(it may look long, but it's mostly pictures)
The first weekend of November, also my birthday weekend, we went to Siem Reap, Cambodia to see Angkor Wat and whatever else we could squeeze in in two days. Cambodia was amazing, we absolutely loved it.
*A little bit from Wikipedia on Angkor Wat along with one of my pictures:
Angkor Wat (Khmer: អង្គរវត្ត) is the largest Hindu temple complex and the largest religious monument in the world. The modern name, Angkor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" The temple was built by KingSuryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yasodharapura (Khmer: យសោធរបុរៈ, present-day Angkor), the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum. Breaking from the Shaivism tradition of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation – first Hindu, dedicated to the god Vishnu, then Buddhist. The temple is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol ofCambodia,[1] appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors.
First things first though, we land, get off the plane, I think we were the only plane at the airport. It was about 8:00am Friday morning, November 2nd. We go into the tiny airport and fill out our paperwork for our Visa on arrival. We are the first ones in line to get visa's, pay our $21 USD, since the main currency used in Cambodia is USD along with their own Real. They have about 10 people sitting behind this long desk and our passports get passed one at a time down the list of people, all doing who knows what and nothing and getting paid for it. They call my name once my passport makes its way down and I collect, they call Eric's name and he gets his passport. We go through customs and make it out of the airport, find our hotel driver and sit and wait on 2 more people to come out. We sit and take a look through our passports at the visa we have just received and the stamps, just checking it out. Eric notices his visa was put on page 10 of his passport, hmmm, that doesn't make since he's on about page 22...he flips through the rest of the passport, empty, double hmmm. Finally, he takes a peek at the front picture page. Holy crap it's not his passport! The visa people gave him the wrong passport, AND he actually made it through the customs check! They looked at his passport and looked and him and sent him on his way. Great work guys... Eric finds some guy to ask and he tells him to go in like he's arrived at the airport and find someone inside. I wait outside while he's there making sure our ride doesn't leave, luckily the people still haven't come out. He gets in there, some guy finds him and asks him if he's Eric. They take him back by the visa counter next to the guy whose passport he had. They chat for a min and Eric gets his passport. They had not given the other guy Eric's passport, thank goodness. Eric gets his passport and heads back out. He sits down and checks his passport again. This time he notices that there's no entrance stamp. He's got his passport, got the visa, but no stamp saying he actually entered the country. We thought this might present a problem when trying to leave Cambodia, so he heads back in and tries to explain what happened and that he needs a stamp. Finally, he gets it and comes back out and we are able to leave and head to the hotel. What a nice welcome and start to the day, geez! I don't even want to think about what would have happened had we not had to wait on two other people coming out of the airport, and had we not checked our passports right then. We would have gotten to the hotel and probably not have noticed until we were leaving, yikes, that would have been a nightmare. On the plus side, the airport was pretty. :)
The hotel was really nice too, the staff was fantastic. Couldn't have been more helpful. Anything we asked or wanted, they were happy to oblige. We got checked in and hired a car and guide for the day to take us around to some of the temples. The driver and guide that walked around with us for the day, only cost us $75 with tax and everything. Not too bad. The main temple that Cambodia is known for is Angkor Wat, our guide said we should see that one last since it is the busiest in the morning, so we did. First stop was the South Gate of Angkor Thom, then the Bayon Temple, Baphuon Temple, and the Phimeanakas Temple all before lunch. They go in that order, but my pictures seem to run together a little bit, so I can't quite decipher which is which other than the pictures start with Angkor Thom and end with Phimeanakas below. Anyways, the temples were absolutely beautiful and all built in about the 10th-12th centuries. There are about 2000 temples in Cambodia, and we saw 6 I think. We did all the temples below in one day, our second day was spent elsewhere. We walked in between a couple of the temples and drove to the next one and the next. Don't get me wrong, they are amazing and definitely worth seeing, but they all run together and I can't tell which is which, except for Angkor Wat of course. (actually, I figured it out, so I separated them for ya) There isn't much else to say, so enjoy...
South Gate at Angkor Thom:
(Eskimo kiss)
Baphuon Temple:
Phimeanakas Temple:
fun fact from Wikipedia...
According to legend, the king spent the first watch of every night with a woman thought to represent a Nāga in the tower, during that time, not even the queen was permitted to intrude. Only in the second watch the king returned to his palace with the queen. If the naga who was the supreme land owner of Khmer land did not show up for a night, the king's day would be numbered, if the king did not show up, calamity would strike his land.
Lunch time! Thank goodness, we got a little tired of all the walking and needed a break from the sun! Lunch was really good, we had a local Cambodian dish, delicious! And in an air conditioned restaurant! After lunch, we stepped outside and they had all these hammocks hung up and people just chillin' in them. There were hammocks set up all over the city and using anything they could find. In between buses, hanging from a bus and a tree, a big truck, just anything. Eric was a little worn out and decided he needed to rest, and I decided to join him. :)
After lunch we hit up two more temples. Ta Prohm and Angkor Wat. Ta Prohm is where some of Tomb Raider was filmed, they love Angelina Jolie in this town, still. So that was neat to see this site and the temple itself is stunning. This temple is one of the ones left largely to be, they are now restoring some of it, but they pretty much leave it alone. There are these old, massive trees growing in, around, and through the temples. It's quite a site. You see these huge roots coming through the bottom of the structure and the trees on top going on forever, beautiful. Here's Ta Prohm...
Final temple of the day...Angkor Wat.
Angkor Wat was amazing. It's huge too! We first came upon it from the back side, there's a stone outer gate that surrounds the temple. An inner wall that makes up the temple, and then the temple itself. The grounds on the other side of the temple are huge as well, with a couple libraries on site. Apparently, the kings back then loved their libraries. There's also a bridge that you walk across from the front gate to the entrance and it's said to be taking a journey from Earth to Heaven. You walk up these steep steps to get up top of the temple, truly beautiful. They liked steep steps though, they were all over every temple. They didn't believe in normal steps to ensure comfort, lol. Take a look...
Eric with our guide
bottom right corner are piles of rocks, it's believed if you place a smaller stone on the top of another stone and make a wish, it will come true
these people are actually cutting the grass with machetes! crazy!! that's a lot of grass.
Friday night we headed into town on a Tuk-Tuk and checked out downtown and the Night Market and Pub Street. Aptly named for it's bars and restaurants :) They had all sorts of crap and cool stuff in the night market, pub street offered great food, music, and $0.50 draft beers. Our tuk tuk cost us $3 each way into town and then back! So cheap. Good times!
Saturday, November 3rd...Happy Birthday to me :) Even though the temples were awesome, we decided we had seen enough and wanted to check out what else Siem Reap had to offer. We had our tuk-tuk driver pick us up at the hotel at 9:30am and take us to see the Kompong Plouk floating village and Tonle Sap Lake (the largest fresh water lake in SE Asia). We did not realize it would take about an hour to get to the boats from our hotel, or we may have rethought taking a tuk tuk with all the dirt and pollution flying in our face :/ The ride itself was interesting though. We saw motorbikes carrying dead pigs (yes, that's plural), a dead chicken, kids, tv's, anything really as the bikes are their main mode of transportation. But we made it nonetheless. We hopped in a little boat and had it all to ourselves with the driver. We cruised up a little river to see the floating village. It was crazy to see how these people live. These bare minimum houses on stilts, kids in little boats by themselves cruising along to or from school, to their house, wherever. Families collecting fish from huge long fishing nets. People just hanging on the porch, waving at us. Saw some pigs in floating cages (live ones), ladies putting little pigs into a boat for transport, and a few naked kids. We went all the way down the river to the entrance of the lake and then turned around, stopped on our way back at a little riverside cafe for a refreshment and then back to the beginning.
(the pigs)
(rice paddies)
(Eric driving the boat for a second)
After a little poolside lounging back at the hotel we took it back to pub street for a little birthday celebration. Yummy dinner and drinks and bar hopping. We heard Gangam Style a couple times accompanied by the dance and drunk patrons, of course. :P At dinner we told the lady it was my birthday and asked for a candle with my chocolate mousse we ordered and she found us one and had them play It's Your Birthday, so sweet and special. I got to blow out a candle on my birthday in Cambodia..life is pretty good :)
A couple pics from our hotel...
We had a super early flight out the next morning and that was that, bye bye Siem Reap. We want to go back, and I think we will sometime. There is still a lot more to see and do. Until next time! :)
