just as a recap - I left you all off in Koh Phangnon - and our next city was Siem Reap.
from the hotel in Phangon - we took a taxi to a boat. we took the boat to a bus. we took that bus to a train. we took the train to a minivan. we took that minivan to the border where we left Thailand and entered Cambodia. We then took a large bus. We took that to another minivan and we arrived in Siem Reap.
Siem Reap is a large tourist city because of its close proximity to Angkor Village. The town was beautiful and nice and was filled with different sorts of accommodations, from the very expensive to the very cheap. We settled at a hostel called Golden Mango which was absolute fantastic - $9 a night and was essentially at least a three star hotel. Has to be the nicest hostel I've stayed in. We were sat down upon arrival for a presentation about the hostel - there was a restaurant attached whose most expensive item was a $3.50 steak. On-call tuk-tuks (4 person max. taxis driven by a motorbike at the front - awesome, they had them in Thailand too but I think I forgot to mention).
Angkor Village is the remains of a large civilization - both the political and religious center of much of Southeast Asia and features the famous Angkor Wat (wat = temple). Many of you might recognize a few of the temples from the Tomb Raider movie - or perhaps you've just seen pictures before.
They are notorious as tourists hotspots, hotspots in general (we went in the "colder" season and it was at least 90) and for children begging you for money as you tour (boy did they!). But it's beautiful nonetheless.
We opted for the major tourist package and woke our vacationing butts up at 4:30am and go to Angkor (with our private tuk-tuks) in time for sunrise (the sun rose around 6 or so).
The sunrise at Angkor Wat is quite famous and there were hundreds of people there doing exactly what we were doing. The sunrise is perhaps most famous because the sun reflects in the GIGANTIC(ly awesome) MOAT that surrounds the temple area. I've always been into moats (who isn't, seriously) and this one sure didn't disappoint.
But the sunrise was great - the eery red of South Asia spurting just above the peaks (rosy-fingered dawn, and all). Lots of pictures were taken. I'll put one or two up.
After, we toured Angkor Wat - which wikipedia says is considered the largest religious building in the world. At times it seemed more like a fort than a temple (was Hindu, then Buddhist). Very cool place - large indeed and amazing to walk around. Reminded me of Palatine Hill and all the ruins of Rome - always these weren't quite as decadent.
We had chosen to do a tour with the tuk-tuks and saw about 4 temples in total and a few old government and society buildings/ruins. Inbetween we had lunch at a recommended restaurant that was pretty awful, bought some things we definitely didn't need but couldn't keep refusing begging people, refused other begging people and fell asleep in the tuk tuk (well, I did) essentially risking injury because you could very easily fall out.
The other famous temples are the "tree" temple where the roots have seemed to come into perfect contact with the ruins adn grow right up against them - and have for many years. The other is the "faces" one (again, in Tomb Raider) where the large towers have faces looking out from them. You should be able to figure out which is which from the pictures.
We stayed around the village until about 3pm when we were just too exhausted to do anything but go home (not to mention I was in pants and dying).....That night we explored a part of Siem Reap called Pub Street that had a bunch of bars and eateries lined up and where all the tourists flocked to. It was the Asian Cup finals (Japan vs Australia - Japan having knocked off S. Korea in the semifinals) and every bar was playing the game so we watched (Japan won, 1-0 if you were curious) and drank a bit and went home early and tired.
The next day we slept in and sometime in the afternoon we went to a floating village outside of Siem Reap and near Tonle Sap (the largest lake in Southeast Asia). The village is precisely was it sounds like - a bunch of houses floating and they had all the necessary things for a village - schools, a hospital, and even a gymnasium that floated. Everyone just got around on small boats. It was very cool to see but seemed outright dangerous if floods or storms should come - but that's just how some people live.
Cambodian people were amazingly nice to us but were noticeable much poorer than the other three nations I saw. Lots of children begging for just one dollar - things were very cheap (2 shirts for like 4 or 5 bucks) and they were grateful if you bought from them. This also led to some annoying persistence on the part of the children and vendors, so there are times you have to be forceful with your "NO" 's.
We took a mini-caravan (2) taxis to the capital city of Phnom Penh but didn't get there until 10 or so. We made an unexpected stop at an impromptu dance party with Cambodian people taking place outside of a pharmacy along the highway. We danced for about 10 or 15 inutes then moved on- because it was nearing the Lunar New Year, there was a party of this sort every 15 or 20 miles. random gatherings of happy people dancing and celebrating. amazing to drive through.
We would done a day in Phnom Penh but we had to choose whether we wanted that or an extra day in Vietnam and we chose the latter. We ate in Phnom Penh and took a few pictures by our hostel (which was the most European of any of our hostels, a twisting consortium of rooms and hallways,a center laundry area and a main meeting area). We ate and after figuring out everything with our Visas we charted a private boat for a 2 or 3 hour journey down the Mekong River. We watched the sun set as we arrived in Vietnam.
Cambodia was short - the shortest of all the countries - but the most historically involved and an opportunity to meet amazing people and eat great food. i hope to get back there and enjoy more of the country - Phnom Penh and around Tonle Sap.
next, and last, up: Vietnam
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