At the close of 2013, a trip was made with my wife and friend to Cambodia via the Thailand Border by train.
In place of my trusty Nikon setup, most of the photos were taken with the Fujifilm XE-2 and the XF 18-55mm f/2.8-4 OIS lens
For those who are not aware of this camera, it is basically a mirrorless camera with an APS-C sensor or (1.5 times crop)
Work has been busy and it doesn't help that the RAW files are hard to manage via the default software provided with the XE-2. Hence, photos are exported unprocessed to jpeg then post processed with photoshop
It will take a while to process all the photos while detailing the journey.
The border crossing was a long and tedious process. Singaporeans do NOT need a visa.
Travellers have to take caution that there are several scam syndicates operating there. They'll try to disguise themselves as agents of the government to assist travellers so they don get scammed.
Anyone who tells you that you can get onto a taxi at the border that will take you all the way to Siem Reap is trying to scam you. No Thailand taxis travel into Cambodia, and the same applies the other way around. There are only 2 ways to get a taxi. One is to have the Cambodia agency after the Cambodia passport control take you to a taxi control station via a free shuttle bus where they'll "sort you out" or you can walk 10mins from the border to slightly out of the border town and try to flag down a cab. Taxi drivers are not allowed in the border town where the border control is in sight.
Either way, the cab fare rate ranges from USD 35 - 50 depending on the size of your group and how you manage to negotiate.
By the time we managed to hop onto a Taxi and make our way to Siem Reap which is about 2 1/2 hours drive from the border town, it was past sunset which starts at 4:30pm
After checking in and washing up, it was time for dinner before the count down to drop the curtain on 2013 and welcome 2014.
For night shots in ambient light, I chose to use my D800 with 14-24mm f/2.8G at f/2.8 | 1/25sec | Auto ISO with upper limit of 2500
Chapter 3.1 - New Years and Water village of Kampong Phluk
New Years day is not exactly a day you want to get up at 4am and go shoot a sunrise with wife and a female travelling companion after being on the road for 12 hours on the previous day.
So we headed to Kampong Phluk to visit the water village and see the sunset at Tonle Sap lake.
New Years day came and went. On the 2nd of Jan 2014, its time to travel to visit the landmark that placed Cambodia on the tourist map. Angkor Wat and its surrounding temples.
Angkor Wat, Bayon, Ta Phrom are all temples with a very interesting history, especially Bayon Temple whose walls tell the history and way of life of the Cambodians dating back to 1177AD and 1181AD. Some of those practices are still very much alive in modern Cambodia
I strongly recommend that travellers arrange with your hotel or guest house for a hotel guide and a TukTuk or taxi for the whole day. Travellers with photography in mind do take note that the temples start to get very crowded after 730am when the sun has risen to a height and tourist start to flock to the temples.
A 3 day pass cost 40 USD and allows one to photograph the Sunrise at Angkor Wat, the misty morning at Ta Phrom and the lovely architecture of Bayon without the crowds. Managed to sneak a few shots of Bayon Temple before the crowds arrived. After which, there were too many visitors and the architecture could not be seen clearly from the photos.
Eventually, the day at Angkor was more enjoyable as an eye opener to the Cambodian history, Hindu believes and marvel at the architecture of the old world than taking landscape photos. There is simply too many people.
As day 3 draws to an end, we return to Siem Reap a good rest and off to a good rest.
Day four dawns with plans to see the local market scene before heading out of Siem Reap to Bangkok.
Here are the day's photos taken with the Fujifilm XE-2
Do take note that the light in the market is pretty poor and to shoot at 1/60sec at ISO 1600 without unrecoverable underexposing is not possible. Shots were taken mostly at 1/25sec at 18mm (DX) at ISO 1600. Lost a couple of good shots due to camera shake.
The next set of photos are ones that will stay in my memory forever. It is remix of one of my posts before. Since this tread is going to be a collection of my travel photos, I thought I might as well put them.