Like always, left packing far too late and yet again got very little sleep before heading out to Cambodia. On a plus side note, finally did some online Korean shopping and think it just might be a little too addictive. Super cheap and super easy and quick, order two separate items on two different nights a few days before my flight, and they both came in around dinner the day after I ordered them. I will definitely be jumping on that bandwagon. Anyways, off to Cambodia! Met Ellen in Gwangju to bus it up to the Incheon Airport for our evening departure. Bit of a long day of travelling that started around 8am, got into Cambodia around 11pm, but that's how she goes. Anyways, we rolled into Phnom Penh and we're off to the hostel, little place called Me Mates Place. We lucked out, at first the five of us were going to be in split rooms but the group hostel opened so we had the bigger room, plus a patio and rooftop terrace.
I'm just going to throw it out there that Phnom Penh is not my favourite city out there. There is so much poverty, and compared to the other cities we travelled through, it seemed awfully heightened in P.P. You couldn't stop to get gas without being surrounded by people asking for money and trying to sell you things. It's so sad to see, but impossible to help everyone over there. So there was definitely some culture shock getting into the city, which as it stands is actually pretty nice. Not a whole lot going on, but nice enough to spend a couple of days. We (Ellen and I, the other three arrived the night before us) had two nights and one day in P.P. so we jumped at the chance to see the local sights. The guy working the hostel tried so hard to convince us to go to a shooting range to fire some machine guns and, given $450, a rocket launcher. I would have been game for shooting a gun, but then reality sunk in with where we would be shooting it. Not exactly the safest location and the weapons were sketch, and to put into context with the rest of the day, I'm sure we all would have felt pretty awful if we had taken the opportunity. Our first stop was The Killing Fields. I made the mistake of not reading up on too much Cambodian history before travelling so everything was pretty fresh, but the Killing Fields were definitely depressing to walk through, and after going through that tour we went to S-21, which was a Prison used during the Khmer Rouge Communist Regime. It was a bit of a heavy day, I almost feel bad saying it was a great way to learn about Cambodian history, but it definitely makes me want to read more on the country. Day was topped off on a lighter note by visiting the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda.
Capped the night off with some dinner and meeting a few new faces, then some rooftop soccer and then prepared for our early morning departure into Siem Reap. Found enough of us so that we could rent a private van to drive us up there rather than take a bus (that little adventure will come later). It was a bit of a long drive up to Siem Reap. It took about six hours, but we made it. The guy from our other hostel set us up at the No Problem Villa so we already had a couple of rooms waiting for us. After settling in, off to Angkor Wat to watch the sunset. Underestimated just how busy it would be at that time, so we didn't get prime location to watch the sunset, but we got to glimpse it and check out a little bit of the temples area before heading back to the hostel and exploring the area. We lucked out and were in a fairly prime location, everything was pretty centralized and we could walk everywhere. Plus, we were close to the markets and Pub Street, so we had a little bit of everything.
We had a tuk tuk take us out to Angkor Wat again the next day to we could actually explore the temple. It still boggles my mind that we were walking through the temples only a couple weeks ago. It was so surreal to be in there. We heard it through the grapevine that most people leave the temples around 11 and return around 3-ish to escape the hottest times of the day, so naturally we made that our time to explore. I'm glad we did, the temple was not that busy, and it definitely enhanced the experience to be able to walk down some of the long corridors with nobody else. And it was definitely a lot bigger than I had anticipated. It looked big from the outside, but it seemed massive from the inside. Definitely a beautiful place to be, if I had a pretty good camera, I could easily spend hours on hours walking through there. Not to mention the monkeys. I've never seen a monkey in the wild, so it was pretty cool to see them just chillin at the side of the paths, or on the temple walkways. Great first day through Siem Reap.
The poverty in Siem Reap wasn't as bad as in Phnom Penh, but it was still fairly significant. But the whole city had a different vibe than how Phnom Penh felt. And I think I ran into one of the greatest swindlers I've every met. And I think she's only about 7 maybe 8. She definitely coaxed us into buying some bracelets. We tried the simple "Ah no money," but she knew how to work a sale and with a smirk and the line "I make change" she ended up getting a sale out of each of us. Was worth the dollar just for the entertainment value of it all, she spoke and understood English so much better than 90% of the kids I'm teaching.
Well I'ma break this trip down a bit, part two will come later.
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