Cambodia

A little late now that we are halfway into our adventures in Thailand, but here is the update on Cambodia.

We arrived from Hong Kong into Phnom Penh and made our way to the hotel for the night. It was pouring rain so we decided to just stay at the Guesthouse and have dinner and then relax in the room for awhile.

In the morning we caught a very early bus to Siem Reap. We decided to spend the extra $3 and take the $9 bus instead of the $6 bus, but we still weren't expecting much. To our surprise though, the bus was quite nice, air conditioned and seemed relatively safe. We tried our hardest to stay awake for the 6 hour journey so we could see the scenery. We were mainly going through the rural areas which we later discovered is about 80% rice farming. It was very interesting and different than any of the farming we have ever seen.

We arrived in Siem Reap and got into our first tuk tuk (with all our bags). We were holding on tightly and hoping that we (and our bags) would make it safely to the hotel! The hotel was very nice and clean and we all had our own beds which was nice.

After deciding over lunch what we were going to do, we heading out to Angkor Wat for the first time to see the sunset. We climbed up a mountain to a temple but unfortunately just as a thunderstorm was approaching. We quickly went down the mountain again and got to the tuk tuk just in time to escape the rain.

The next day we were up at 4:30 to meet our tuk tuk driver and guides for the day. We heading to Angkor to see the sunrise, this time right over Angkor Wat. After we walked around the temples (Ankor Wat, Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm) for about 8 hours. The temples are absolutely amazing. A lot of them are being restored and parts of the walls have crumbled but they were still very interesting. There are carvings on most of them all around and our guide was telling us all the stories. Needless to say we got home in the afternoon and were exhausted so took a little rest before heading out to the main market area for dinner.

The next day we decided to see some more temples (there is no shortage of them!). This time we just had a tuk tuk driver, not a guide so we went exploring ourselves. We saw Preah Khan, Banteay Srey and Banteay Samre. Again, very big and beautiful temples. We headed back to our hotel, got ready for dinner and went on a spending spree at the market where most things were not more than $4 (if that!).

Cambodia was a very interesting and eye opening country. We were frequently called "lady" and asked to buy anything. All around the temples were very young children who would walk ages alongside you insisting that you buy one of their bracelets or magnets or something. Interestingly, they would ask where you were from, then state the capital and continue with "If I tell you the capital, the PM, the population, the provinces and territories, etc., will you buy something from me?" It was quite difficult at times to continue to say no. It was also very interesting to see the difference between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, as Siem Reap has obviously been hit hard with tourism and is flourishing much more than Phnom Penh. Overall, a very interesting, and like Hong Kong, incredibly HOT country.

Back soon with an update on Thailand!