Siem Reap, Cambodia: Why It’s the Most Popular City in Cambodia

Ep.86 Have you ever visited a place and thought, “I could live here!” We take you around this tourist-friendly city and show you why we we’re so impressed. By the end of this episode, you too might be wondering if Cambodia is a country worthy of an extended stay.

💥 Go to https://findingGinaMarie.com/join to join our free travel forum and learn more about our Gelato Levels!

🔗LINKS
Favorite Restaurants in Siem Reap https://findingginamarie.com/articles/favorite-restaurants-in-cambodia
Cambodian Whisky Review https://youtu.be/w_Fksf6cZzc?si=KicjsCxeOQf1QwdV
Angkor Pass Tickets https://www.angkorenterprise.gov.kh/
The Little Red Fox Espresso https://thelittleredfoxespresso.com
Countryside Bike Tour https://link.findingginamarie.com/SiemReapBikeTour

😎 ***WANT TO SUPPORT OUR CHANNEL?***
☕️ Buy us a coffee (caffeine helps us bring you more great content)! https://bmc.link/findGinaMarie

💥 SUBSCRIBE: https://youtube.com/FindingGinaMarie

😍 Using our affiliate links below helps us to bring you videos from around the world at no cost to you. Thank you very much if you choose to use them!

🧳 Explore All Our Travel Gear: https://findingginamarie.com/gear

🧳 Explore Briggs & Riley Collections: https://link.findingginamarie.com/BriggsAndRiley
👗 Judy’s wool clothes (Wool&): https://link.findingginamarie.com/WomensWool
👕 Kevin’s wool clothes (Wool& Prince): https://link.findingginamarie.com/MensWool
📩 Traveling Mailbox (Mail forwarding service to wherever we travel): https://link.findingginamarie.com/travelingMailbox
💳Earn 60,000 bonus points with Chase Sapphire Reserve: https://link.findingginamarie.com/SapphireReserve
🧾 Our packing list: https://findingginamarie.com/articles/packing-list-how-we-pack-and-travel-with-only-carry-on-luggage
✈️ Best deals on plane travel: Skyscanner skyscanner.pxf.io/eKEJv1
🎵 Music from Epidemic Sound: https://share.epidemicsound.com/747rgk
23andMe: https://refer.23andme.com/s/judy49
Ancestry: https://refer.ancestry.com/judy43

🤓 READ JUDY’S JOURNAL
https://findingginamarie.com/judys-journal

Chapters:
00:00 – Start
01:05 – Arriving in Cambodia
02:04 – Money in Cambodia
02:42 – Where to stay in Siem Reap
03:56 – Our first impressions of Siem Reap
05:35 – The Little Red Fox Espresso Best Coffee & Breakfast
07:51 – Soben Cafe made us feel like locals!
09:17 – Il Forno for Real Italian Dining
10:27 – Malis Restaurant for Christmas Dinner
11:16 – Our Place has delicious food at great prices
11:40 – Pub Street is where the nightlife happens
12:00 – Khmer Kitchen for local cuisine
12:30 – Siem Reap River Street Food Carts
13:02 – Things to do in Siem Reap
14:49 – Seeing Siem Reap by Bike
20:06 – The Holidays in Cambodia
20:38 – What We Paid
23:03 – Would we living in Siem Reap?

Finding Gina Marie is where we share our lives as full-time travelers and the connections we make along the way.

✈️ FOLLOW US
* Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@KevinHoctor
* Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@JudyHoctor
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevinhoctor
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/judyhoctor

✅ FOLLOW FINDING GINA MARIE
* Website: https://findingGinaMarie.com
* YouTube: https://youtube.com/FindingGinaMarie
* Podcast RSS feed: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1967301.rss
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/findGinaMarie

📹 VIDEO EQUIPMENT
* Primary Camera: Sony FX30
* B-Roll Camera: iPhone 14 Pro
* Editing: Final Cut Pro X on a 16” M1 Max MacBook Pro
* Key Light: ZHIYUN MOLUS X100 Bi-Color 100W COB Video Light
* Diffuser: ZHIYUN Quick Release Mini Softbox
* Vocal Microphone: Sony ECM-B10

#findingGinaMarie #worldtraveler #worldtravel #livingthedream #slowtravel #digitalnomad #digitalnomadlife #europetravel #retireearly#retireearlyandtravel

Seam Reap Cambodia is known for its incredibly kind and hardworking people its delicious CH food historic temples affordability and more it has an ease and peace that stole our Hearts welcome back to fine Gina Marie where sh Our Lives is fulltime Travelers and the connections we make along the way if you’re new here welcome I’m Judy and I’m Kevin if you do an internet search on where to stay in Cambodia most of the hits will tell you to go to seam

Which is where anger wat is which is a bucket list place for many many people we tell you what you need to know before you visit and some of the special places that made us feel right at home here in cm reap we’ll also take you on a bike

Ride with a local so that you can see part of the countryside and learn about the Agriculture and the culture of Cambodian people we’ve got a lot to cover in this episode so buckle up and at the end we’ll include everything that we spent right in the center of the brand

New seam re airport prepar to be welcomed by a huge 7 m statue of the four faces of Brahma built with nearly 8 tons of pure copper which was created to bless the passengers who travel to Cambodia that they may be safe and sound from the four directions West north east

And south as recently as October 2023 CM re opened its new airport and closed the old that was much closer to the city seam rap’s economy is built on tourism and the old airport couldn’t handle increased traffic and pollution cause damage to Anchor walk so the drive to

The center of the city will now take about an hour but hopefully you’ll be as lucky as we were and have a great grab driver to act as a mini tour guide and provide commentary along the way over there you see you look Ro beautiful King

When he come here we love using grab app because there are no surprises about how much a drive will cost and you also don’t need cash speaking of cash Cambodia uses the Cambodian reel but it also accepts US Dollars it was weird to sit in a restaurant look across the street and

See the cost of items marked as US Dollars ATMs are easy to find and the ones we used only dispensed American money if you pay in US Dollars your change will be whatever is in their till so either dollars or Cambodian real if your change includes dollars look them

Over to be sure they’re good quality so that you can use them with other vendors if a place accepts credit cards some may tack on an extra 3% to offset the fees but make sure you have cash because many places don’t accept credit cards at all if you need a recommendation on

Where to stay we highly recommend the Central Market Street in Kendall Village we absolutely love the location our Airbnb was incredible and our host Ananda and co-host verc were some of the warmest kindest and most special people we’ve met ever on our travels they made special accommodations for us and moved

Us to a wonderful place that had a patio outside it and also a rooftop area that was set up with Wi-Fi so we could work outside or hang out upstairs there was some construction going on and they would just were the perfect host wanting to make sure that we had everything we

Needed now the water in Cambodia is not drinkable so we were really grateful that they had a water tap that had filtered water it was just outside our apartment we could walk walk out fill water jugs and not have to worry about wasting plastic bottles filtered water that’s nice people also recommend the

Old French Quarter area it’s a nice area Too another rule in Cambodia is you can’t flush the toilet paper so they usually have a bum gun or Beday next to the toilet and you’ll also see a small bin where you can toss your toilet paper instead of flushing it as far as first impressions go we really didn’t have any expectations

Before we arrived we kept open minds and decided to let the experience come to us and boy did it ever we were pretty impressed we arrived on December 22nd so we’re looking forward to experiencing Christmas and New Year’s here there are two basic seasons in Cambodia the hot

Season and the wet season the wet season also was fairly toasty too December was hot and dry so it did mess with our minds about what time of year it was but there were plenty of festive Christmas and New Year’s decorations to remind us the majority of cambodians are Buddhists

But since there is so much tourism here shops decorate for Christmas for its Christian visitors even though it’s not a Cambodian holiday tuck tucks are everywhere and drivers will ask to be hired but they’re not overly aggressive there’s a strong motorbike culture here as well but traffic overall is pretty manageable

Crossing the streets was easier than some places we were in the drivers seem to work a bit more collaboratively with pedestrians which was a welcome thing to experience compar compared to some other parts of Southeast Asia and the whole town seemed a bit quieter there wasn’t as much traffic overall Saturdays were

The days when some places were closed but we were surprised that most people only got one day off per week we were told that’s in large part because the culture of hospitality here and we certainly believe it the level of service here is unmatched before we talk about the incredible food here in

Cambodia we’re excited to share that we’ve started our own absolutely free community Forum that we are calling La Familia you can ask questions about about trip planning and all things related to travel there a video with the details is linked in the description below nearly every place we ate had a

Combination of Western food items and camra Foods on their menus you may know that we love coffee and we are happy campers when we can find a coffee shop that we want to return to day after day in seam reap that place was the little red fox espresso um could we take a

Picture of you all yes and we have a YouTube channel would you be comfortable if we put it on YouTube yes that be okay yes for us as full-time Travelers having a morning routine and seeing familiar faces every day helps us to feel more connected to the locals and create

Relationships that we can cherish long after we leave their beans came from Southeast Asia and the roasted in PanAm pen if you have a big group you can even make reservations and I was in love with their coffee especially their flat whites here on their website are some of

The people that brightened up our mornings Sophia and Sumit we’re ready to take our orders every day they always have had a smile and knew what we wanted even before we could get the words out of our mouths and sometimes we said the wrong thing and they said are you

Sure but no matter who walked in the place every single member of the staff were friendly helpful kind and just wonderful I think it’s a testament to how attuned they are to their customers there’s an item called bougie bowl that I ended up eating a lot do you have a

Very Lively looking bowl of food there yes I do uh this is something that apparently one of the locals or regulars must have requested and so they turned it into an on item item and it’s um beetroot hummus and uh red rice and chickpeas and chia seeds and uh feta and um

Spinach with some sa sauce and some hot chili sauce I think it’s going to be a really Tasty Bite oh and corn oh M it’s very very tasty it’s got a little bit of meat in it on its own I know it’s a really good really really good bite

Very tasty warming little bit of spice on it this white good good enjoy dig it into my flat bacon lettuce avocado and tomato Bagel Clos door Airbnb soin Cafe restaurant and guest house serves some of the best fruit prepet fortunate Ely most of the restaurants we ate at used

Filtered packaged ice versus ice made from tap water so we felt pretty comfortable having some of the frozen fruit Jinx because it was so close we ate several meals at soin Cafe so this is our last night here and kod has been absolutely amazing uh we decided to go

Back to one of our favorite places which has a delicious heart chicken curry it’s just been wonderful I’ll give it a little taste just so you can also know how good it is it’s not a spicy but there’s some spice here if you want to add it which I sometimes do and absolute

Perfection creamy delicious lots of camris and potatoes and chicken and a strawberry uh Trae but it’s been really great we run into these people all the time and and we wave when we go by and eat somewhere else but we are here for our last night very Bittersweet often when we were just

Walking by so’s open air dining room the servers would wave and say hello regardless of what time of day or night it was and definitely not expecting us to come in just being friendly another restaurant with great people was Il Forno it’s not Cambodian at all and we

Do have a Cambodian dinner scheduled for Christmas Day but we thought that it would be a nice little Splurge to treat ourselves to some Italian food because it sounds like it’s supposed to be really good here we had a little guilt eating here because there’s no chimar food on the menu

That’s in part because the owner is a pure Italian he’s accumulated and impressive wine seller and the food here rals places we’ve eaten in Italy especially their Pizza like two hands to pick it up you look like little kids I know I feel like a little kid it’s quite good so

What I wasn’t expecting was it bread to be so addictive nice salt oil and just light it’s dangerous it’s going to make the big meal harder to finish this but honestly every single thing is outstanding that’s partially because all the ingredients are imported from Italy and they make their own homemade pasta

It’s like Italy Christmas dinner at the high-end mes restaurant was a unique experience although we made reservations well in advance we really didn’t need them because we had the restaurant to ourselves for almost the whole time we were there yeah we arrived at 400 p.m.

And no one showed up until almost six as we were wrapping up our meal we had an assortment of Cambodian food including the showy chicken red curry and rice wrapped in a Lotus Leaf chicken cry and in oh wow beautiful thank you that’s lovely we ended with homemade ice cream

And this one Salo coconut and dran wonderful thank you so much thank you thank you and one with sour sap which had a slightly bitter note at the end I didn’t mind the durian but Kevin preferred the coconut most another of our favorite places was a Cambodia restaurant called our place

My go-to dinner was their spicy basil beef with rice and egg as we’re getting settled in there one night we happen to connect with Steve and Hall Steve and his wife tingting are actually the owners of our place but we didn’t know that until we’ve been chatting across a

Table for probably over an hour these sorts of conversations don’t happen everywhere we go but when they do they’re magic a lot of people visit Pub Street which is a vibrant energetic part of the city with the mix of local and Western foods and a lot of drinks hence the

Name we made our way to one of the nearby Alleyways for some truly outstanding Gelato at gelato and coffee lab but the entire area feels very happy and Lively between Old Market and pob street is Cam kitchen originally this home kitchen served food to locals and Aid

Workers from the UN and Red Cross but now it’s a two-story open air restaurant serving inexpensive Chim food we gobbled up their fresh spring rolls watermelon juice spicy Chim fish soup deep fried fish and grilled chicken with rice we over ordered so learn from us because the prices were so reasonable we

Expected portion sizes to be small to be fair we really want to try a lot of their Foods another festive part of town for inexpensive food is the river area where you can find every imaginable assortment of street food we saw vendors busy with people waiting in lines and fresh food

Cooked while you wait just like in Vietnam we love that their colorful small plastic tables and chairs were all over the place we didn’t eat at any of those places because we mostly found our favorite places elsewhere in the city but the atmosphere was great we also

Didn’t sample any of the grubs and insects this country is famous for but they’re plenty of those places to try them if you’ve got an adventurous palet we do not although there are tons of things that you can do in seam R we really didn’t do a whole lot of sightseeing and

Touristy type things we don’t really shop for the most part but you should at least wander through Old Market the outer stalls might entice you with its souvenirs clothes and collectibles but wander inside and you’ll be transported into a genuine local market with everything from House wears to fresh

Food to food stalls there’s also the made in Cambodia Market which is a community market of highquality products crafted by Cambodian locals these are internationally known Artisans and designers and I even bought some Cambodian whiskey here which you can watch a review that I have on it on my

Whiskey rips channel one of the things that made us laugh was how many stalls there are in the street selling spare keys and key fobs I do not know what the attraction is but there are a lot of key shops here so if you get locked out you are

Safe I didn’t think it was possible to have so many of these coexist we haven’t seen them anywhere in our travels but apparently they do we did find out when we were leaving from our grab driver that a lot of the vehicles that they use in this area are imported from

California and he wanted to have a lot of keys for his car so he said I have four keys I guess that’s why they have so many of these fob centers this was not an activity we had any interest in trying but for $3 you can dunk your feet

Into an aquarium and get your feet tickled by various siiz fish do you like it yeah it’s fun yes how about you same not quite as ticklish for me but does it feel good or restorative yes on a scale of 1 to 10 what would you give it for $3

A 10 really yes cool good experience thank you so much we’re going to give angor watt its own video so subscribe if you haven’t already and we’ll also include info from our Anor National Museum tour in that episode one of the experiences that I had arranged during this trip was a

Countryside bicycle tour through Airbnb experiences this this was great to do in the dry season but it’ll be so muddy in the wet season that I don’t think it would be possible well it might be scheduled but I probably wouldn’t take the tour at that time of year we felt

Very safe having Thea navigate us through traffic but be warned that the dirt roads off the beaten path were quite bumpy it was worth it though I would not hesitate to do it again we cycled to the vegetable and Patty fields and vka introduced us to the types of

Vegetables grown and the day-to-day routine of the local farmers it was a very warm day we saw workers B over the fields doing a lot of manual labor people work really hard here a kilo of Basil earns only 50s which seems criminal because it’s a lot of work to

Pick those crops the locals Are Thankful though for a way to earn income and also being able to produce food for their families as a result of their labors we had several tasting experiences including a Cambodian Gooseberry no you like I like yeah you like mhm sour huh show yeah it’s sour

But it’s really good it’s like unripe grapes I feel like that little girl meme and there are banana trees which grow everywhere this tour includes a visit to a crocodile farm Kevin I had no idea these are F this may not be the place for everyone because

The crocodiles raised here are used for their meat and skins and just cared for until they’re sold we had this Tour all to ourselves so if this is something you don’t want included you can ask to skip it speaking of manual labor here’s someone pushing heavy machinery through

A muddy field in his bare feet and pulling out fish that will end up being dinner now what will you do with them uh Fri fries ah okay for yourself you will not sell or what we also visited a mushroom Farm we had no idea the long multi-step process

For growing these so the first thing how they make the Spore the Spore they made from R you can see the r inside so it’s must be cleaned no wirus mhm no no virus virus okay yes they first begin in sterilized glass jars and eventually end

Up in these bags mushrooms grow out the sides of the bags the farmers walk down the aisles cut off what grown sell that and in a few days fresh mushroom will shoot and the cycle repeats itself over again how is it it’s a mushroom pork is one of the most prominent meat you’ll

Find here in C and here is an actual Pig Pen we pedal to this Buddhist temple and vka shared a bit about Hinduism and Buddhism including that Buddhists are cremated in public ceremonies these catfish located here are protected by the monks and are not used for food and the white

One we also visited local market and tasted fried banana fritters very good mongan which tastes like a sweet grape with a thick skin and Seed it’s good crab apple no it’s sweeter than you think for a small as it is in velvet teramind which is a legume that grows in

A shell similar to peanuts so check the place inside like I’ve only had Tamarind paste before I didn’t realize it came thank you they have SE inside the black very good Cambodian Donuts sweetened with jaggery were a bit too sweet for us but it was cool to

Experience them oh wow this is honey no a brown sugar ah and then we co with we stopped by a Lotus field and tasted Lotus seeds a little better but just at the end yeah and then we relaxed a bit with some Cambodian beer okay Che we what does that mean

Then our tour ended in our guide’s home his wife has a juice stand where we tasted sugarcan juice oh okay it’s not nearly as sweet as you might think then our guy impressed us with his machete skills showing how to prepare the sugar cane for the juice

Press we even got to take home some green mangoes there’s a link in the description for this experience if you’re interested in taking it we had such a great time one of the best things about this tour was how how enriching it was we felt like getting to know locals

And how they live and how they work and how they shop was so worth it highly recommend CM reap was a lovely place for the holidays we mentioned having a great experience for Christmas but New Year’s Eve was Lively and fun too there was a festival set up with food stalls and

Balloons during the day and at night there was a live band that everyone loved and also fireworks the downside was that there was a glitch with their timer which sped up during the countdown caused some fireworks go off prematurely but it was a blast to be in the crowds

And experience it and the timer was reset so we can enjoy the correct countdown to 2022 let’s share pricing and then give our final Impressions our amazing and centrally located Airbnb was $922 or $30.6 per night the Airbnb also was cleaned weekly at no added charge and we

Absolutely adored our host and co-host there’s no onside Wasing Wasing machine but that doesn’t matter because we paid $5 to get our clothes washed we allowed them to air dry but our wool clothes dry so quickly that it’s a non-issue the wool clothes we wear are on our gear

List which is linked remember Marino wool is not the same everywhere I get a great haircut for only $3 at D haircut highly recommend it I did pay 10 though because I felt that was too cheap our Countryside agricultural tour with Airbnb experiences with $70 for

Both of us which was an incredible value for all we got to see do in taste lunch or dinner at our place was extremely affordable my spicy basil beef was $22.50 Kevin’s pork fried rice was $1.75 and our fresh fruit mango shakes were a dollar a piece crazy prices pric at the

Italian restaurant ilforno were a little high for Cambodia but still super reasonable pizzas were $10.50 and $13 and large enough for leftovers wine was $5 per glass and a cravable chocolate mousse with some of the best dark chocolate we’ve ever tasted was also $5 we paid a grand total of

$39.75 with Leftovers on other occasions when we visited the pasta dishes were $9 and $11 respectively flat whites at the little red fox espresso were $3.50 a piece and were some of the tastiest coffees we’ve had anywhere their blat a bacon lettuce avocado and tomato Bagel sandwich was super tasty at

$6.50 and the famous and filling bougie Bowl was only $4.75 and sometimes it was so filling that I had to take away half of it CRA kitchen cost us $23 but we left very full and satisfied spring rolls were $3 watermelon juice was $ 250 a piece

Judy’s fish soup was $5 and Kevin’s fried fish was $450 and his grilled chicken with rice was $5.50 we could have gotten away with a lot less food yes soin Cafe Restaurant also had really great prices we typically paid $11.25 and that included Cima curry with

Chicken and a side of rice for me at $44.25 hamburger and fries for me at $4 and $150 each for watermelon fruit shakes so to wrap up why do you think we could live here oh so many reasons we barely scratched the surface of places that you could see for uh sightseing or

Entertainment but I think what really Drew us were the people 100% they were just so amazing yeah the town was walkable and every place we went they were courteous they were quick with their service they would remember us say hello it was it was just that kind of

Warm hug of a feeling especially at our local coffee shop they even giving us free coffee because we were there so often and just the energy here Cambodia hasn’t always had a happy past but we felt pretty content and at peace and warm and welcomed it just felt easy yeah

I think the people’s add attitude made it that way no matter where we were going what we’re doing even when we had people asking us if we wanted tuck tuck rides it’s not like they’re a push or anything they say good day you they say good morning and then when they knew we

Were walking by all the time they’d say good morning anyway and tomorrow right it’s like yeah tomorrow but maybe not it just it just was a light LIF everything felt like a light left there we hope you’ve enjoyed this episode and that you’ll subscribe if you aren’t already

So that you can catch our next episode from Anor wat and don’t forget to go to defining gary.com lotss of great articles there and our gear guide and our community Forum until next time until next time