Siem Reap (days 1-2)

Between taxi rides, flights, layovers and whatnot, it took me about 12 hours to get from Changchun, China to Siem Reap, Cambodia. When I arrived, I got my visa at the airport, it took literally about three minutes. The airport itself was incredibly small and tropical looking and kind of adorable. My hostel picked me up there and we took a 20 to 30 minute tuk tuk ride back so I could drop off my stuff and meet my friend from Songyuan.

This is a tuk tuk (and kind of a nice one).

I was slightly exhausted from all the traveling, so we didn't do too much the first night. We grabbed dinner and a few beers, checked out the night market and that was about it. We wanted to rest up in preparation for a temple filled day the following day!

The next day we hired a tuk tuk for the day for 12 riel and set out to see some temples. My friend had already spent three days at the temples with her boyfriend and his mom but was happy to repeat some of them. She picked the best few and we ended up hitting three of them. To see the temples, you have to purchase a ticket for 20 USD, but it's good all day for all of the temples; for 40 USD you can purchase a three day pass.

I absolutely fell in love with the temples in Cambodia. In China, I kind of feel like if you've seen one temple, you've seen them all. They're really similar. They're all either new or newly restored. Sure they're cool, but they can't even compare as far as I'm concerned. In Cambodia, each seemed to have its own "personality" if you will. Even the ones that were being restored still felt old, like a part of ancient culture. They kind of feel like you're in a movie, like Tomb Raider or Jurassic Park, or a video game. A lot of the pagodas and such are newer, like in China, but still distinctly different. Stay tuned for photographic proof.

First we went to Angkor Wat. Someone had said it was one of the Seven Wonders of the World, which then brought up a big conversation about what they were (apparently it's not so set in stone). Either way, Angor Wat was amazing. It's the most popular temple in Cambodia and the largest Khmer temple in the world.

My friend had been with a tour guide when she had gone the first time, so she had some great history and trivia for me that I had wanted to include here, but that information has long since left my brain. You'll have to be content with pictures.

 

After exploring the inside of Angkor Wat and all of the surrounding buildings (mostly libraries), we saw a little road wandering off to the side. Nobody was going down it, so naturally we decided to explore (plus, as usual, I had to pee, and we hadn't encountered a WC yet).

As we were walking down the road a monk came up behind us. He didn't speak English of course, but he motioned for us to follow him. We didn't know where the road was going anyway, so we did. He ended up taking us to a small, hidden side temple on a lake. There was absolutely nobody there, it was very cool!