South East Asia Ki Ai! : Siem Reap: Tuktuks and Templing

We arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia on November 21 by plane from Malaysia. It was definitely the country I had been most looking forward to visiting on our trip, and it has been an amazing week so far! We hastily booked a hostel the night before we arrived so we didn't have high hopes that things were going to go smoothly at the airport, especially after some of our hostel mishaps thus far. However, it seemed that our luck had changed the minute we touched down in beautiful Cambodia because not only did we get picked up (for free!) but the sweetest man ever was waiting for us in the airport lobby holding a sign with Joey's name. It was by far our smoothest and cheapest airport transfer of the trip. We also got to ride in our first tuk-tuks - a motor bike that pulls a small 4 seater cart - to our hostel. My spirits were so high that I kept shouting to Joey, "this is my favorite place so far! I could live here!". Once we got to our hostel, we were greeted by more helpful staff members who helped to plan out our 2 day visit to the temples and joyfully discovered that the rooms were large, clean and with towels provided! Michael was feeling a bit under the weather and decided to rest at the hostel while Chiara, Joey and I went out for a late lunch. We stopped at a roadside restaurant and had our first taste of Khmer food and Angkor beer - both great! Afterwards, Joey and I sped-toured the Angkor National Museum before it closed and ended up getting lots of helpful background knowledge about the temples and Hindu and Buddhist carvings and statues we would be seeing the following day. We then headed down to the Old Market area where there is a night market and pub street. This bustling area is right on the river and had a great energy. We walked around the market, bought a fresh dragon fruit/ pineapple drink and the stopped for a happy hour drink at a cool bar called Angkor What? Happy hours tended to start early and continue well into the evening and many included 50 cent draft beers! It was a really fun evening of exploring with Joey and over pizza, our waiter taught us to say a few words in Khmer and showed us how the Khmer script is written. All we could remember was how to say thank you, which we used a lot. We ended our first epic night in Cambodia at YOLO bar where I don't think I've ever danced more wildly.

We only had 3 nights in Siem Reap so we didn't have much time to relax if we wanted to see as many of the temples as we could. There are hundreds of temples in and around Siem Reap and it would have been impossible to see them all in 2 days but we had a list of big ones we didn't want to miss. Templing is definitely not for the faint of heart; on each day we visited more than six temples in the blazing hot sun. We soon discovered that when you're inside the temples it is at least 1000 degrees hotter than on the outside and the sun will always somehow be directly overhead. So usually by the 5th or 6th temple we were pretty beat and ready to call it a day. Our first day began around 7am when we headed out in our tuktuk to buy our 3 day passes which allows you to access all the temples. We began with the one the furthest away, Banteay Srey which had very intricate and well preserved carvings and is said to have been made by women. From there we visited the Landmine Museum which was both sobering and awe-inspiring. The museum was started by a former Khmer Rouge child soldier named Aki Ra and serves to educate people on the horrors of landlines and the aftermath of the war in Cambodia. You can read more about the museum at www.cambodialandminemuseum.org. It was very educational for all of us and we each got choked up at different points throughout our visit. Anyone who would argue that 1 person cannot make a difference in the world has definitely not heard of Aki Ra and his story. After 6 more temples, we ended our second night with a Mexican food dinner.

On our second day of templing we had big plans to visit the famous Angkor Wat at sunrise. As it turned out, so did hundreds of other people and tour groups and while we waited for the sun to come up we were all a bit grouchy about having gotten up so early to be waiting in a huge crowd. However, even with huge crowds, Angkor Wat was still simply stunning at sunrise and Michael was able to get a few awesome shots with his camera. Luckily, we beat the crowds into the temple and we were able to tour the huge inside complex without the masses. After Ankgor Wat, we headed to the Bayon temple inside of the Angkor Thom complex. This was Joey's favorite temple, with it's many smiling faces and crazily enough we ran into his friend Alicia from college who spotted Joey from across the temple - small world! One of our last stops was Ta Prohm temple which is what I had been most excited to see. Ta Prohm had a very jungly feel to it and is the temple where huge, rope-like tree trunks have begun to push their way through the temple walls. I was a little disappointed that because we visited it so late in the day, it was already overrun by several pushy tour groups and we weren't able to explore it as much as I would have liked. After a speed tour of 2 more temples we called it quits but felt satisfied about all we had seen. All of the temples are quite dusty and by the end of the day our feet and legs we very dirty. When Joey and I stopped for an ice cream at this cute cafe with comfy white couches we were embarrassed to discover that when we got up we had stained the whole couch with our templing legs. After a glorious shower, we were able to meet Alicia and her boyfriend for dinner and drinks which was a great end to our time in Siem Reap. We bused out the following morning to Phnom Penh which was 7 hours south of Siem Reap.

Katy

We love Cambodia!!