Dear readers and followers,

about a year ago I had the pleasure to discover a rural area southward from Siem Reap.

Thanks to my local friend Sina who she is passionate as well as I am about place off the beaten path, she had the riveting idea of taking me and two Spanish guys to the southern of Siem Reap province. The reason of this choice was because of two things:

1. Lotus farm
2. Phnom Krom hill

To get here you need to have a trusted tuk-tuk driver who can safely take you there, so my friend contacted her trusted drivers who picked us up.

Our first stop was the Lotus farm which consisted of a beautiful chilling walk through the lotus flowers on a built pedestrian wooded-board, before that time I did not know that the lotus has some small fruit seeds that you can eat.

Here below there is a photo-gallery of what was the farm:

The leaves of Lotus flower can be used as a hat to protect your head from the strong sun since it was in April and it is known as the driest and warmest month of the year in Cambodia.

After visiting the lotus farm, we moved to Phnom Krom hill which has an elevation of 140mt, on top of it there is an ancient Angkorian temple which was built on the 9th century and now it is ruined. To reach the top of the hill you have two possibilities:

1. Hiking/Climb up the back side of the hill
2. Walk up through the stairs from the front side

We chose the option 2 on the way up while on the way down we stumbled on the steep rocky way down just after the sunset which was challenging but we made it!

The reason why you should enjoy this unbeaten path is to realize or just have a taste about how the local unprivileged society live day-by-day, in particular observe the loitering local kids begging for money. The kids were staring at us (me and the two Spanish guys) and following us to convince us to give them some petty money. Another kid I saw was enjoying his time by climbing the trees which clearly show the enjoyment of life by doing simple things connected with the nature!

The only one recommendation is to avoid giving money to kids because if you do so you encourage them of not attending the school, we’d rather support their families by buying some pencils, pens and exercise books for their kids instead since some schools lacks of funds to provide kids with the studying material.

Here below there is a photo gallery of the Phnom Krom hill:

In conclusion, this unbeaten tour is ONLY the top of the iceberg because in Cambodia there countless unbeaten spots where the rural society live. I strongly encourage to check out these two places as a first taste of what Cambodian society is Siem Reap itself is a lot more than just Angkor Wat, however Angkor Wat is also a MUST-visit to understand a bit the story of the Khmer empire.

Having said that, more articles about Cambodian unbeaten paths will follow soon!

Feel free to leave a comment and contact me through the contact form for any further detail about the trip.