Cambodia

Our first day in Cambodia, started with us getting on a bus in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, sitting on that bus for 13 hours, and finally getting off in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We then took a tuk-tuk from the bus station to the hotel we were staying at and got all checked in. We went out and grabbed a dinner of Korean barbeque, which was delicious, but a strange thing to eat in Cambodia since Korea is not even near Cambodia. Lastly, we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep after our long day on the bus.

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We came to Siem Reap to go to Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world. But for our second day here, we decided to just relax and save the temple for the next day.

After getting up and getting ready, we wandered down the street with no plan for the day. First, we ended up going in a massage parlor and getting hour-long massages for $5 a piece, quite the bargain if you ask me! It was a nice way to relax and a great start to the day!

We decided to keep getting pampered, so after we finished our massages we ended up getting pedicures; costing just $3 a piece for that! Seriously, I’ll never have another spa day at that price! Anyways, after letting my freshly painted toes dry, we were off to find some lunch.

There is a street called Pub Street (a picture of Pub Street at night is pictured below), which is basically the backpackers street, that we headed to, to get some cheap food. I had some fried rice that was served inside of a pineapple and Brad tried a Cambodian dish (khmer) that consisted of lots of cauliflower, rice, meat and lots of fishy tasting spices.

Since we were on the backpackers street, not just the food was cheap, but so were the drinks. Angkor beers were only 25 cents, so we had a couple of those with our lunch.

We ended up sitting next to lots of different travellers, and we got talking to these two girls at the table next to us. Courtney is the first person we have met during our travels that is from the United States, and she actually was over in Thailand teaching English as well. She was with a Thai teacher, Boom, from her school, and the two of them had travelled to Siem Reap over their break in between semesters. We ended up sitting there talking to each other for hours until we finally realized what time it was based off of the setting of the sun.

We found each other on Facebook so we could keep up with each other’s travels, and then said our goodbyes. Brad and I then went to a different restaurant to have some dinner and then on our way back to the hotel, we came across a cart selling different bugs and snakes that you could eat. I double-dog dared Brad to eat a tarantula and since he couldn’t back down from that, he ended up eating a tarantula as his dessert.

Here is the picture from that.

Eating that stuff wasn’t for me, so after Brad stomached the tarantula, we walked back to the hotel. We called it an early night, so we could try to get some sleep before we get up for the sunrise.

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The alarm went off at 4:00 am and I quickly shut it off and rolled back over. It was so early, and all I wanted to do was lie there for as long as possible. But after about 10 minutes, Brad drug me out of bed. I had to quickly get ready and grab the camera, so we could head down to the lobby of our hotel, where our tuk-tuk driver was waiting for us. This man had driven us from the bus station to the hotel when we first arrived and at that time we had arranged for him to take us to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat.

We rode out of town toward the temple, in a parade of tuk-tuks, who were also taking tourists to see the sunrise. We gathered around a lake in front of the biggest temple, Phnom Bakheng, and waited as it started to become light out. Unfortunately, it is still rainy season, so it was cloudy and the sunrise wasn’t that great, but just seeing it clearly in the light was amazing!

Then, once the sun was up, the temple was open, and we were free to roam around and explore the ruins of Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat translates in to the city of temples, and that is exactly what we saw that day. We started at the most famous Phnom Bakheng temple and then worked our way around to just a few of the many other temples.

Here are some pictures of Phnom Bakheng.

Then after we were done exploring here, we walked back out and found our tuk-tuk driver. We got in and drove a little ways, until we came to the Bayon temple. This temple has faces carved in to the ruins, as you can see in the pictures below.

After getting done at the temple, we again went back to find our tuk-tuk driver just laying in a hammock waiting for us. From the Bayon temple, he drove us to Ta Prohm, which was the set of the 2001 movie: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. There weren't too many tourists at this temple when we were there, so we had a great time playing around on the ruins. 

Here are some pictures of us just playing around at Ta Prohm.

Those are the three biggest temples that we explored, but we also stopped and explored many little ones (below are a few more pictures I liked of the intimate details in all of the little temples). The temples were built back in the 11^th century, and some of them have held up better than others. Many of the temples were simply ruins for us to explore, but a few of them are still used as a Buddhist place of worship.

After eight hours of climbing around and exploring, we had seen enough. We got back in the tuk-tuk and headed back to the hotel. We were worn out when we got back and quickly fell into a slumber. We napped all afternoon, and then got up to enjoy our last dinner in Cambodia. We ended up going back to the Korean barbeque restaurant, since their food was so good. I had some honey barbeque wings and Brad had barbequed chicken. All in all it was a great meal and a great time in Cambodia.

Keep tuning in to see where we head to next!