an extraordinary civilization

After traveling 6 hours on a bus out of Phnom Penh, we arrived in Siem Reap and were quickly escorted to Yellow Guesthouse, which is an extension of Okay Gueshouse. I just can't get over the awesome names of these places...so original!

My favorite part of the bus ride was when we stopped at a rest area with vendors selling fruits, whole chickens and best of all, spiders. Not just any spiders, but huge, black, thick, gynormous, disgusting spiders cooked with oil and eaten whole, with yellow goo to accompany the body. Seriously, I know if I had grown up on spiders, I would think nothing of it...but since I didn't, I found it truly sickening and had to back away when a spider-vendor got close. (Eew).

We made it to Angkor Wat in time for the sunset but the cloud coverage was anything but forgiving. After exploring for a good twenty minutes, we gave up and tried to go to the market. Well, we ended up at some tourist area that wasn't all that great, but we scored some t-shirts out of it, my main goal of course. We headed out for dinner and drinks and had a happy old time and then headed to bed in order to wake up for sunrise @ Angkor again.

So after waking up a little late (5am) we headed in our TukTuk to Angkor and faced East to watch the sunrise. Well, we saw the sky lighten but that was the extent of it because of the lovely clouds. So we explored Angkor Wat a little more, then headed to Angkor Thom and saw Bayon and Preah Khan and then finally made it to the beautiful Ta Prohm which was left to the jungle's mercy and cleared out later on. (Also where Tomb Raider was shot, you know, the big trees entwined in the structure of the temple). What is amazing about all of these temples is how intricate the design and structures were, even when they were constructed so long ago! (The Angkorian Era began in 800 AD) It is sort of difficult to imagine what life was like back then, but when I was walking through the temples, I tried to picture people and how the structures used to look before they were subject to time and nature. Rahul said a movie should be made about ancient Cambodian civilization and we all eagerly agreed. We decided it was a good temple tour and headed back to have some breakfast and make it to the 12:30 Angkor Express back to Phnom Penh.

Back in PP, we had dinner and drinks and celebrated our last night in Cambodia. We toasted every drink and then finally called it a night in anticipation of an early morning wake-up for our 8:50 flight.

Now I am back and it feels a little relieving to be on familiar territory, in my nice cold dorm room with my computer and bed.

And now that I've gained a little perspective, I can quietly return to my life in Hong Kong...

Until the next adventure.