Buddhist Water Blessing and Real Life Experience with Local

A truly wonderful experience. It was a privilege to receive a Buddhist Water Blessing. Our guide, Ra, was amazing, a very knowledgeable man with a warm and friendly manner. The tour operator customised our tour to meet our needs. Highly recommend this tour.

Our tour guide was excellent but the actual tour seemed a bit disorganized. The details of the trip did not happen. The tour guide made the best of it and took us an art shop which was a great ending

It was a true privilege to have Yuth as my guide for such a unique experience in Cambodia. Of course, the ancient temples of Angkor can't be missed on any trip to Siem Reap, but the live temples used by locals offer a more authentic lens into everyday life & culture. Yuth was on time, waiting patiently for me at my hotel's reception with a tuk tuk driver. His English was excellent & I loved hearing about how he grew up in Siem Reap, a true local. Our first stop was the Royal Gardens. Much of it was newly renovated during the pandemic & turned out beautiful. I was fortunate enough to visit during the annual Pchum Ben (Day of the Ancestors) so there were many locals from out of town on a sort of pilgrimage to Siem Reap. It was quite lovely to see so many locals making offerings and prayers. It felt like a special, auspicious time. Afterwards, we went to a nearby temple adorned with beautiful murals along the walls depicting stories of Buddha's past lives. Then we took a ride out of the city, into the countryside, stopping by a local market with interesting sights & scents. The ride can get bumpy as you get closer to the final temple on the tour but that's part of the adventure. Since it was a holy day, the temple was lively with locals dressed in traditional attire. It was a challenge finding a monk available during such a busy time but I'm so glad Yuth managed to find one. The Water Blessing was a beautiful, refreshing experience. It was like cold water therapy complete with not only the chant from the monk directly blessing me but also the chanting of all the monks in the background as I happened to visit during a special day. It felt surreal. Yuth went beyond my expectations, taking amazing photos & video of the ceremony. Highly recommend this experience if you're open to a more local, unique experience in Siem Reap. Tip: Make sure to bring an extra set of dry clothes & a towel for the water blessing. Fortunately, my hotel gave me a bath towel before I left. I ended up wearing the towel for the water blessing and managed to change back into my clothes afterwards lol But it would have been nice to pack some sort of sarong or cloth to cover myself for the blessing, use the towel to dry off, and then change back into my dry clothes.