In our hotel room, there were maps, guides to Siem Reap and few pamphlets. One of the pamphlets is about a show called Smile of Angkor.
I don’t really take notice of the pamphlets sebab aku cuma nak berbaring atas katil je [dasar pemalas] but Swirly took a look at all of them and then asked me whether I would be interested to watch the Smile of Angkor show.
I find this weird because he is not the type to go and watch show segala 1 macam ni but perhaps it was because show ni ada kaitan with Angkor history and come on, we are in Siem Reap!
So I said, ok let’s go and watch the show.
Mula-mula nak pergi tengok on first day tapi tukar ke hari kedua sebab first day macam penat and lebih to nak venture the town.
Swirly talked to the hotel to book the tickets. Bukan hotel punya show but they helped us to booklah and also arranged the transport for us. Mula-mula we wanted to charter the hotel’s tuktuk tapi on the day itself we used a car instead sebab it was raining.
If you are planning to watch this show [everyday starting from 7.30 pm, but before that ada diner buffer-inclusive] make you you have your own transport yang hantar and jemput, sebab the place is a bit secluded and tak banyak tuktuk yang standby. Bukan tak banyak, masa aku pergi, tak ada pun.
Ticket is about USD48 each, you can book first and bila dah sampai tempat tu baru bayar. You can also choose your seats. Ada jugak tickets yang berharga USD38 tapi nanti kene duduk belakang sikit.
We arrived around 6 something and terus mengadap buffet. Tapi tak boleh makan banyak sangatla kan makan sayur sayuran dan apa yang boleh di makan sahaja.
Air dekat sini kalau nak air bergas ke apa kene bayar, bijak betul diorang ni, nasib baik we all memang penggemar air suam.
So lepas makan, bolehla masuk.
Sempat ambik gambar dengan pekerja dekat situ
The hall was kind of huge, swirly picked our seats 5 dari depan, not too depan, just nice.
Masa kitorang masuk takde orang lagi but after that a group of people from China came. Nasib baik diorang tak bising sangat jadi keadaan adalah ok.
Macam tempat lain, no recording and you will be asked to silent your phone. Ambik gambar boleh but only without flash.
I didn’t know what to expect, maybe sebab aku memang malas nak baca pamphlets tu or aku memang nak tengok without any expectation.
Tapi aku rasa this show is under their kementerian pelancongan and ada join venture dengan China [sebab some of the acrobats were from China]
The show took about 1 hour and 10 minutes with 6 chapters.
In a nutshell, the show is about Angkor civilasation, dari zaman ke zaman – hence the rahsia behind the smile of one of the wats there [ Bayon I think]
The narration is in English with subtitles on top of the screen so senanglah nak paham.
Laser effect
Apa yang bestnya show ni, cerita dia adalah tradisional, the dance, the costume but the blend it using latest effect contoh macam the picture above, laser.
Masa tengok tu rasa macam kau pun sama masuk dalam time machine untuk mengimbau sejarah silam.
Terbang-terbang pun ada jugak.
The show was filled with history, colours and dance.
Ada jugak lawan-lawan and main api dalam ni. So ada mixed elements, takdela monotonous je.
The zaman kegemilangan scene
Colourful
It will make more sense kalau kau dah visist the wats before watching this show sebab apa yang dia ceritakan akan lebih senang difahami.
Agak kagum juga tengok show ni sebab despite di cop negara kurang maju the show quality adalah bagus bukan murahan ok. I mean I’ve watched some epics shows in Malaysia, boleh aku katakan this show tidak mengecewakan [mungkin at certain perspective lagi bagus]
Apsara dancers, they were so graceful!
Yang paling pasti, tak ada muka kacukan dalam show ini [except the acrobatsla muka Cina]2
Ini tidak, katanya epic asia, tetapi tetibe muka hero asia muka kacukan omputih.
Apa hal?
So if you have time and suka dengan this kind of show, why not go watch Smile of Angkor while you are in Siem Reap.
To us, it was worth every dollar.
Note: Pictures are taken from the Smile of Angkor website and facebook page.
