Cambodia
And here we are in Cambodia. The Phnom Penh airport was super clean! Not that I was expecting squalor and filth, it was just cleaner than most airports I've been to in SE Asia. The driver we had was super nice and chatty, which made the hours and hours it took to get to the guesthouse in Siem Reap where we were staying. We stopped once for some dinner where we had beef lok lak (so delicious!!) and then continued on. I was so sleepy by the end, and the roads were so terrible that I wished I had taken a Dramamine. But the conversation was great, and the scenery was even better, so I wasn't upset by the road conditions. Day two in Cambodia were the temples.
Angkor Wat was first. Huge! An amazing structure that has seen so much strife; they were renovating the main portion of the temple around the time that we were in Cambodia. Not sure if that's done yet. Having seen only pictures in Professor Emmett's SE Asian Geography class while in college, seeing it in real life was wonderful. I got to see the murals of the Ramayana, the thousands of Apsaras (only one of which is smiling with her teeth, by the way), all the many bullet holes in the stone. When lunch time came, we decided not to eat at the restaurant across the street, we wanted to go back to the Apsara Market by our guesthouse since it was cheap and super tasty...and where we wouldn't be surrounded by children selling postcards, bracelets, and anything else they had. I don't mean to sound callous, I just don't like being nagged by adults or children to buy souvenirs or anything else.
Angkor Thom was second. The city was so large and relatively self-sustaining for so long that the evidence of their daily activities were carved into the walls and structures everywere. Even though Angkor Wat is the impressive one that everyone knows about, I found this temple way more interesting. Maybe because I'm in love with every-day life (I fell in love with Jordan and decided marrying him would be a good thing while in an aisle in a grocery store, for goodness' sake). We found a "window" and had Kara take a picture of us framed in it and thought it was hilarious that a bunch of Koreans in a tour group saw us do it and then copied the idea after Greg and Kara had their turn. 4 white Americans in Cambodia started a trend among Koreans for a minute or few.
Day 2 began with the Tomb Raider temple, which didn't look much like it did in the movie since the weathering of the stones and the growth of the trees and plants have seriously altered the appearance of the place. The super famous tree was "eating" it's way through the temple's entrance so much so that they had to cut it's roots and the top to kill it and prevent it from collapsing entirely. The area that this temple is in is much wetter and covered by lots of trees and forest growth, so weathering occurs much faster here and, though restoration work was going forward, they will never be able to completely restore it. Another temple had a library just to house a special sword. There were no stairs, just holes used in conjunction with ladders that could be removed so there would be no access to the second floor where the sword was when they were removed. The second to last temple we visited that day was Banteay Srei, a pink sandstone temple that had been used as "practice" before beginning the carving on Angkor Wat. Carvings here were deep, ornate, and amazingly preserved for being far, far older than any of the more famous temples. Last was Pra Rup, the oldest of all the temples we had seen both days. Dinner on Pub Street again, and then a walk through a night market rounded out the evening. We bought decorative pillow cases and two paintings (we have yet to mount them, but someday it'll happen).
The next day was the day we separated from Greg and Kara who were off to spend the rest of their time in Asia in the Philippines and our time in Cambodia was not yet over. We were off to Battambang during a huge downpour that flooded the streets. Stores along the street to the bus stop were attempting to sweep the water out of their shops and when we got out to walk to our hotel, we were in water just about up to our knees. Needless to say, we were in the shower as soon as we checked into our hotel. You never know what's floating and suspended in the SE Asian streets during a flood...well, actually, you can make a pretty educated guess, hence the need for a thorough scrub down. Oh, and the shower was awesome. One shower head for scalding, and the other shower head for icicles.
Battambang was nice, but there just wasn't much to do...and for those of you who read this and ask, "But what about the Bamboo Train?" I'll ask you, "Why?" And I guarantee that you won't be able to come up with a decent reason as to why we should have ridden the Bamboo Train. So we went back to Phnom Penh. We met up with a man we met while in Super China Mart (now Ocean Mart) in Sandy, Utah. Of all places...he handed Jordan his business card and told us to come see him when we were in Cambodia, and that's just what we did. We had a good visit with him and his wife and then a good lunch with him the following day. Church in Cambodia was super nice. An all-around good feeling during each class. And then, the highlight, albeit a depressing highlight, of our time in Phnom Penh was Tuol Sleng. There was such a pervasive feeling of depression throughout the entire school, incredibly humbling and sobering. Even though this was such a horrific event that occurred in their not-so-distant past, Cambodians are generally happy people. A little too much alcohol consumption with little care for where they dump their rubbish, but still a cheerful nation. We were glad to have had a week to explore, but the time had come to fly to Thailand...
Angkor Wat was first. Huge! An amazing structure that has seen so much strife; they were renovating the main portion of the temple around the time that we were in Cambodia. Not sure if that's done yet. Having seen only pictures in Professor Emmett's SE Asian Geography class while in college, seeing it in real life was wonderful. I got to see the murals of the Ramayana, the thousands of Apsaras (only one of which is smiling with her teeth, by the way), all the many bullet holes in the stone. When lunch time came, we decided not to eat at the restaurant across the street, we wanted to go back to the Apsara Market by our guesthouse since it was cheap and super tasty...and where we wouldn't be surrounded by children selling postcards, bracelets, and anything else they had. I don't mean to sound callous, I just don't like being nagged by adults or children to buy souvenirs or anything else.
Angkor Thom was second. The city was so large and relatively self-sustaining for so long that the evidence of their daily activities were carved into the walls and structures everywere. Even though Angkor Wat is the impressive one that everyone knows about, I found this temple way more interesting. Maybe because I'm in love with every-day life (I fell in love with Jordan and decided marrying him would be a good thing while in an aisle in a grocery store, for goodness' sake). We found a "window" and had Kara take a picture of us framed in it and thought it was hilarious that a bunch of Koreans in a tour group saw us do it and then copied the idea after Greg and Kara had their turn. 4 white Americans in Cambodia started a trend among Koreans for a minute or few.
Day 2 began with the Tomb Raider temple, which didn't look much like it did in the movie since the weathering of the stones and the growth of the trees and plants have seriously altered the appearance of the place. The super famous tree was "eating" it's way through the temple's entrance so much so that they had to cut it's roots and the top to kill it and prevent it from collapsing entirely. The area that this temple is in is much wetter and covered by lots of trees and forest growth, so weathering occurs much faster here and, though restoration work was going forward, they will never be able to completely restore it. Another temple had a library just to house a special sword. There were no stairs, just holes used in conjunction with ladders that could be removed so there would be no access to the second floor where the sword was when they were removed. The second to last temple we visited that day was Banteay Srei, a pink sandstone temple that had been used as "practice" before beginning the carving on Angkor Wat. Carvings here were deep, ornate, and amazingly preserved for being far, far older than any of the more famous temples. Last was Pra Rup, the oldest of all the temples we had seen both days. Dinner on Pub Street again, and then a walk through a night market rounded out the evening. We bought decorative pillow cases and two paintings (we have yet to mount them, but someday it'll happen).
The next day was the day we separated from Greg and Kara who were off to spend the rest of their time in Asia in the Philippines and our time in Cambodia was not yet over. We were off to Battambang during a huge downpour that flooded the streets. Stores along the street to the bus stop were attempting to sweep the water out of their shops and when we got out to walk to our hotel, we were in water just about up to our knees. Needless to say, we were in the shower as soon as we checked into our hotel. You never know what's floating and suspended in the SE Asian streets during a flood...well, actually, you can make a pretty educated guess, hence the need for a thorough scrub down. Oh, and the shower was awesome. One shower head for scalding, and the other shower head for icicles.
Battambang was nice, but there just wasn't much to do...and for those of you who read this and ask, "But what about the Bamboo Train?" I'll ask you, "Why?" And I guarantee that you won't be able to come up with a decent reason as to why we should have ridden the Bamboo Train. So we went back to Phnom Penh. We met up with a man we met while in Super China Mart (now Ocean Mart) in Sandy, Utah. Of all places...he handed Jordan his business card and told us to come see him when we were in Cambodia, and that's just what we did. We had a good visit with him and his wife and then a good lunch with him the following day. Church in Cambodia was super nice. An all-around good feeling during each class. And then, the highlight, albeit a depressing highlight, of our time in Phnom Penh was Tuol Sleng. There was such a pervasive feeling of depression throughout the entire school, incredibly humbling and sobering. Even though this was such a horrific event that occurred in their not-so-distant past, Cambodians are generally happy people. A little too much alcohol consumption with little care for where they dump their rubbish, but still a cheerful nation. We were glad to have had a week to explore, but the time had come to fly to Thailand...
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