Angkor Wat - the 7th Wonder of the World We had an early morning 3am wake up call to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat and continue on with the "Small Circuit" for the rest of the day throughout Angkor Archeological Park. We booked a cheap $12 group tour through our hostel, Onederz, that started out with sunrise Angkor Wat and then stopped at a few places throughout the day including Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm. Although we got there early enough to miss the second surge of people (buses packed full of Chinese tourists), the sunrise was maybe the most tourist thing I have ever been a part of... What seemed to be like thousands of people crowded around a small pond to capture selfies and the famous mirror photo like shown in the panoramic above. It was so hectic that I immediately retreated and went to go view the sunrise on top of a nearby structure, but Pat decided to brave it out and capture the image shown in the panorama above while successfully towering over the rows of people in front of him. I wish I had a photo of the crowd to portray the madness. In hindsight, it would have been better to hire a private tuk-tuk driver for more freedom so that we could have either just skipped the sunrise and explore Angkor Wat all to ourselves or simply done the loop in reverse order to avoid the crowds. Despite these frustrations, the grand size of Angkor Wat was amazing, and it is no surprise that is listed as the 7th Wonder of the World. It was almost hard to realize how big of a complex we were walking around until you looked at an arial view of the site. Angkor Thom - Bayon Temple I personally enjoyed these next two stops more than Angkor Wat because they were a good mix of untouched ruins with restored sections giving it a rugged, authentic feel yet portraying the original beauty of the temples from hundreds of years ago. The one thing that struck out to me the most at the Bayon Temple was trying to comprehend how these structures were built by humans in the 12th century. The structures consisted of perfectly carved out stones stacked onto one another like an enormous real-life jigsaw puzzle relying simply on gravity and fit to keep everything intact. I don't even want to start to try to think about how they were able to construct the immense height of towering cone-like structures. These features were not restored as well as the clean-cut ones seen at Angkor Wat, but you can tell with a creative eye that both resemble the shape of a blooming Lotus flower. The Lotus flower is found all throughout Cambodia and is a symbol of purity and enlightenment in Khmer culture... I learned this and some other interesting facts on the tour, but it seemed as if our tour guide was more interested in cracking sex jokes and making to sexual references to features throughout the ruins the entire day instead of providing real and interesting historical facts on the sites. This was quite disappointing because it was the only reason we hired a guide, but later we came to realize that no one really knows that much about these sites and the ancient culture. There is a lot that seems to still be a mystery to historians and experts. Ta Prohm (the Tomb Raider Temple) As the day went on, it only got hotter and I even recall nearly falling asleep while standing up a couple times during the tour because the intense heat and huge lack of sleep we were on. One of our last stops was throughout Ta Prohm, which might look familiar from a scene in one of the Tomb Raider movies. The production crew most likely chose this site because of the large amount of roots intertwining throughout the ruins and the trees growing directly on top of the structures, which ultimately gives it a very unique and natural atmosphere. It would have been awesome to come here thing in the morning to avoid the crowds and truly admire the surroundings. The heat and constantly flowing lines of people were unfortunate obstacle this late in the day. City of Siem Reap The most memorable stop we made in Siem Reap was at the Bugs Cafe where we split the small sampler platter to get a taste a wide variety of insect based dishes. Although we were both ready and excited for the experience, we sat down at a table and both quickly agreed to leave for a few minutes for a beer or two before diving into this strange cuisine for the first time. After three $0.50 draft beers each, we returned and went for it. (And yes you heard that right, beers on the streets of Cambodia range form $0.50 to $0.75 to $1.00 each depending on where you are.) To our surprise, it was all surprisingly delicious! My favorite were the straight Silk worms, crickets, and grasshoppers. The scorpion and tarantula did not have much flavor and the overall flavor of the deep fried ones seemed to be over powered by non-insect ingredients. Small sampler platter consisted of:
One of the major differences between Cambodia and Thailand is that the people of Cambodia are much poorer, and we could see this in the general lifestyle and attitude of many of the Cambodian people we encountered here. Although the Thai people could also be deceitful to obtain tourists' money (and I don't want to unfairly generalize the Cambodian people because I did meet several genuine ones throughout my time in the country), it was pretty apparent that the people around Siem Reap were desperate and ruthless at trying to sell you something or convince you to buy their service. We even experienced this first thing upon landing into Siem Reap after we hired a government sponsored remorker (an old motor bike with a two-wheeled cart hitched to the back transforming it into a tuk-tuk like thing) driver who randomly stopped in the middle of a dark alley way and tried to sell us on a Angkor tour the next morning. The whole experience was very shady, but he was just out there trying to do anything he could to make more cash. Just like Angkor Wat's sunrise was super touristy, that naturally made the city of Siem Reap the most touristy city I have visited in SE Asia. There were just non stop people trying to sell tuk-tuk rides, tours, massages, street food, and the menus outside their bar/restaurant unlike any other city. It got annoying very quickly wandering the streets around westernized Pub Street, but the one thing that sticks out in my mind was the unbelievable amount of carts lining the streets selling fried ice cream rolls. Like how many people can actually profit off of selling the same thing!?! One night we went to see the famous Cambodian circus which provided some great acrobatic and musical entertainment very similar to the well-known Cirque de Soleil. The entire performance was done in the Khmer language telling a story about a Cambodian man and woman intertwined with super impressive tricks and flips. I loved the enthusiasm that the performers brought to the show. Fortunately, they had projectors displaying translations in the background of English, French and Chinese so we were able to follow along. I noticed that there was a nearby cafe/yoga studio/community organization, the Peace Cafe, offering free/donation-based Khmer language classes every week. We walked over to check it out and practiced reciting some basic phrases and numbers in the Khmer language. Pat did it for kicks, and I was going to be in the country another 25 days so I wanted to know as much possible; however, I only retained and used "aw-koon" or "thank you" for the rest of my trip. Another day we did a $7 bike tour around the country side of Siem Reap along dirt paths just soaking in the view so rice paddies and farms. We rode through villages where little kids would run out excited to see foreigners and run alongside you trying to speak the little bit of English they knew. There were some stops at a monastery and random ancient ruins sitting outside of the Angkor Archeological Park. The day ended with a sunset over the country side (that Pat missed because he was occupied folding up a cool little lotus flower) followed by a traditional style dinner in a floating village hut.
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