Angkor Wat, the name evokes a combination of Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, and books. I have read and heard about this temple during my History of Architecture classes way back in college, have memorized its name for exams. And now finally, years after, I’m gonna see it with my own two eyes and feel its rough stone columns with my own bare hands.

MORNING AT ANGKOR WAT

The first time I laid my eyes on Angkor Wat was on a late Sunday morning. It was during the early month of February, it was a holiday. Instead of stopping and walking along its 190-meter long sandstone bridge and crossing over its mighty moat, I instructed our tuk-tuk driver to speed on and proceed to our next temple. There were just too many people. Hordes and hordes of visitors making some sort of pilgrimage to a tourist Mecca.

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A man carrying a twisted wooden staff and wearing a shiny golden dress emerged from one of the stone towers of Prasat Bayon. I doubled back, are we on a movie set?

We were on our last leg of our Angkor Thom tour. Having previously visited three out of its eight major sites, we were dead tired. That weariness, however, quickly wore off as we emerged on the upper deck of the Bayon temple where massive, serene stone faces greeted us.

LOK LEK FOR LUNCH AT ANGKOR THOM

The sun was at its brightest as we went out from the makeshift eateries near the Leper King Terrace inside Angkor Thom’s enormous complex. We’ve had our fix of lok lek for lunch and were rarin’ to do the daunting Angkor Thom tour. The complex covers an area of 145.8 hectares; it was simply impossible to do this on just one afternoon.

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It was our third straight day of temple hopping and to be honest, we were quite templed out. We’ve really had enough of temples dedicated to Shiva and the millions of Hindu gods out there. But this was a special day. Today we get to visit Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. Two temples I’ve read with wonder on my History of Architecture book back in college. Today we get to see them in real life.

TA PROHM TEMPLE, AMAZINGLY DEVOID OF TOURISTS

Together with our ever reliable tuk-tuk driver from Happy Guesthouse, Nga, we again zipped through the forest roads of Siem Reap. Our target, five temples—Angkor Wat, Banteay Kdei, Ta Prohm. and Angkor Thom’s Phimeanakas, Baphuon and Bayon temples. Our tour is actually a combination of two tours, the Angkor and Little Circuit Tour. We left out some of the temples on the Small Circuit tour—Prasat Kravan, Srah Srang, and Ta Keo—to accommodate the massive Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom temples of the Angkor Tour.

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The salt water pool at Sokha Angkor Resort was heaven. It almost made us forget the Little Circuit Temple Tour that we’re supposed to be doing that day—spending too much time swimming and goofing around the hotel’s huge pool after breakfast. It was our second time in Siem Reap and this time, we decided to splurge a bit.

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SOKHA ANGKOR RESORT GRAND LOBBY

Coming from an overnight bus ride from Thailand, we arrived at Siem Reap at quarter past nine. We hailed a tuk-tuk and were dropped off at the Sokha Angkor Resort’s driveway in a few minutes. We knew, as we entered its expansive lobby, that we’re gonna be in for a treat.

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The music pumped. No more temples. They danced. No more temples. I drank my beer. No more temples. We don’t want any more temples! What we wanted was beer. More beer. More beer. And the city has just the place for us—the ubiquitously named Siem Reap Pub Street.

THE FLAMBOYANT PUB STREET IN SIEM REAP

Tucked on a not-so-quiet street in the Old Market Area of Siem Reap, far from the ancient Angkor temples, is Pub Street. It’s where tourists go after a whole day of temple hopping. It’s where the backpackers go after a day of biking. It’s where it’s happening.

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A face—eyes closed, chiseled on a rough stone, faded by time. A wall—carved with unreadable inscriptions, strange reliefs running hundreds of feet on both ends. A fig tree—sacred, towering several meters high, roots clinging like a spindly spider legs on a cracked ruin.

A KID PLAYING ALONG THE GROUNDS OF BANTEAY SREI

Siem Reap is like leaping into a real life Tomb Raider game, only we’re not sprinting ahead with Colt 45’s a blazin’, but with Canon and Nikons a clickin’—dodging no tigers nor thugs, but tourists clad in bright, colorful garbs

Welcome to Siem Reap. It was a good day for a run, a temple run.

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Our trip to Siem Reap wouldn’t have been as much fun if not for Happy Guesthouse, its owner Chhorpoan and our tuk-tuk driver, Nga. We really weren’t able to stay at their place, having previously booked at the Angkor Tropical Resort, but our tour and most of our meals were from this lodging.

WELCOME TO HAPPY GUESTHOUSE! ~ PHOTO BY NALYN ACASIO

Happy Guesthouse is located at the backpacking district of Wat Bo Village in Siem Reap. It’s on a little, unpaved side street right before the stately Siem Reap River and is walking distance away from the flamboyant Pub Street and the Old Market area. It’s a family run business, and we felt that right away as we entered its gates.

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Steadily, our canoe started to dock at a floating platform at Kompong Phluk’s Flooded Forest. We just finished a magical ride along the gnarled trees, flooded by the nearby Tonlé Sap Lake. And it was such a wonderful encounter that we absolutely didn’t mind paying a relatively hefty amount just to experience it.

BOAT RIDE THROUGH SIEM REAP’S FLOODED FOREST

My buddy jumped off the canoe on to the ledge, and as I was about to follow her when a motorboat suddenly roared across the other side of the river. Our canoe started to drift away from the platform exactly as my right foot planted itself on its wooden boards.

Everything started to play in slow motion as the distance between the boat I was on and the platform, where my other foot was now planted on, started to widen. I can’t freakin’ believe this is happening.

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