Siem Reap - The Extension

We had planned to leave Siem Reap, and Cambodia, on a Friday - starting a 6-week journey through Vietnam. Vietnam offers visas on arrival, and the easiest is your typical 30-day visa (on an American passport). Of course, you can also get a 60-day visa. We have generally seen “visa on arrival” as you literally get the visa when you are entering through a major international airport. Vietnam is not this. You need written approval to get on a plane going to Vietnam - which we did not know until we showed up at the Cambodian airport ready to board the plane. We got turned away from the plane. (We learned later that Vietnam would have been annoyed if we had arrived, but there was a high likelihood they would have let us into the country after a lecture.)

Suddenly we were stuck in Cambodia, on a Friday afternoon, scrambling to get a Vietnam visa. Their visa services are open Monday to Friday and generally take 3-10 business days. We were traveling there to be there for one of the largest national holidays, independence day, which would shut the country down the following Thursday.

We ended up finding a visa service and deciding to do a 30-day expedited visa, which would allow us to board a plane on Tuesday. This gives us enough time to connect through Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi and be in the capital for this celebration. In the meantime, we had an extra weekend in Siem Reap.

An Extra Weekend in Siem Reap

The first day, Saturday, we took off - both of us were exhausted and we were going to take a rest day anyway. I watched Netflix, got takeout, and fought a small cold I had.

On Sunday and Monday, we revisited Angkor Wat again - our 4th and 5th visits.

On Sunday we took a tuk-tuk to the temple that sits high on a hill to watch the sunset. It was the first time that we were able to see the larger Angkor Wat Archeological Complex from above - and really take in the vastness. There are two huge reservoirs that supported the city, oriented east and west. We could see the West Baray, the western reservoir, filled with water. It is huge, larger than many airplane runways, and it was impressive. We could see Angkor Wat and the five pillars that define its architecture. We could see far to other temples and the town nearby. It was incredible!

For Monday, we went back to a temple we had taken photos of but did not get a chance to explore, the Baphuon Temple.

Climbing up the side to the top of the temple was quite steep, even with the stair modifications for current populations. I have a slight nervousness around heights, so I sang the ABCs going up and down the temple steps. At the top, I found a beautiful view of the top of a pillar that I drew. Tim took LOTS of doorway photos for his Instagram.

We then went to Bayon Temple, as I wanted to see the amazing faces again. It was late in the day and I remarked that I kind of wanted to draw them. Even though Tim was tired and we were both hungry, he encouraged me to do a drawing and really commit to drawing in the time I needed (which is usually about 30 minutes or so). It was really generous, given I knew how tired and hungry he was. I did a second drawing and felt really glad that we had slowed down to take in the temple again. He ran around with the camera taking photos. I drew. It was great.

We took the tuk-tuk back, packed, and were ready for our flight out of Cambodia!