Cambodia

We'll start this blog off with an apology for not blogging sooner. The hotel we stayed at in Cambodia did have computers, however, they were kept in the open air hotel lobby…the warm sticky climate of siam reap did not agree with the keyboards and all the keys stuck. It was a pain to type even short emails to our parents and boyfriends.

We woke up at five in the morning to leave for Cambodia. Our flight over was short and uneventful. The airport in Cambodia was very small…just one terminal and one baggage claim. We made our way through immigration and we noticed a common theme. An airport worker at each airport we have passed through has played jokes on me and never Samantha. We finally realized why its always me--I have the American passport (Samantha's is British!) I have had a TSA worker tell me my shoes are untied when I am not even wearing shoes…I have had a customs agent ask "Sarah, what is your name?" and other similar jokes. 

Outside the airport our ride was waiting for us holding a sign with both of our names on it. He dropped us off at our hotel, the Central Boutique Angkor Hotel. The hotel was very nice. After grabbing a quick breakfast, we started our tour of all the temple ruins in the area. These temples were built during the 9th century and on. We visited Angkor Thom, Buyon, Takeo, Prasat Kravan, Terrace of the Elephants, Leper King Terrace, Ta Prohm (which is the temple from Lara Croft Tomb Raider!), and a few other temples. We ended the day by going to a market located next to their infamous Pub Street. The market sold many different items varying from shoes to spices. We ended the day with dinner at the hotel and went to bed early.

The main mode of transportation in Cambodia is motorbikes. For tourists, instead of taxis there are tuk-tuks which are motorbike driven carts. As for traffic laws, there didn't seem to be any. The roads were a very busy free-for-all. Our hotel had tuk-tuk drivers in their parking lot and we just selected one and stuck with him for the whole trip. Our driver's name was Mr. Prem and he took great care of us. He kept a cooler on the tuk-tuk which was always full with ice cold water bottles. He also helped us navigate our way through the maze of temples in the area. Prem actually ended up being the same tuk-tuk driver Mr. Piper had when he visited a year ago!

The second day we went to see the major temple, Angkor Wat. All the travel books and advice we had gotten said to see this temple after all the others because of its size and grandeur. After the Angkor Wat, Samantha and I went on an elephant ride! We rode through the gates of Angkor Thom to the Buyon Temple, about a fifteen minute ride. To get on the elephant, they had a platform built around a tree that you climbed up on and over on to the elephant. The ride was incredibly bumpy and uncomfortable, but we had a great time. People waved and took pictures of us as we rode by. Our elephant driver told us that our elephant was 45 years old! We went back to the hotel for lunch and then headed back out to see more temples. On our way out, we saw our first Cambodian gas station….which consisted of an old stand of recycled bottles filled with gas…I think we have a picture of it in our slide show. We then visited East Mebon, Neak Pean, and Ta Som. We ended our day by going to Pub Street to have a few beers and try the local cuisine. The food was amazing!! It was served in dishes made out of palm leaves!

On our third day we decided to make the long trek out to the River of a Thousand Lingas and Kbal Spean. It was about an hour tuk-tuk ride into the countryside of Siam Reap. The path was a sandy, rocky, steep uphill climb. This was not the type of path we were expecting…Samantha was wearing flip flops! We also had no idea how far it was…1200 meters! On the way up there were some view points that had amazing views of the neighboring mountains. Once at the river we were slightly disappointed because there was a small river with a couple carvings..but then a tour guide took us through mountainside and pointed out a few more carvings before we reached a small waterfall surround by millions of butterflies. It was breathtaking! Our journey back down was almost more difficult because we were exhausted!  Luckily we had a long tuk-tuk ride to re-energize before we went to go see another temple. We then went back to the hotel for lunch and then went to the floating villages. Our boat drivers were around our age and only one spoke very broken english. The weather started out nice but started to take a turn for the worse. The river was very shallow and our boat kept getting stuck. We finally made it out to a platform that contained a gift shop and a small zoo. By zoo, I mean that they had an alligator pit, a snake pit, and a snakefish pit. Once on the platform, it started storming and our boat driver that could speak english mistakenly said it was going to "tornado". That's when I lost it. I started taking pictures of the storm so that everybody could see how I died. Samantha was trying to calm me down but all I could think about was the rickety platform breaking and the alligators getting loose and eating us all in revenge for being kept in a nasty cage. After the rainstorm settled we got back on the boat, donated some coloring books and pencils to the orphanage school, and headed back to shore. Once we got back to land, we were immediately accosted by beggars that had plates with our faces on them. Samantha and I were absolutely embarassed by the pictures of our sweaty faces on the plates and Prem was standing by laughing at the whole ordeal. 

Cambodia's temples were full of peddlers. Once your tuk-tuk stopped kids would surround you trying to sell you bracelets, tourist books, scarves, and other goods. It was really annoying. They would not leave you alone until you went inside the temples…which usually was a long walk. They even had a set script:

"lady! where you from?"

us-"america"

"capital washington d.c.!"

us-"very good!"

"you buy bracelet! 5 for one dolla"

us-"no thank you"

"fine! lady! ten for one dolla"

us-"sorry! no thank you!"

This happened at every single stop we made. It was exhausting! 

Overall, Samantha and I absolutely loved Cambodia. Our hotel was perfect, the temples were absolutely amazing, and the food was delicious. We both agree that we would love to go back!