Saturday, April 21, 2012

a great driver for the sights in Siem Reap

I%26#39;m just back from several days in Siem Reap seeing Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and many of the other temple sites.



I%26#39;d like to recommend a great driver - Choy - who took care of me for 3 days calling early at the hotel to fetch me and waiting patiently at all the sites till the sun went down. For US$25-$30 a day you have a good, air conditioned car and a careful driver at your exclusive disposal all day. It%26#39;s about a 20 minute drive to the temple area from town and after that all the other temples are several kms apart.





On arrival I decided not to employ a guide - what you gain in extra knowledge you can lose in not just being able to wander about at your own pace soaking up the beauty and atmosphere. A lot of the guides I overheard were majoring on the statistics line of info (how many tons of stone, how long to build etc) which doesn%26#39;t interest me.





Choy, a really lovely, gentle man, whose English was good, was able to give me some information on the site before I went in. He also knew which places were quieter than others and when, and got me a better rate of exchange on my English £s. Whenever I came out of a site he was there watching for me, with a chilled drink on hand from the boot - which was most welcome as, even in winter, the weather is ridiculously hot for us northern types.





So, if you need a good driver, Choy is your man - he%26#39;ll probably even pick you up from the airport. Email him on houtchoy@yahoo.com or call (855) 12 419 944

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