Siem Reap, Cambodia

How to best celebrate your birthday if not by spending a weekend away. That's how I celebrated my 36th birthday in April 2010, by visiting the charming Siem Reap in Cambodia, home of the world famous temple complex Angkor Wat. The first impression I had when landing in Siem Reap was to step back a few dozens years. The place, starting from its airport, is very quiet and calming. The colonial architecture reminds of charming old days and it all blends perfectly in a East meets West pot of styles and colours.

Pavillon D'Orient - Restaurant

As soon as we arrived we were welcomed by our driver, who took us straight to our accommodation, the boutique hotel Pavillon D'Orient (http://www.pavillon-orient-hotel.com/). The reason why I booked it was because I had never seen any hotel with so many consistent good reviews (click here to go to the Trip Advisor review page ). The actual service met our expectations indeed. The hotel is managed by a French-Cambodian family and I believe it's a conversion of what used to be their old family house. It is simply perfect, not too expensive at 100 USD/night including breakfast, with a nice spa, clean and stylish rooms, swimming pool and a nice little restaurant with a veranda overlooking a pond where they serve breakfast. The staff is really great and they did their best to make our stay as pleasant as possible. 

Pavillon D'Orient - Bedroom

The hotel is not right in the middle of Siem Reap, but they provided an all-day tuk-tuk service included in the price, which is the best way to travel around during the day to visit the temples and at night to go downtown. Bear in mind Siem Reap is quite small, so the tuk-tuk ride from the hotel to the main tourist area took not more than 10-15 mins. After check-in we immediately started with the temples tour. I did not expect the complex to be actually so large, so we were lucky to start soon when we arrived to avoid to kill ourselves.
After a few hours of touring the temples, we went back for a nice relaxing swim and then our tuk-tuk drove us downtown where we had a traditional Cambodian khmer cuisine for just a few dollars!
The second day we woke-up very early to enjoy what it was probably the highlight of the trip: the sunrise visit to Angkor Wat, the main and most known temple in the complex, with some amazing views of the sun rising just behind the temple.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

After that we went back to the hotel to grab breakfast, relax a bit before going back to complete the tour of the remaining temples always trusting our good tuk-tuk driver.

Tuk Tuk 

We finished off the day with a well deserved massage at the hotel spa, followed by yet another delicious meal at Siem Reap Old Market area.
Overall a great weekend to celebrate yet another birthday abroad!