One of the more surprising aspects of our trip included the fact that there was wifi everywhere we stayed throughout both Cambodia and Vietnam. This allowed me to send updates back home, including photos. These emails will be the source of the text for these posts about our trip so I will leave them in the same tense -- meaning, the writing is from the perspective of being on the trip. I think this helps express a lot of the first impressions and immediate reactions we/I had over the course of our travels.
This will be the first post of many about our trip. Uploading these pictures takes time, but luckily most of the text is already written, thanks to my email updates back home =)
As I started going through all of my photos, it's clear the first city we went to, Siem Reap, was the most photo-intensive. This first post will be dedicated solely to Siem Reap -- which could have been a destination of a trip in itself.
Stay tuned for the rest!
Siem Reap
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After a long day of traveling and connections, we finally arrived here in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
It's a shame it was dark when we arrived but we still got a deep impression. First off, when we walked out of the airport, there was a guy from our hotel waiting for us with a sign that had my name on it!! That was pretty darn cool. And a first. He loaded our stuff into a tuk-tuk, which is a motorbike pulling a little four seater chariot thing. One of the other strong first impressions was the smell of the air. It was a very strong, wood-like smell, maybe sandalwood? It was definitely something we noticed right away.
We rode in the tuktuk for about 20mins until we got to the town of Siem Reap and it was really something. Very underdeveloped yet much more developed than I had anticipated. The whole town is actually very small.
Our hotel is just a short walk to the pub street. Hotel is the wrong word for where we are staying -- guesthouse is more accurate. The people here so far have been wonderful. This guesthouse just opened a few months ago and it had suspiciously good reviews online, but so far so good. The room is clean and the hotel grounds are absolutely charming (very lush and green, I'm typing from a balcony surrounded by trees and plants). A bargain at $18/night! It feels like florida, too -- 80 degrees and humid ;) I'm home! The hotel has a few lizards in the hallway but luckily I'm used to that (I keep telling chris they will keep the bugs away). Here is a picture of the dirt road connecting our hotel to the main bar road. Chris and I predict this road will be paved in the next four years.
We had dinner at a local Khmer restaurant; the food reminds me a little bit of Thai food but more exotic. There are tons of Americans and Euros here, it's strange not to be such a minority!
Tomorrow we plan to rent a tuk tuk driver to take us around to the temples all day. For only $10 it's a bargain ($5 each!).
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First thing to see was obviously Angkor Wat. Our plan was to wake up reasonably and see Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm and a couple of the other temples in that area, which are within a close proximity. Maybe Day 2 we will see more temples nearby, but then Day 3 wake up early to see sunrise at Angkor.
Angkor Wat is incredible, as expected. Really truly amazing, takes your breath away. I don't think words can really describe it since you see it in pictures and books but experiencing the magnitude of it is really something.
view from the tuktuk
pic of us in the tuktuk
approaching Angkor, here is the moat around it
Chris getting out of the tuktuk; that's our driver!
Southeast Asian gas station =)
Misc. photos from Angkor Wat
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So Ta Prohm was cool, but they are so obsessed with the fact that it was in Tomb Raider. It's actually a shame because I think that movie was a flop in America. They all run around the temple trying to get tourists to follow them to the Angelina Jolie part of the temple so they can then charge you for being shown this special spot. Yeah, no thanks. It was a really cool temple, though. Very overgrown with huge tree trunks.
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Here are some miscellaneous temple pics taken in between Ta Prohm and Bayon.
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I think Bayon was my favorite temple (the one with the faces). We saw this temple towards the end of our first day and we were getting really tired. The temple has so many faces carved into the stone. All the faces are of the same ruler so he can be staring at you no matter where you are standing near the temple. I thought that was cool. Our experience was somewhat less deep and relaxing since there was a tour group of some 50/60somethings straight outta Long Island there and they were nothing less than obnoxious. Still, it was my favorite and Chris' favorite, too.
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At the end of the day we went to a temple that was both recommended by our guesthouse and also in our guidebook as being one of the best places to see the sunset. Unfortunately, that meant it was really crowded since all the other tourists had the same idea. This temple was at the top of a big hill that you had to walk around the outside of to get to the top, inclined plane style. This was at the end of such a long exhausting day of templing. We made it to the top of the hill but there was a very long line to get to the top of the actual temple, which consisted of lots and lots of steep stairs. We decided enough is enough; we sat at the foot of the temple and happily watched the sunset from there. Here is a picture of an elephant -- you could pay to ride an elephant up or down the hill instead of walking. The elephants didn't look very happy.
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Today we went out to Banteay Srei, which was like 45 mins from Preah Khan (also really cool). Preah Khan was similar to Ta Prohm in that it was very overgrown. Preah Khan was neat with many different beautiful colored stones that looked amazing in the sun. I took so many pictures. Also, there were many areas that were not rebuilt yet but it looks like they are working to rebuild it currently. There was this one big tree at the back that was really cool.
Preah Khan
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We visited one more temple that day that was small but had a huge tree in the back (forgot the name of the temple).
Banteay Srei was small but full of intricate carvings. That one was really cool, but the drive out (and back) was even cooler - on this road lined with Cambodian families with houses with thatched roofs, and cauldrons for cooking. Unlike anything I've ever seen. Cambodian people are just beautiful. Amazing bone structure. It wasn't like, people starving, but it was definitely a different standard of living. They didn't seem desperate, just humble. Very beautiful.
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Baguette truck on the move!
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Here is the temple we went to the second night to watch the sunset. Again, very crowded. This time, it was cloudy so we left early to go eat dinner since we were planning to wake up early to watch the sunrise at Angkor.
It's been tough to experience all this poverty though. Last night these two small kids on the street approached us begging to buy them milk for their brother that one of them was carrying. We thought, milk, can't be expensive, ok. So they took us to the mart and picked up a can of baby formula. So expensive :( our whole trip is planned to the dollar pretty much. I felt so horrible.. But they were barefoot and were like, instead buy us shoes! And they grabbed a pair of flip flops. I brought them up to the counter and one was $2, the other $5. So I bought the $2 only. That kid (holding the baby) ran off and the other one started crying and begging me to buy HIM shoes, TOO. I felt so so terrible. We left and I just lost it. It has been so incredibly heartbreaking to be here and want to help everyone but you just can't. I always knew I was lucky, but wow. This is a really grounding experience.
Anyway, the people here are so nice and welcoming - and when you think about what their society went through, talk about tugging on your heart strings.
We get up early tomorrow to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat, then in the afternoon take the bus to Phnom Penh.
Here is a pancake stand on the bar street
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Sunrise at Angkor Wat was a slight disappointment since the weather was a bit overcast. However, the "scene" at 5:00am at the temple was much more impressive. There were hundreds of people there to catch the sunrise. Vendors were selling overpriced coffee and included a small mat you could sit on to wait for the sun to rise. By the time the sun came up we didn't even realize it though because of the clouds. Oh well, at least we got our third day use out of our temple pass! It was still definitely worth getting up to go.
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