1.16.10 - 1.19.10:
Siem Reap is a small town outside of the Angkor Wat complex - which is the largest religoius structure in the world (totally massive!). It primarily caters to tourists, so there is a lively night market, bustling city with day time market, and a few blocks of back-to-back bars, cafes, restaurants, clubs, shops, cafes, and street vendors. It's a cute, fun town and just a short walk from my hotel... did I say hotel? I'm sorry, I meant villa. Yes folks, I have upgraded from a 16 person in one room bunk bed dorm (all sharing one, sad bathroom) to a large, beautiful, clean, airy, and just plain awesome villa, with a shower separate from the toilet and hot water and my own room (even 2 beds!). The place is really nice and has a great vibe to it - and all for a measely 15$ more a night - totally worth it! After getting settled I went into town and poked around a bit to see what the town was all about but just had a quiet dinner with my first Angkor Beer and got to bed early ready for my tour the following morning.
Angkor Wat - sunrise
Spent the next day going from one religious site to the next temple to the next temple and to the next. All of them are truly remarkable, but after walking around all day looking at them for two days straight - they begin to lose their luster, unfortunately. I was all templed out after 1.5 days of them, and I didn't even see half of them! I spent these days with an Ozzie I met in my Villa who is traveling on her own too. We tried a couple of great restuarnts together with great Cambodian food, delicious drinks, and ambiance and shopped through the night market as well. We trekked from temple to temple together in a tuk-tuk on the 2nd day as well, which made temple-seeing much more interesting, and much easier to get pictures of myself too! :) We left Monday morning at 5am to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat, which is the "classic" photo that is shown of the complex, and it was really beautiful. There was a huge crowd there, they brought us coffee while we waited, and as the sun came up you could hear cameras going off everywhere. We also did a 2 hour walk and talk thing through a local village to find out more about how Cambodians live and give back to the community as well - it was cool to meet some local people and see how they live day-to-day.
Preah Ko
Cambodia has been really great - the temples were awesome (took 200+ pictures of them alone!), the people are incredibly nice and happy, and everything is dirt cheap (nice tshirts for $1, huge massive beer for $1). I'm glad I met someone to grab dinner and drinks with and go temple hopping with - but I'm off again tomorrow on my own for Melbourne. I leave on the 19th and arrive on the 20th!
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