Siem Reap & Phi Phi Island

[kpol]

We are headed to Cambodia and Thailand the beginning of next month and I'm in need of some hotel recs. We'll be in Siem Reap for 3 nights, Phuket for the majority of the time and we'd like to hop over to Phi Phi Island for 2 days. We've been to Phuket before and know where we are staying but if you all have any other recs for Phuket, I'll take them!

I'd love to hear any Siem Reap tips and/or recommendations and whatever you've all got for Phi Phi. The Phuket portion is going to be relax, relax, relax!

[expatjen]

We just left Siem Reap this morning and stayed for 4 nights at the Park Hyatt. It was great - big rooms and good food. We did a MicroFlight over Siem reap (the pilot is a guy named Eddie from Virginia), a scavenger hunt through Siem Reap and went on an ATV rode through rural Siem Reap one afternoon. We also went to Ankor wat at sunrise - but I thought it was a bit underwhelming. Overall, it was a really great trip. And the weather is fantastic.
Have a great time on your trip!

[frlcb]

Hire a driver with a/c. Go out to Beng Melea, it's awesome.

[mdgirl]

In Siem Reap we stayed at Viroth's and we loved it. Great room, yummy breakfast, good drinks at the rooftop bar, recommended by the NY Times and Conde Nast Travler, and it's very reasonable. I think when we stayed there it was around $100/night and it doesn't look like it's gone up much. We arranged a private driver through them and we like him a lot. It was nice to be able to set our own schedule for sightseeing.

[GilliC]

Agree with Beng Mealea. Go now, because it's getting a lot of hype from Lonely Planet, and it was surprisingly crowded when we were there a few weeks ago. (Not crowded like Angkor Wat or Ta Prohm, but the days of "We were the only ones there!" are long gone.)

We did three straight days of temple visits, so we didn't see much else. I had planned to visit one of the floating villages farther from town, but we didn't realize that we would see dozens of floating villages up close on the boat from Battambang, so we didn't bother making a dedicated trip from Siem Reap. But they were definitely fascinating! Sadly there are tons of negative reviews about the way the tours to Chong Kneas (the closest to Siem Reap) are run, so I would skip that one in favor of one of the others in the area.

If you want to avoid the huge crowds at the more popular temples, definitely consider the timing advice in the Lonely Planet book. We took their advice and visited Angkor Wat first thing after sunrise (when most big groups head back for breakfast), and it was so much quieter and easy to get around at 7-8 than it was when we were leaving around 9:30, and it allegedly gets busier in the afternoon, since it's west-facing. Likewise, they suggest Bayon in the afternoon, since it usually gets the big groups in the morning. We ended up at Ta Prohm during a busy time, and it was pretty miserable. Massive tour groups, and as soon as one was gone, another was coming in. I would have hated just about every temple if we'd been in those crowds!

I wasn't a big fan of Siem Reap itself. It seemed like a crazy beach town, and Pub Street could be deafening at night. After 10 days in other parts of Cambodia, Siem Reap didn't even feel like it was part of the same country! If you do want a night on the town, I would definitely recommend The Lane over Pub Street and The Alley. It's smaller and harder to notice (the next alley north of Pub Street), but it's so much quieter, and there are some great places on that street. We loved lounging around on the old rice-bag pillows under the old wooden house at Asana, and it was a welcome sanctuary from the craziness a block away!

I really liked our hotel (Bunwin Residence), but it was a small resort with individual villas in a village 4 km away from town, so it required a bit of planning and patience to get to/from the city. They have a couple of dedicated tuk-tuks for the guests, and they give you a phone to call them to come pick you up when you're ready to go back. I liked the peacefulness of being away from the city and the charm of staying out in the country among farms and rice fields, but it's definitely for everyone. I think we paid $70 or 80 per night during high season.

We hired a car through from the hotel for the day we went to Banteay Srei and Beng Mealea, since they're longer trips, but we hired the same tuk-tuk driver for the other two days. I think we originally agreed on $16/day which included a little extra to come all the way out to our hotel, and we agreed on $5 for extras like driving all the way out to the Roluos temples or making the sunrise trip to Angkor Wat. He was a very nice guy, and we were very happy with him, so we took down his contact info if you want to arrange something in advance ([e-mail], [phone]). His name is Ra.

ETA - If you want to eat at Haven, consider making a reservation ahead of time. They were closed for a private function one of the nights that we were there, so we never got around to trying it. We did go to Gigi Brasil, which is currently #4 on TripAdvisor. Not because of it's TripAdvisor ranking, but because we saw an ad for it while we were around town, and we thought it would be fun, since my boyfriend's Brazilian and we don't have any Brazilian restaurants here at home. It was a pricier than most places we ate, but it was good, and the owner is fabulous! She's considering shutting down, though.

[frlcb]

Jan 18, 2015 15:13:08 GMT -5 GilliC said:

Agree with Beng Mealea. Go now, because it's getting a lot of hype from Lonely Planet, and it was surprisingly crowded when we were there a few weeks ago. (Not crowded like Angkor Wat or Ta Prohm, but the days of "We were the only ones there!" are long gone.)

This makes me sad. We were the only people there when we went and it was fabulous, we explored and never saw a single person other than our guide.

[GilliC]

Jan 18, 2015 16:47:15 GMT -5 frlcb said:

Jan 18, 2015 15:13:08 GMT -5 GilliC said:

Agree with Beng Mealea. Go now, because it's getting a lot of hype from Lonely Planet, and it was surprisingly crowded when we were there a few weeks ago. (Not crowded like Angkor Wat or Ta Prohm, but the days of "We were the only ones there!" are long gone.)

This makes me sad. We were the only people there when we went and it was fabulous, we explored and never saw a single person other than our guide.

What time of day? We were there mid- to late-afternoon. LP lists mid-morning and mid-afternoon as the busy times at Beng Mealea (I was surprised to see them mention busy times at all after everything I'd read about it being so remote and isolated). But we would definitely have had to drive back in the dark to stay beyond the people who were there when we were leaving. There were actually two small buses of Chinese tourists in the lot when we arrived.

I'm definitely thinking that this ought to be an early morning visit now.

That said, we still had fun, and in some of the quieter corners we didn't see other people. Also, we circled around the outside afterwards by ourselves, and only saw 2 or 3 groups of people the entire way around.

[frlcb]

Jan 18, 2015 17:52:12 GMT -5 GilliC said:

Jan 18, 2015 16:47:15 GMT -5 frlcb said:

This makes me sad. We were the only people there when we went and it was fabulous, we explored and never saw a single person other than our guide.

What time of day? We were there mid- to late-afternoon. LP lists mid-morning and mid-afternoon as the busy times at Beng Mealea (I was surprised to see them mention busy times at all after everything I'd read about it being so remote and isolated). But we would definitely have had to drive back in the dark to stay beyond the people who were there when we were leaving. There were actually two small buses of Chinese tourists in the lot when we arrived.

I'm definitely thinking that this ought to be an early morning visit now.

That said, we still had fun, and in some of the quieter corners we didn't see other people. Also, we circled around the outside afterwards by ourselves, and only saw 2 or 3 groups of people the entire way around.

I can't remember, it was 4 years ago. Probably morning? I am sure it is more popular now.

[kpol]

This is all great info! Thanks! We definitely plan on hiring a driver and I had heard Pub Street is a little crazy. Thanks for the tip to check out The Lane!

[Alyssa]

I vote to go with no reservations. Just show up and find a place. Most times you will see a brochure and it is a whole lot different in person. Best to check out a place before agreeing to stay.

I stayed in Phuket, then moved down to Phi Phi Ley and found a great little bungalow. Then we moved off to Krabi, Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and then off to Siem Reap. No reservations.

I will say that the Soup Dragon in Siem Reap is really good, I recommend that place for Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner.