the rice is just so fresh like they make them to order. The lady's cooking in the big wok right there like it took like two minutes per dish. Oh that is good. Thank you. Also got myself a banana, mango and pineapple. Fresh juice like 100% fruit for $1. Like you couldn't even buy the quarter of a pineapple in Canada for $1. This is completely different. I asked yesterday somebody told me something completely different. Different pronunciation. I'll work on it. Thank you. Thank you. See you. Well welcome to, you guessed it, Pub Street. This is like the party neighborhood of the city. It's super cool. Don't get me wrong like this does not look like a local spot. Oh yeah. I know. I feel like I'm in somewhere in the United States right now. I feel like I'm in Vegas. Yeah that's true. That's a Vegas style. Yeah. But I mean if you want to party, have a couple drinks, this is the place to be. Super nice. But yeah let's see if we can maybe grab a beer. Just one though because we gotta wake up real early in the morning. Hello. Hi how are you? Just have a drink. Okay. Yeah. Sit there? Yeah yeah. Perfect. Thank you. On this street most bars, the local beers $0.75. Undraft. Undraft. You can get a bottle for so much more. It's $1.25. That's a great deal. I mean like you can you can party for like 10 bucks here. Oh easy. Good thing I'm in my 30s and not my like late teens. Yeah you're too old for that. And we gotta wake up at 4 30 tomorrow morning. Y'all please hold the applause. To the end of the ceremony. Let's go. Look around us. There ain't no fences. Just bridges to the ears of the listeners. On deck taking swings. Sharper senses looking for a weakness in the system. Finally it's you and me. Here shaking like a tambourine. I don't remember if I filmed Tracy getting out of the tuk-tuk. Like the tuk-tuk is there. It's still very close to where I parked it. But this is not where I parked it. This is not how I parked it. It just mind boggles me that sometimes I come back to the tuk-tuk and it's not exactly where I left it. Somebody moved it. Okay so like we said and as you can see it's very evident that this place comes alive at night. So if you can plan for a day where you're gonna have extra energy in the evening and come to the night market. Get some yummy food. Get your souvenirs. Go shopping. Whatever you want to do but you cannot miss this city at night. It's a vibe. You can feel it in the air. Made it back safe and sound. Just in case you want to know if you want to rent a tuk-tuk for yourself. Tongue twister. Check out Tuk Tuk Rentals. So they're actually in Sri Lanka and they're here in Cambodia as well. The really cool story with them is they give back to the community. They don't own these tuk-tuks. They basically rent them from locals who own them when we want if that makes sense. So that way the money goes back into the community. Love them. Did it in Sri Lanka. Can't say enough good about them. We would love if they could expand to other countries because like this is the best way to travel. Tracy's very happy about her purchase. She's like keep wearing it and stuff. Anyway that's pretty much it because tomorrow we've got to wake up at 4 30 in the morning to go see what potentially is the eighth wonder in the world. But for you guys that's going to be in the next video. So until next time see you guys in the next one.