Siem Reap

We started our day with class at the hotel and for some reason it was incredibly boring. For the life of me I could not get comfortable in my chair. We had our grammar and phonetics test before we left on our trip and it sure took a long time to finish a 50 question test. It took me about 2 hours to complete. I hope I passed. We hopped on the bus at 1 for our 7 hour journey to Siem Reap. Of course the only thing we had on our mind was where can we get some ice, a cooler, and some beer. Thankfully Trea, our chaperon, took us to a store where we were able to buy 24 packs for $10 and ice for 50 cents. When we were all loaded back on the bus we had three 24 packs and a couple of bottles of whiskey. For how much alcohol was on the bus the only noticeable sign of consumption was the amount of times we had to stop to have people (the guys) relieve themselves. After numerous stops on the side of the road and a couple of tourist pit stops we finally made it to our hotel in Siem Reap 8 hours later. We were exhausted and cranky. The city of Siem Reap was completely different from Phnom Penh, it is a tourist city. There are hotels with neon lights everywhere, loads of stores, and brightly lit streets. We went out for a quick dinner to a local restaurant called Happy Pizza which was known for its "Happy" Pizza. We pretty much ate and went back to the hotel since we were all exhausted and had to wake up early the next day. We all did meet up at the pool for a bit to cool down before heading off to bed, but once my head hit that pillow I was out like a light until early the next morning.

The next morning we left our hotel at 9am to spend the day at the Angkor Temples. There are so many temples here that it would take days to weeks to visit them all so we only visited 4 of the most popular: Angkor Thom,One I forgot,  Ta Prohm (Tomb Raider Temple), and Angkor Wat. Angkor Thom was the first temple and it was a great first one. It was a very popular temple people were everywhere they even had elephant rides around the temple. Once inside I couldn't believe the intricate stone work and the engineering of these temples. They did not use cement to keep these stones together they were just strategically placed and they have lasted for hundreds of years. One thing that was common in most of these temples was that the Buddha heads were taken off of a lot of statues and wall carvings. If I understood my tour guide correctly when one of the kings came into power he either did not believe in religion or was Hindu so he had all the Buddha heads removed. It was interesting to walk around the temples and see where the Buddha statue was etched out. Throughout most of the temples there was Buddha shrines where you could light an incense and pray. I am not sure what exactly I was suppose to do I was given an incense at one of the temples I knelled down in front of the statues and the woman running the shrine placed a bracelet on my wrist. I left some money and continued exploring. I kind of wish I knew what I needed to do so I could properly pay respect.

Once we finished with the first temple we moved on to a second temple which I can't remember the name. We pretty much go to the top take some pictures and come right back down. There stairs were quite imposing when you first walked up to the temple but instead of letting it get to me I just started climbing. I had to climb it almost like a ladder the stairs were very narrow and I didn't want to lose my footing while going to the top. I realized how out of shape I was because when I finally reached the top I was breathing heavy but at least I wasn't the only one. A good number of us were out of breath once we reached the top. There was a gorgeous view of the jungle and trees once we finally got to the top. I really couldn't see any other temples but it was quite peaceful at the top. After scaling myself down the temple we left to go to Ta Prohm the Tomb Raider Temple.


Ta Prohm was also a very popular temple that was currently undergoing restoration. This temple had a lot more of the tree roots growing into the temple. There was two notable roots that looked like an elephant leg coming over the wall and one that looked like a chicken claw. The only problem with this temple was that it was a bit smaller and there was a lot of people so it was hard to see everything. When we were on our tour we were trying to follow the group but got separated and when I walked into the corridor that the group had gone in it was dead silent. There was two choices go left or right not knowing which direction to take we went to where we thought the group had gone and ended up on the outside of the temple in the yard near the wall and it was very serene. No one was back there you could look outside the wall and see only jungle. It was unreal how one minute you in are the chaos of the temple and the next in complete serenity just outside the wall.

We stopped for lunch before we headed to the temple everyone wants to see Angkor Wat. The moat alone is impressive with this place. When you fist walk up you think that you are coming up to the temple and realize that the imposing wall is just the gate and when you walk through it you see the temple of Angkor Wat. It is quite impressive I really did think it was going to be bigger. Angkor Wat was much like the other temples. It had wonderful architecture and it was obviously much bigger than the other temples. What was nice about this temple is it had "swimming" pools in the center. They were quite deep and even though they were empty they would have been quite inviting had they been filled with water. When we made it through the beginning of the temple we went to the courtyard where we climbed the stairs to the top 3 towers or the 3 towers in almost all the pictures of Angkor Wat. This was the only temple that was extremely strict with our attire. Women had to have their shoulders covered and knees could not be seen, of course the guys had no restrictions. I felt like I was going into a Catholic church except they did not offer items to cover yourself up with here. The view and breeze from the top of Angkor Wat was amazing. It really gave you an idea of how large this temple and its grounds are. Once I ventured around the entire top of Angkor Wat I went back to the courtyard and began exploring more of the grounds till I found some of my group just sitting off the ledge of the temple talking and relaxing. I decided to join them it was very nice and calm up there. We became a tourist attraction too. We had a couple of Thai and Korean girls come take pictures of us with their cellphones. We weren't sure if they wanted pictures of the boys or if they thought it was amusing that a group of us just sat with our feet dangling off the high structure. We eventually got up and headed back to the bus.

When we got to the hotel the first thing all of us did was jump in the pool for an hour before we headed down to Pub Street for dinner and dancing. Pub Street is a street of restaurants and bars that tourists frequent in Siem Reap. We all had a nice dinner  and had fish pedicures which was a fun experience. There was about 10 of us sitting at the edge of a tank with our feet in the water having fish eat dead skin cells off our feet. We had a great time we had complimentary beer and toasted and drank to a great night in Siem Reap. The pedicure itself was weird at first it tickled a bit and every once in a while the fish would bite. Afterwards my feet felt so smooth I was glad that I did it. We finished up with our minor distraction and went in search of dancing which we found shortly after, we all danced until the wee hours of the morning. The problem we all had was each roommate had one key and we had all gotten separated. So some room mates hadn't made it back to the hotel and others had. It was a lot trying to figure out where people were going to sleep. We all got up early the next morning to head to the last temple and to head back to Phnom Penh. This was going to be one rough ride.