Expat Travel Mom

April 2016, and we landed in Siem Reap right in the middle of Cambodian New Year, wildly different pricing than what we'd grown used to in Singapore, and a trip that ended up being far more eventful than any of us expected going in.

Settling Into Siem Reap

We arrived to a lovely Airbnb and the most gracious host we could have asked for. Our first dinner was on Pub Street, made even better by the company, friends from Singapore we barely ever actually see back home, joining us for the trip. We taught together in the UAE, and moved to Singapore together to start our new teaching posts. We wandered the Pub Street area after dinner and, as always, ducked into a local grocery store just to see what they sold, one of our favorite little travel rituals. A great first night all around, though one of my kids was already starting to feel a little off. Moms, you know there's nothing worse nor more dramatic than a sick child on a trip!

A Random, Wonderful Day

Some of the best travel days are the ones with no real plan. Cows wandering by, a round of the most unique mini golf we've come across in our mini golf years, more eating than we probably needed, and honestly, all of it made better simply because we had good friends along for it. This time, we were joined by another teaching family, whom we also taught with in the UAE! Once you're an international teacher, you quickly realize you have friends all over the world, and meetups are inevitable!

Banteay Srei and a Silk Farm With a Story

We drove an hour out of town, the kind of drive that makes you grateful for what you have, and it's always a talking point with our kids. Then came Banteay Srei, a sandstone temple, and easily the most intricately detailed of everything we saw in Cambodia. Genuinely a must if you make it out this way. The color alone...photos don't do it justice, although I really tried! It was just stunning!

Banteay Srei, meaning "Citadel of the Women," sits well outside the main cluster of Angkor temples. Built in the 10th century from pink sandstone, it has a warmer, softer glow than the grey stone found at most of the larger temples closer to town. It's known for having the most intricate carvings of any temple in the region, so detailed that early explorers assumed it must have been the work of women, hence the name. Small in scale, but often called the most beautiful temple in all of Cambodia.

From there, we visited a silk farm, GoldenSilk Pheach, and we were lucky, it was closed for New Year, but the owner opened it just for us anyway. She was a Cambodian woman who had fled during the war to France, and when she eventually returned home, she spent ten full years, no production at all, just training local people in traditional Khmer silk-making techniques. She only opened the farm to the public four years before our visit, once she felt her workers were truly ready. 

Golden Silk Pheach was founded in 2002 by Oum Sophea Pheach, a former director of Cambodia's National Center for Silk, and her husband, a French banker who helped her build the farm from nothing. Today it trains and employs disadvantaged workers from the surrounding countryside, many of whom bring their own children along while they work. The silk itself comes from a rare golden variety of silkworm, yielding far less thread than standard silk cocoons, which is exactly why the finished pieces are treated less like fabric and more like art.

Butterflies and an Unforgettable Night at Phare

After the silk farm, we visited a butterfly farm, a genuine conservation effort. That night, we went to see Phare, the Cambodian Circus, and I can't say enough good things about it. My middle child (the one who was feeling off) was already deep into gymnastics and contortion at the time, so watching performers do exactly that on stage was pure magic for her.

The story behind Phare is genuinely moving. It traces back to nine young men who grew up in a refugee camp after surviving the Khmer Rouge regime, where an art therapy program gave them a way to process what they'd lived through when words simply weren't enough. They carried that lesson home to Battambang and founded a free school, teaching visual arts, theater, music, dance, and eventually circus skills to disadvantaged children. Phare in Siem Reap is the performance arm of that same school, and a huge share of what you pay for a ticket goes directly back into funding it. A beautiful thing to witness, and to support.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

4 a.m. came fast, but sunrise at Angkor Wat was worth every bit of the early alarm. From there, we made our way to my favorite of all the temples, Ta Prohm, better known to most people as the "Tomb Raider" temple, with trees grown so thoroughly into the stone that it's hard to tell where the ruins end and the jungle begins. By this point, though, my middle child really wasn't seeming well at all.

Cambodian New Year, and Staying Out of the Water

Our second Songkran-style celebration of the trip (the first had been in Krabi, Thailand). Genuinely fun to witness, though we made the call to stay out of the actual festivities this time, since it involves both water and baby powder, and baby powder was a hard pass for us. We watched from the sidelines instead and tuk-tuk'd our way out.

Massages, Goodbyes, and a Hospital Visit

We rounded out our time with our friends before they had to leave Siem Reap ahead of us, massages, facials, mani-pedis, a beautiful lunch, and plenty of "see you laters." Afterward, we visited the National Museum, no photos allowed inside, then headed back to our Airbnb, where it was clear my daughter genuinely wasn't well. We spent that evening quiet, tucked away from the loud, crazy New Year happening just outside.

The next day, we ended up at the hospital, thanks entirely to our incredible Airbnb host, who helped us get there and made sure she was in the right place. After a few days of just not feeling well, things took a sudden turn for the worst the night before. She was diagnosed with dysentery, most likely picked up somewhere back in Singapore through food or water, since she'd been feeling off since our very first night here. She spent that night on an IV of antibiotics, and we spent it hoping she'd be well enough to fly home the next day as planned. My husband has spent more nights than I can count on hospital room floors and chairs over the years, and I love him endlessly for never once complaining about it.

She improved hour by hour. By the next morning, we were overwhelmingly thankful, and cleared to fly home to Singapore right on schedule. The staff was absolutely amazing, caring and really fast with everything, from admittance to testing and results. There wasn't one thing we could fault the hospital on. Truly fantastic. We went home with more medicine that I had ever seen prescribed for one of my children.

Temples, silk, circus performers turned survivors, and a health scare we didn't see coming, Cambodia gave us all of it in one trip. Genuinely one for the books. We look forward to going back again one day.

Coming back to update: Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, and Banteay Srei are all still fully open today, and the ticket pricing structure has actually stayed remarkably stable, current passes run $37 for one day up to $72 for seven days, prices that have held steady since 2019. Phare, the Cambodian Circus is also still performing nightly in Siem Reap, still funding the same school in Battambang it always has.