After Zach and I had seen a little of what northern Vietnam had to offer it was time to stretch our wings, get out of town, and do a little adventuring. So at a pretty leisurely hour (after I picked up some phở xào and mía đá for lunch) Zach and I were off to the airport to make our way to Siem Reap. After exchanging some money and dealing with some check-in shenanigans (while airlines flying into or out of Hanoi may allow for online check-in, there is no smartphone compatible check-in system in place, FYI, so you'll still have to go to the counter or electronic kiosk to pick up your tickets), we were happy to chill out for the two-ish hours it takes to get to Siem Reap.
After landing at a charming airport that was not unlike a mid-sized bus station we walked across the tarmac and through immigration (we bought e-visas and printed them out beforehand, which made the process very easy) and into the arms of our friendly hostel pick-up, a very nice tuk-tuk driver whose name unfortunately I no longer remember. The awkwardness of being carted around in a tuk-tuk, however, I will never forget.
Soon our simple country road, lined with little shops, cafes, houses, farmland, and temples, started to sprout billboards and bigger businesses until suddenly we were, without a doubt, in downtown Siem Reap. We checked in to our The Sieam Reap Hostel where Zach did a little negotiating (I had booked only dorm room beds, thinking to save a little, but Zach was in the mood to splurge so he upgraded us to a private room, however, they only had a room for our first and third night. It made for some very un-fun mornings but it was nice to have our own space to chill out in). We relaxed a bit, headed down to the bar where to our delight we discovered $.50 happy hour beers and $1 beers during all the other hours and also that the hostel had a very decent menu with both western and Cambodian food. We chose well, if I do say so myself.
Behind the hostel, a modern temple portended the wonders we would spend the next two days exploring.
Camera tricks: sacred/mundane, inner/outer, light and shadow. Photo stuff.
The sun sets on Siem Reap, but not on our journey, which was only beginning!
Cambodian stout, possibly the happiest discovery of our entire trip for me!
Zach was very happy to enjoy discount lager, but he'd not been living in the land of the lager for the last six months.
The hostel swimming pool can be seen in the background, which I kept threatening Zach I was going to swim in even though he was convinced (rightfully so) of its grodiness.
After a few beers, which honestly had me buzzed as I have grown pretty accustomed to the lightweight lagers and bia hoi's of Vietnam, we were ready to go out and find ourselves a night market. Find it we did, and I ended up drunk-shopping my way into purchasing a dress. It would not be my last drunk purchase at a night market in Cambodia.
Mol Meth Massage.
Very aesthetically pleasing street lamps.
Like a bridge over Cambodian waters...
Finally we made our way back to the hostel to fall into bed. It was a somewhat long first day but not as long as our next two days would be.
Drunk picture-taking from the hostel communal balcony. Photography at its finest.
The next day Zach and I took advantage of the free breakfast at the hostel, loading up on fresh fruit and carby delights, and then headed out in an attempt to find the white bicycles, a non-profit charity that rents bikes to tourists and uses the proceeds to support several projects in Siem Reap. Unfortunately we got turned around and ended up renting bikes from a place that had white bicycles in its collection, and not the actual charity. WHOOPS. Rookie mistake, I know. Live and learn from my mistakes, gentle readers.
Oh hai!
Passing the river in Siem Reap, reminded of where we actually were.
"Stop" in Cambodian.
Entering the park! The bike ride out to the entrance of the park probably took us about a half an hour. I got turned around at one of the turns so I ended up riding most of it solo as by the time I'd sorted myself out Zach had ridden on ahead. We met up again at the ticket kiosk at the entrance to the park, not far from this sign.
Now let's talk temples.
Prasat Kravan Temple (Hindu, 10th century)
It was interesting to see these signs by all of the temples, as it showed how truly international the restoration effort at Angkor Wat has been. This one was aided by Germany.
I believe this was a relief of Lakshmi, Hindu goddess of wealth, fortune, and prosperity.
And I believe this was a relief of Vishnu, one of the primary gods of Hinduism.
I liked Prasat Kravan a lot not only because it was the very first temple we stopped at but also because it was in beautiful condition and because the reliefs/statues within each of the rooms was in amazing condition.
Banteay Kdei Temple, "The Citadel of Chambers" (Buddhist, 12-13th century)
This temple was restored with help from Armenia! I'd know that script anywhere.
Less informative but way cooler sign located nearby.
Banteay Kdei entrance, where I had a very emotional "I can't believe I'm actually in this amazing place" moment. You ever have those moments in life where the reality of who you are and what you are doing just falls on you like a 5-ton sack of bricks? It was like I was just enjoying this pleasant bike ride with my friend and all of a sudden I realized, oh my god, this is my life, I'm riding my bike around a complex of ancient temples in Asia with a friend I made in Chile on vacation from living in Vietnam, how did I ever come to be this lucky? Is it going to be snatched away from me suddenly at some point? I can't go around living my whole life like that or I'd just be an emotional wreck all the time, but once in a while it is nice to have those moments of realization and recognition, I think.
Dancing Apsara, which can be seen all over many of the temples in Angkor Wat. She is a female cloud/water spirit in Hinduism and Buddhism.
Large trees left behind by French archaeologists so people could see what the temples looked like when they were rediscovered, especially impressive in the Ta Prohm temple but quite beautiful here as well. According to Wikipedia they are probably Tetrameles nudiflora, otherwise known as 'chundul' (Bengali) or 'diya labu' (Sinhala).
Ta Prohm Temple (Buddhist, 12-13th centuries)
Thanks Google, for making this very cool gif without asking me! I decided to use it.
Ta Prohm's conservation was aided by India. Seriously, a worldwide effort!
As we were biking along (on an extremely hot, humid, sunny, and windless day, mind you, in which Zach was wearing jeans, bad choice) some people passed in a tuk-tuk and one of the girls sitting inside audibly remarked on the fact that Zach's sweat had formed a smiley face on his shirt. He made me document his shame/embarrassment, and then promptly bought an Angkor Wat t-shirt to change into. Also, that girl is a shitty human being.
I loved that the rules had photographs to demonstrate the bad behavior not allowed at the temples. Very helpful infographics are hilarious/the best!
Approaching the temple. This one is apparently most famous for its use in Tomb Raider although I do not remember that movie well enough to really corroborate it with my time there. But it was probably one of my favorites from this day.
A lot of people were stopping to take pictures in front of this particular root, because of its age and resilience or because of its appearance in some dumb action movie from a decade ago, I don't know. In any case, I followed suit.
Even littered with tourists on a muggy afternoon after we'd been riding for hours, Ta Prohm was still breathtakingly beautiful and haunting. It had an eerie calm, and was very cool and shady within the temple. It kind of cast a spell over me, or at least it felt a little bit like it.
But mom, everyone else is being a touristy cheeseball, why can't I??
The daddest dad ever to dad within the great walls of Ta Prohm or all of Cambodia, if we're being honest.
These helpful signs were everywhere, identifying a ton of different interesting plants. I wish I had taken more pictures of them, especially of those identifying the huge temple-traversing trees, but I was already taking a ton of pictures and falling behind Zach.
Outside of all the temples are rows of little stalls like this one, selling water (which we bought at almost every temple), snacks, clothes, artwork, CD's from groups that were performing (many of whom claimed to be and probably were victims of left-behind landmines), and every conceivable knick-knack souvenir you could want. It was impressive but after a while we did get pretty tired of people calling at us and coming up to us, trying to take us by the hand and drag us towards their stall. On the one hand, you understand the financial imperative that is pushing them to act that way, but on the other hand, you just want to be able to enjoy what you're seeing without trying to navigate that challenging social interaction, you know what I'm saying? Although sometimes it was successful, like I said Zach and I bought water at almost every temple because we were going through it so quickly while biking, and I bought a ton of souvenirs that my nearest and dearest will be seeing any day now...
And also, if you call out to me telling me you have delicious hot black coffee, well, signed sealed delivered... I'm your's. That the cup said "Horn Boy" and had a little picture of a cartoon child cowboy on it which was just an added bonus. This was super sweet but I needed it the way that some people need oxygen or Vitamin D so I practically chugged it.
Srah Srang (dug by Buddhists in the mid 10th century)
Thanks to UNESCO for their help on this one! Srah Srang is just a calm, mosquito-attracting reservoir located across the road from the Banteay Kdei temple entrance. You have to walk up a fairly massive set of stone steps which places you on this large terrace overlooking the reservoir. It's all very dramatic.
Pre Rup (Khmer State Temple, dedicated to a Hindu god, around 962)
I didn't get a shot of any helpful sign for this temple but here is its location on our lifeline for the day, our Angkor Wat map. This map, as you can see from the creases, was consulted regularly throughout the day (mostly by me because I wanted to make sure we weren't accidentally biking off into the jungle). You can see where we'd just passed the reservoir and (Banteay) Kdei.
This lady would not stop taking the same damn photo of the steps so after waiting a few minutes I just decided she was going to be part of the memory.
At Pre Rup temple this sign is all over the place, presumably because those stairs are not even or particularly safe. I really loved the Cambodian script and tried to get as many photos of it as I could but also these signs just made me laugh, like, duh. But also, thanks.
This is known as one of the "sunset" temples because of its positioning, and accessible upper terrace, which apparently makes it a great place to stop and watch the sun slip below the Cambodia jungle. I'd say it's still pretty good at mid-day, though.
Thanks again, guys!
Zach getting all epic explorer guy about it.
After Pre Rup Zach and I had a real heart-to-heart where we both admitted that we were feeling preeeeetty fucking dehydrated and tired. At this point I believe it was about 1 PM or so, we'd set out about 9 AM and had bicycled from Siem Reap out to the temples and then been on the move, either walking around the temples or riding between them, since then. We talked pretty seriously about turning back. In my heart I wanted to keep going, exhaustion be damned, but I also knew that the second half of the afternoon would not be easy as the heat/sun was not going anywhere anytime soon. And I knew if Zach left I probably would not want to continue on by myself, although I might have. In any case we decided to forestall the decision by getting some lunch at one of the dozen cafes set up across the road from Pre Rup. By the time we'd eaten some chicken and rice, drank some cokes and another few bottles of water, we knew we could keep going. There was so much more to see!
Delicious, delicious food. Although I think at that point a cardboard box would have tasted great. But seriously, behold the power of gluten, guys. We couldn't have finished this journey without it. Also this took a little while to come out and with chickens actually wandering around beneath our feet Zach and I started to think that we just might have had the freshest chicken in Cambodia...
Prasat Neak Pean Temple (Buddhist, late 12th century)
In order to get to Prasat Neak Pean you cross the dried up, swampy expanse seen below on a very small, elevated wooden pedestrian walkway. Kind of like a catwalk. Zach and I may have taken some very silly videos of us doing our best model walks on that thing. Maybe.
Finally you get to the outer chapel of the Neak Pean and then going forward, you can see the temple. It's an island because the waters were used for medicinal purposes related to ancient Cambodian beliefs about the body's elements. I think.
One the many bands that could be seen playing traditional music outside the temples.
Preah Khan Temple (Buddhist, 1191 AD)
Toilet break!
Zach and I almost skipped Preah Khan because we were getting tired and had other temples we were more interested in but as we were riding past the entrance path you see below beckoned and we couldn't resist. At first we thought we'd just walk up to the entrance to look at the temple from the outside but we probably ended up staying about a half an hour, maybe longer here. This is another temple whose overgrowth has been left behind making it ghostly and beautiful.
Nagas in front of the temple, presumably meant to protect it.
Beautiful butterflies all up in these temples.
Stupas. (Must.. not...make... stupa dupa and/or phallic symbol joke...)
The way this temple seemed to just going back and back in a series of lintels and halls reminded me really strongly of this passage in The Magician's Nephew, where Digory and Polly travel from the Wood between the Worlds to Charn, a lifeless city on a planet whose sun is dying. There they walk for ages through a decrepit castle before accidentally waking Jadis who follows them back to our world and eventually to Narnia, where she becomes the White Witch.
There was no doubt about the Magic this time. Down and down they rushed, first through darkness and then through a mass of vague and whirling shapes which might have been almost anything. It grew lighter. Then suddenly they felt that they were standing on something solid. A moment later everything came into focus and they were able to look about them."What a queer place!" said Digory."I don't like it," said Polly with something like a shudder.What they noticed first was the light. It wasn't like sunlight, and it wasn't like electric light, or lamps, or candles, or any other light they had ever seen. It was a dull, rather red light, not at all cheerful. It was steady and did not flicker. They were standing on a flat paved surface and buildings rose all around them. There was no roof overhead; they were in a sort of courtyard. The sky was extraordinarily dark—a blue that was almost black. When you had seen that sky you wondered that there should be any light at all."It's very funny weather here," said Digory. "I wonder if we've arrived just in time for a thunderstorm; or an eclipse.""I don't like it," said Polly.Both of them, without quite knowing why, were talking in whispers. And though there was no reason why they should still go on holding hands after their jump, they didn't let go.The walls rose very high all round that courtyard. They had many great windows in them, windows without glass, through which you saw nothing but black darkness. Lower down there were great pillared arches, yawning blackly like the mouths of railway tunnels. It was rather cold.The stone of which everything was built seemed to be red, but that might only be because of the curious light. It was obviously very old. Many of the flat stones that paved the courtyard had cracks across them. None of them fitted closely together and the sharp corners were all worn off. One of the arched doorways was half filled up with rubble. The two children kept on turning round and round to look at the different sides of the courtyard. One reason was that they were afraid of somebody—or something—looking out of those windows at them when their backs were turned."Do you think anyone lives here?" said Digory at last, still in a whisper."No," said Polly. "It's all in ruins. We haven't heard a sound since we came.""Let's stand still and listen for a bit," suggested Digory.They stood still and listened, but all they could hear was the thump-thump of their own hearts. This place was at least as quiet as the quiet Wood between the Worlds. But it was a different kind of quietness. The silence of the Wood had been rich and warm (you could almost hear the trees growing) and full of life: this was a dead, cold, empty silence. You couldn't imagine anything growing in it...They... went quietly up to one of the big arched doorways which led into the inside of the building. And when they stood on the threshold and could look in, they saw it was not so dark inside as they had thought at first. It led into a vast, shadowy hall which appeared to be empty; but on the far side there was a row of pillars with arches between them and through those arches there streamed in some more of the same tired-looking light. They crossed the hall, walking very carefully for fear of holes in the floor or of anything lying about that they might trip over. It seemed a long walk. When they had reached the other side they came out through the arches and found themselves in another and larger courtyard."That doesn't look very safe," said Polly, pointing at a place where the wall bulged outward and looked as if it were ready to fall over into the courtyard. In one place a pillar was missing between two arches and the bit that came down to where the top of the pillar ought to have been hung there with nothing to support it. Clearly, the place had been deserted for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years."If it's lasted till now, I suppose it'll last a bit longer," said Digory. "But we must be very quiet. You know a noise sometimes brings things down—like an avalanche in the Alps."They went on out of that courtyard into another doorway, and up a great flight of steps and through vast rooms that opened out of one another till you were dizzy with the mere size of the place. Every now and then they thought they were going to get out into the open and see what sort of country lay around the enormous palace. But each time they only got into another courtyard. They must have been magnificent places when people were still living there. In one there had once been a fountain. A great stone monster with wide-spread wings stood with its mouth open and you could still see a bit of piping at the back of its mouth, out of which the water used to pour. Under it was a wide stone basin to hold the water; but it was as dry as a bone. In other places there were the dry sticks of some sort of climbing plant which had wound itself round the pillars and helped to pull some of them down. But it had died long ago. And there were no ants or spiders or any of the other living things you expect to see in a ruin; and where the dry earth showed between the broken flagstones there was no grass or moss.
Great book, strongly recommend. Obviously the temples of Angkor Wat feel very much alive, especially with all the southeast Asian flora and fauna dwelling within, but the eerie feeling portrayed in this passage, of visiting a hushed and diminished once-great hall is what stuck with me long after I'd forgotten Digory and Polly's names. I never visit the ruins of a castle or temple without thinking about it.
(I think, it should go without saying that most of this is "I think" identification) This is a garuda? Or maybe another naga? It's supposed to be a guard of some sort, I believe.
I think this is a dvarapala, or guard?
Ugh, with the butterflies Cambodia. WE GET IT. YOU HAVE BEAUTIFUL NATURE AND WHATEVER.
My favorite bottle of water from the day, Mean Mean.
Angkor Thom Capital City/Temples (Khmer Empire, late 12th century)
Approaching the Angkor Thom temples is incredible, the stone faces of the giant archways are so covered in vines and vegetation that they blend into the surrounding trees and growth until you're about 50 feet away when suddenly you realize that no, those aren't trees up ahead. And then your brain understands that you are looking at faces and suddenly the gates are looming large overhead, the walls stretching out in either direction leaving you no choice but to pass underneath their watchful eyes. It's pretty damn cool.
Helpful map of all of the structures inside the Angkor Thom complex. Zach and I rode past the Elephant Terrace and the Leper King Terrace but were intrigued by this temple, tucked back away from the road and which did not even appear on the trusty map our hostel had given us.
Baphuon Temple (Hindu, mid-11th century)
A little bit hidden by all the vegetation from the road, Baphuon Temple is huge and I couldn't believe how empty it was considering that the architecture was incredibly cool. I mean, not Angkor Wat huge, but still very, very impressive. Also, in the foreground: Cambodian cows!
We had a VERY unpleasant interaction with red ants earlier in the day while trying to park our bikes (basically they swarmed us and started biting immediately and it fucking HURTS when they bite) so when I saw this swarm of the bastards carrying their scorpion prize to parts unknown I was one part impressed, three parts repulsed. Evil insect monsters vs. evil insect monsters: I have no dog in that fight.
Elevated stone walkway supported by columns (you can walk under part of it, it's cool, it's like approaching the temple on a super long, ancient red carpet) that leads to the temple. The temple's architectural style is called "temple mountain" which is a real thing that I did not make up!
DEM BUTTERFLIES.
Really cool animal reliefs all over the walls and lintels.
Sometimes you do not choose to take a picture, a picture demands that it be taken.
And sometimes you just want to document your heart-pounding fear.
Wat Preah Ngok (Buddhist Statue, 13-15th century)
This statue of Buddha (and several others) sit on each side of the Bayon, the main temple of the Angkor Thom city complex. The people inside started calling me to come closer when I took this picture but I felt a little weird about taking it in the firs place so this is the best shot I got.
Bayon Temple part I (Buddhist/Khmer, late 12th/early 13th century)
Monkeys. Monkeys everywhere. We were approaching dusk by the time we made it to the Bayon and the monkeys were very active, getting ready to turn in for the night perhaps. This local park guide started chasing one of the babies around which sent the whole group into a tailspin. It was pretty funny to watch. And in general it was pretty cool to see them just chilling out, wandering around, doing their monkey thing. At this point Zach and I were feeling we were hitting our temple supersaturation point so we did not go into the Bayon temple. We knew we still had another whole day and planned to come back to explore this face-covered temple thoroughly the following day.
Have you no shame, monkey??
At this point we had initially planned to end our at Phnom Bakheng, another temple famous for its sunset views. And as it turns out, it was a spectacular sunset that probably would've been breathtaking to see. But truthfully we were exhausted and still had a long ride back to the city, which we didn't really feel like doing in the dark. So we made our way back, and although I have some regret, we were tired and sweaty and very, very gross and at the end of the day, I'm mostly okay with our choice to head back.
Hey buddy!
After the greatest shower I have ever taken in my entire life, we headed out to forage for sustenance and decided, on a whim, to see how good Cambodians are at Tex-Mex. The answer? Surprisingly awesome. We ended up drinking two of those pitchers of margaritas and shared a plate of nachos before our delightfully huge burritos arrived. I'm pretty sure I ate everything on the plate, and after the margaritas (and maybe a beer at the hostel beforehand) was ready for a little more drunken night market shopping.
Hot spot.
Zach had talked about wanting this fish foot massage, where they eat the dead skin off your feet, for most of the day. He was the massage king of this trip, as he also got a two hour massage the next day at the hostel and used all our free passes for massages at the place we stayed at in Thailand. I'm not really a fan of the practice myself? I don't want anyone's hands on me, it's not my thing. I don't even really feel comfortable with pedicures/manicures. Anyway I had no intention of joining Zach for this and was totally happy documenting his delight/horror but the guy offered me a discount and basically lowered the price to a couple dollars and, well, curiosity killed the cat, but... satisfaction brought it back. This tickles but your feet feel amazing afterwards, and there is no awkward social interaction between you and the fish. Win win win.
Saying goodnight to the shiny bridges of Siem Reap, because the next morning we would be rising before the sun to see...
Angkor Wat (Hindu initially during the Khmer Empire, transitioned to Buddhist in 12th century)
The grand poo-bah of the Angkor Wat park, and apparently, of all religious monuments in the world, Angkor Wat.
Although the sunrise was not particularly colorful or brilliant, it was still a beautiful half an hour, watching the sky lighten from inky midnight-blue to dark blue-greys and finally gun-metal grey with just a hint of color on the horizon. 1000% worth it. Zach and I didn't go for the bikes on our second day since we knew we weren't going to spend our whole time at the temples. We hired our friendly tuk-tuk driver from the hostel/airport pickup. When we told him everything we'd seen the day before he was a little exasperated with us, knowing he wasn't going to make much money off of us because there wasn't a lot left we really wanted to explore. But he brought us to Angkor Wat and then afterwards to Bayon, where we explored that and the Elephant Terrace/Leper King Terrace at a much more leisurely pace.
So, Angkor Wat: temple, city, palace, symbolic representation of the glory of the Khmer empire or Mount Meru, home of the gods. Never before in my life have I so painfully yearned for a time machine, so I could go back to the height of the empire and see this magnificent place in its true glory. Even so, seeing it now in its current state is still pretty awesome and humbling.
The bas-relief on the walls of the outer gallery of the temple are truly incredible and staggeringly extensive. I'm not going to pretend I know all that much about what they are depicting beyond what you can read for yourself here. Documented below, the great battles.
Elephant vahana!
Looking around the corner at the outer columns of the outer gallery.
Further up, and further in! (Another Narnia reference, you're welcome.)
Bein' awkward.
Unfortunately the terrace from which I took these photos was as high up as we could go, but fortunately, my camera's zoom is the bomb dot com.
Inner galleries, I'm not sure if the size of this space is accurately represented here, but they really were massive.
Just so much detail and beauty everywhere that you look.
In conclusion, should you ever find yourself burdened with the opportunity to go to Angkor Wat Temple... TAKE IT.
More awkward tourists photos, whew. This was taken by a very nice girl who was walking around barking for one of the nearby cafes where I actually ending up getting a delightful if somewhat overly-sweetened coffee. But that seems to be a common trend in SE Asia. They like their coffee sweet. Very, very sweet.
Libraries outside the temple.
One of the libraries outside the temple, palm tree, sign advertising for cold palm juice, and if you can't see it in the picture above, perhaps you can see if in the deeper zoom of the picture below, a man and his horse communing. I was a little confused by this sign as there was no shop anywhere in the vicinity, so I wasn't really sure if it was suggesting that at some point in the day at that location there might be palm juice, or if it was in fact suggesting to passers by that this tree contains palm juice if only they are bold enough to seize it for themselves?
Approaching the entrance to leave was surreal because we'd entered in the dark of pre-dawn morning, so we were literally seeing this incredibly gate that we'd actually already walked through for the first time.
One last lingering look.
Bayon Temple part II (Buddhist/Khmer, late 12th/early 13th century)
Returning to the Bayon to more properly explore. The faces, man... the faces. The (approximately) 200 faces of Lokesvara. This temple is just unspeakably cool.
To give you an idea of my intense time machine yearning, this is an artist's rendering of what the Bayon may have looked like in its glory days:
Why not me.
Terrace of the Elephants (Khmer Empire, 12th century)
Basically the Terrace of the Elephants was a site for the king Jayavarman VII to stand and gloat when his victorious army returned, as well as a place to hold ceremonies.
Don't get me wrong, it's pretty cool. I mean... big stone elephants. Who doesn't love that, right?
Phimeanakas Temple (Hindu, end of the 10th century)
We opted not to go explore this temple, but the gate was pretty cool.
Terrace of the Leper King (Khmer/Hindu, 12th-ish century)
The faces...
Even though Terrace of the Leper King is just a really cool phrase that I think evokes an action-fantasy novel (series? TV/film adaptation? video game? Get in there, guys.), apparently it was named that for a statue that has been replaced by a replica. In any case, the statue is of the Hindu god Yama, the god of death, and the name comes the statue's discoloration at the time of its discovery as well as the belief that there was a king in Cambodian history who had leprosy.
Heading back to your tuk-tuk, making friends along the way.
Elephant crossing street sign, as you do.
Back in Siem Reap we headed out for someplace to grab some breakfast (and more coffee for me, obviously) before we returned to the hostel where Zach got his epic massage. As for me, because of our private/dorm room shuffle we could not return to a room so I took a delightful nap in the common room area while trying to read about the Khmer/Angkorian history in a book I purchased from one of the vendors outside a temple. Trying to read about the line of succession of the kings is not easy when their names look like this, after one has biked 40 km the day before, awoken at dawn, slept in an airless dorm room where some inconsiderate idiot left her reading light shining in one's face half the night, climbed on temples for several hours, and eaten a big breakfast.
Hey, I know what that is! I did not eat here, because 1. WAY too hot and 2. why would I? I know where to get good phở, and it isn't outside Vietnam.
Sign at a salon near our hostel. I'm not sure what an Eyelash Exstantion or Hair Hailey 3D is but I did not care to find out.
Once we had come back to life we decided to walk around Siem Reap for a little while. On the way back to the city that morning we had passed a really interesting (AKA shiny) site whose gates were open and I wanted to find our way back there. We eventually did. It's a modern-day Buddhist "center" and it was bananas.
Basically everything but the damn kitchen sink, in the Khmer style. Walking around it kind of felt like we were at a Buddhist warehouse, offering some sort of "everything-must-go" yard sale where things are thrown, without much organization, onto a lot in the hopes of selling en masse. This could be and probably is a testament to my ignorance of Buddhism, and in reality this could in fact be a very well organized Buddhist center (whatever that means, it seemed like a monastery sitting smack dab in the middle of the city). In any case, it WAS indeed very shiny and kind of amazing, if very confusing.
After that we had hopes of finding this restaurant where there are nightly performances, and we did, unfortunately they had no performance that evening. At that point I started to really feel the strain from pushing myself and headed back to the hostel. Zach explored the city for a while more before returning himself. We had a low-key evening and left fairly early the next morning to continue on our journey to Thailand, the land of smiles.
Soursop juice! I've become a little obsessed with sweetsop after having it for the first time a few months ago here in Vietnam, so I felt compelled to take a picture of this to refer to later. Should I want to try this at some point. You never know.
I think I used the word "cool" approximately 5.8 bajillion times in the blog entry, and I've just about exhausted the thesaurus's collection of words for "amazing" but really this is a place that must be seen to be believed. I am so, so glad that we went. Even if it is a huge tourist site, it's for a good reason. These temples are absolutely worth it. I think riding my bike around, exploring them, may have very well been the best part of the trip for me. It was a great two days and if I could do it all over again it I would not change a thing (except maaaaybe staying to watch the sun set at that temple).
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