We've arrived in Cambodia!

We arrived in Cambodia two days ago, after a short flight from Ho Chi Minh City, and have been having a great time. Everyone here is so friendly and the sites are unbelievable, but this is certainly the poorest country I've ever been to. Siem Reap is a bit more touristy and as a Westerner, I think it’s a bit easier to adjust to. I’ve been having a hard time adjusting to all of the pollution and the artic temperatures that Courtney keeps setting the room air conditioner to, so I’ve developed a bit of a persistent cough. When we arrived at the airport, we were met by two tuk tuk drivers from our hotel. It was kind of fun, I think it’s the first time I’ve stepped out of an airport and found a man standing there with my name on a sign. We were able to get Mr. Loeun as our driver, the same one Caitlin had when she visited back in November, and he has been really nice. He took us back to our hotel, the Villa at Siem Reap, and we dropped off our stuff and headed out to explore a bit of the city and grab some dinner.

We found a great place called The Red Piano and we each had our first taste of the traditional Khmer food. Jason and I ordered a Chicken Curry dish, Courtney ordered Amok Fish, and Rachel had a pork dish. All of the food looked great and mine was outstanding. After dinner we wandered around the shops a little bit and there seems to be a few nice markets in town to look for trinkets in on our last day. We called it a pretty early night though so we could get ready for our 5 am pickup to see the sunrise over Ankor Wat.

Our drivers arrived at 5 am sharp and we headed off with them to Angkor Wat. We arrived at the park and we all had to hop out of the van to pay the $40 for the three day pass and have our picture taken. Once we all had our passes, we drove in the 5 miles or so until we reached Ankor Wat. The site is incredible. I don’t think any picture or video can really do it justice. From a far you are taken in by the overall size of the structure and once you cross the moat over the main bridge, you really see how spread out the structure is inside the walls. Our tour guide was outstanding the entire day. He spoke very good English and was really easy to understand. The sunrise was acutally quite overcast, but it didn't really matter. We all enjoyed the experience and got some wonderful pictures.

After a short breakfast, we headed to the South Gate of Angkor Thom the last capital of Angkor, which was active during the 12th centurie I think our guide said. This structure is equally impressive. The road leading up to the gate is lined by the ruins of over 30 Buddahs pulling on a snake as if they were playing tug of war. Again the scale is just impressive, each one is easily two times taller then me. The gate itself was decorated with a giant Buddah head with four faces pointing north, south, east and west. The lips on each face were over 10 feet across. I can't even imagine how people during this time period were able to move the rocks to build these temples. The rest of the day we spent at Bayon and Ta Prohm before returning back to Ankor Wat in the afternoon to see all of the intricate carvings in great detail with our guide. While we were at Bayon, the King of Laos showed up for a visit and we were ushered aside by the Cambodian Police while photographers and his entourage passed us. We were only about 5 or 10 feet away from them when they passed us. Certainly not the same kind of security you would see in the US had some random dignitary showed up to view a tourist attraction.

Ta Prohm is known as the jungle temple and is the location where they filmed the Tomb Raider movie. This temple like the others was spectacular. The walls of the temple here are overgrown with the roots of 1000 year old fig trees. Its incredible to see the power of nature as the trees literally tear the walls of the temple apart as their roots grow between the blocks of stone. After viewing Ta Prohm, we headed back to the hotel to enjoy some lunch and take a break from the heat and stairs of the temples.

At 2:00 pm our driver and guide returned to pick us up again. We headed back to Angkor Wat, the most popular of the temples, and saw all of the intricate carvings in great detail. Our guide seemed to know everything about the carvings. We found out later that they send them off to a 7 month training school in order to become tour guides. The carvings though for the most part depict different stories from the hindu scriptures. Our guide told us it took over 37 years to construct Angkor Wat and after seeing all of the detail work I can't believe they finished it so quickly. Aside from seeing all of the intricate carvings on the interior, I saw my first group of wild monkies! As we were entering the temple Courtney spotted one in the grass and pointed it out. She immediately told me to be careful because they try to steal all of your stuff. I of course ignored her and went straight for the video camera. Well as soon as I opened the bag and starting rustling the zip lock bag I was keeping it in, the Monkey immediately looked up at me and started running towards me. Needless to say, I ran up the stairs of the temple behind Courtney to get away from it. It followed me all the way up into the temple though before it became scared by other tourists heading out of the temple. As soon as the monkey retreated a bit, I did manage to get my video camera out and get some video of them. There were probably a group of about 6 or 7 or them hanging out on the wall of the temple eating some kind of big friut.

After a long first day in the park we headed back to our hotel, said goodbye to our guide and driver, and enjoyed a couple drinks for happy hour at the hotel before heading back into town to find some dinner. Beers are only 70 cents at the hotel! We had dinner at a nice little place called Temple Bar and we were able to see some Cambodian traditional dancers perform while we were eating our meals.

This morning we left the hotel at 6:30 am with our tuk tuk drivers and headed out to Bantay Srei which is about an hour or so from Siem Reap. The country side was beautiful and it was nice ride with the open air of the tuk tuk….

Well this internet café is about to close, so I’ll have to pick this up when we have more time.

We’re having a blast though….Tomorrow we’ll be riding elephants!