Cambodia: Siem Reap

Day 1

After a long night at the KL airport, I had a great couple hours of sleep on the plane and was ready to hit the ground running in Siem Reap! Fresh off the plane at 8:00am on July 4 (happy independence day!) and immediately the heat and the humidity (after being in 0deg C a day earlier in New Zealand) hit me. It felt like I was drinking the air. Trying to adjust to the change in weather, I  quickly located my tuk-tuk driver and hopped hopped in for a ride to the hostel. The ride from the airport into Siem reap was an amazing adjustment period: just sitting back as the wind kept me cool and I gazed at all of the green fields and new construction taking place. Refreshing.

Arriving at the hostel, I met up with my friend Sandy and hired a cab driver and tour guide for an afternoon of temples! Touring around, we saw temple after temple, and the tour guide gave history and meaning of each one. While too long to retell here, the stories and the shear magnitude of the temple complexes was staggering.

(temples)

(more temples...)

(ruins at temples...)

The heat and the jet-lag soon caught up with us, and by the afternoon we were more than ready to head back to the hostel for some air conditioning, water, and a quick nap.

Feeling a little refreshed, we had drinks dinner with a friend of my friend Sol (Megan) who’s been working in Cambodia for the past 4 years with an education non-profit. While enjoying hearing about her work, I also got my first taste of real Cambodian food. I enjoyed a red curry while sipping on a coconut. The heat of the curry and the coolness of the coconut was delightful.

However, with jet lag catching up with both of us and Megan headed off to a July 4^th party, we decided to call it an early night and head back.

Day 2

The next day we awoke early to catch sunrise over Angkor Wat and was immediately caught up in tuk-tuk rush hour…at 5am

(Siem Reap really need to work on this traffic)

However, it was all worth it as we sat on the outskirts of the temple and slowly watched as it brightened and brightened. While there wasn’t a magical moment when the sun crest the temple complex, it was still pretty magnificent.

(sunrise at Angkor)

Since we had arranged to go around the temples with another friend of my friend Sol (Dany and her son), we headed back to the hotel for some breakfast. Also, at some point during our tour yesterday, I mentioned to Sandy that I had never seen the movie Tomb Raider (completely unacceptable, I know).  Evidently part of it takes place in Cambodia (and the people of Siem Reap still love her), so before heading out to the temples with Dany and her son, we decided that a quick Tomb Raider primer was in order. So, over the exceedingly slow internet, we were able to rent a copy of Tomb Raider of iTunes, and watch it all the way until the pivotal moment where Angelina has to decide whether to save her kinda-sort beau and give all of the power to the evil illuminati emperor, and then…the internet ran out and the rental period for the movie ended. So……I guess I’ll just never know. What a shame.

Dany arrived on a scooter just past noon and we headed out to grab lunch by the temple complex, where had some more authentic food (fish omelette thing, , soursop soda, and some other sort of tasty dish) all while learning more about Dany and being serenaded by her son with the classic cambodia song “What does the fox say?” Honestly, it was amazing, the kid new all of the words, noises, timing, everything.

Tearing ourselves away from good food and karaoke, we headed back into the temple complex…

Heading back to the hotel, I dropped a very jet-lagged and worn out Sandy at the hotel for recovery and headed back out for a tour of the night market (so many cheap things!!!) and found a nice irish pub to watch the Argentina vs. Belgium match. Obviously, I was rooting for Argentina to knock out those Belgians who stole the US’s chance at immense underdog glory.

Day 3

Our final morning in Siem Reap we woke up to an unpleasant surprise: a power outage! Woohoo developing country! Walking around to find a place for breakfast, we meandered through a good half of the city looking for any place that would have power or some sort of energy to cook something up. Finally, after giving up and heading back to our hostel a good 2 or 3 hours later, we passed by a soup shop literally 200m from our door. I mean, really? Really? At least we didn’t have to walk far to get back to the hostel.

Packing up and taking the tuk-tuk back to the airport, I’m again impressed by the level of development and construction that is happening in/around the area and certainly hope that it continues!

Also, special thanks to Sol for giving me a laundry list of things to do and connections with people to see! I wish that I had more time to do everything that you mentioned, but I’ll just put it on the list for next time ;)