Cambodia!

Cambodia! For a long weekend (seeing as I now only have class 2 days a week, Tuesday and Wednesday all my weekends are long weekends) I flew off to Cambodia to visit the temples! I flew in and out of Phenom Penh so spent one night there and the rest in Siem Reap.

(sorry as a warning this is a long post, mainly due to lots of pictures)

 

In the Bangkok Airport I met a Canadian guy who had just finished teaching English in Korea so we ended up sharing a cab into Phenom Penh and I spent the first night touring around with him. After we found a place to stay and ate dinner we wandered the streets. First stop was a home-made icecream shop! So yummy! and it was so hot out the perfect refresher for our walk around the town. After wondering for a few hours we stopped at a bar/cafe to grab a couple beers and met an Irish guy, Brenden, who I ended up traveling with the entire time in Siem Reap!

Me with my Cambodian fruit flavored ice cream!  Really cute shop! 

We walked past the Independence Monument and just past it are big open pathways between the roads with palygrounds, people running and big groups of Cambodians of all ages dancing to Korean and Japanese pop music! It was so much fun to watch! They were some really good dancers!

Independance Monument

The next morning I woke up bright and early to go see the sites in Phenom Penh.

My first stop was the Central market to buy a pair of pants so I could go into the Palace.  I dint bring any pants knowing I didnt need them for the temples in Siem Reap but turns out you do need them for this palace. Of course shopping for one pair of pants ended up with a few more articals but it is so cheap in Cambodia, following in my father's footsteps "I just couldn't resist a good bargain!" 

Front Gates of the Palace.

After I found a pair of pants (I had been looking for an excuse to buy a pair of the flowy touristy pants for ages) I walked to the Palace.  The palace was beautiful! Best way to describe is by the pictures so look below...

me in my pants! (not as flattering with running shoes but oh well my ankle appreciates the shoes)

Model of Angkor Wat

 

After the Palace I found a Tuk Tuk and went out to the killing fields.  I was lucky to have been warned but it is a very somber area with a very intense story.  The images they drew of how they would kill the prisoners and the torture the Khmer Rouge put the Cambodians through is horrific!  

A memorial was built on the site fairly recently.  The entire building is filled with selves of bones all classified by age and gender.

the outside of the Memorial.  You can just see the shelves where the skulls and other bones are kept.

Some of the remains from the graves.,,  Bones and Clothes

The holes you can see are where the mass graves were.  In a couple you can still see bits of teeth and bone that have floated up during rainfalls.

Another box filled with bones.

This is inside the memorial building.  Completely filled with the skulls that were dug up from the mass graves.

You can see the shelves.  It's amazing how many there were. So sad, especially since many there still remember.

If you look closely you can see the skulls through the window.

As somber a place it is the Killing Fields are surprisingly peaceful too and I did have a nice walk around. 

After my visit I only had about 45min until i needed to catch the bus up to Siem Reap so I took a quick walk along the Quay, grabbed a bite to eat and made my way to the hotel to catch the van.  

lkjSisowath Quay.

First night in Siem Reap, after finding a place to stay which ended up being a complete dump... my room was at least (it was late, I was exhausted so I just wanted a bed, moved the next day), I went out for dinner and drinks with a couple guys I met at the hotel and the Irish guy, Brenden, from Phenom Penh.  There's a street in Siem Reap called Pub Street which I hope does not need a description.  

The next morning Brendan and I rented a tuktuk for the day to go see the temples!

There are so many temples I'm sure all the pictures I'm about to post will start looking the same.  Two days in Siem Reap was more then enough.  I had a great time and the temples are all very impressive but by then end I was definitely starting to be templed out!

Our first day we started at the further away temples.  We starte with Banteay Srei and Banteay Samre. This was a good plan as they are smaller so would seem unimpressive after the big hitters.  Even though they were smaller it was still unbelievable to imagine they were built way back in AD900.  One in particular had very intricate designs, I am very impressed they were able create such things with the tools they had. 

Look at the detail on this thing!

Banteay Srei, the really elaborate one.

We did the first two and thought they would take up more time, so decided to add a third temple in, Preah Khan, one of the bigger temples on the big loop. 

I still think it looks like they're playing tug of war! They were on the path leading up toe the entrance.

Tree growing on top of the ruins! More of these later on but I am still very amazing that this happens!

Me inside one of the trees growing on a wall!

That night we were exhausted! We had eaten breakfast at 7:30am and didnt have any food on the way as we didnt want to say yes to any of the stands pestering us so we didnt end up having lunch until around 4:30 or 5pm when we returned to Seim Reap.  It was a very good lunch! After I took a well needed nap before heading out for dinner.  An earlier night as we were exhausted but we did find a couple cute places to eat a couple small meals and have a few drinks.

The next day we woke up bright and ealry (4:30am!!!) to catch the sunrise!

We climbed up a hill so we could see Angkor Watt in the distance.  There was a cloud/haze so not quite as immpressive as I had hoped but it was still pretty!

 

After the sunrise we started at Angkor Thom in hopes to beat the crowd (we were lucky and actually did!).  Angkor Thom is a city so there were a few temples as well as terraces and Bhudda's.  Lots to see, we spent a good few hours roaming around.  After Angkor Thom we were starving so took a break to have a nice breakfast of eggs, baguettes and fruit.

Angkor Thom at sunrise (or soon after).

I know this should be obvious but we couldn't tell if this was the elephant terrace or the leopard terrace... it says it's the leopard one on the map...

On our way to Ta Prom we stopped at a smaller temple with the most amount of stairs I have seen in a long time!  The steps at these temples are SO STEEP! they are just wide enough to fit the width of your foot and so steep you feel like you're climbing up a ladder!

Brendan and I on our attempt to climb back down!

Can you tell how steep it is?!

Our next stop was Ta Prom.  This temple has been cleared the least so is most like how the French guy would have found the temples back in the 1800's.  It is also where Tomb Raider was filmed! The trees growing on this temple are massive!  I can easily see how it was a good set for the movie!

 

Last but not least we ended with Angkor Watt!  Honestly at this point if we did not have the biggest and most intact temple left we would probably just have skipped it but Angkor Watt was luckily worth it!  

Brendan, Diago (a Brazilian guy we picked up on our second day, if it wasnt for him we would have never made it for sunrise! Our tuktuk diver didnt show so really we were the ones who joined him!) and I on the path to the entrance of Angkor Wat.

A library in Angkor Wat.