Cambodia

Hello family and friends! 

Here is our first blog written from another country! Cambodia was our first stop in this grand adventure. Hard to believe Nicholas was here 10 years ago on a high school trip;  Thus, he had more an idea what we were getting into, I however, had no idea what to expect. 

We arrived at 1030 a.m. on March 1st. In approximately 31 hours of travel we got between 5-6 hours of sleep. We were, to put it nicely, mentally fried. I have never been that exhausted before in my life. Upon arrival, we did not go right to sleep in order to beat jet lag faster, which worked well; that night we slept for 11 hours straight. All of our flights went relatively smooth, we each had our own little tv, we were provided 3 meals and some extremely spacious seating with great lounging capabilities (sarcasm intended).  On our long 13 hour flight, we had the window seat and middle seat and were stuck with a guy that got up one time the whole 13 hours the last 20 minutes of the flight. Apparently he needs to be adding some water to his diet!  Really, the only issue we had was upon arrival to Cambodia.  We attempted to do currency exchange at an exchange office, however, they said our card would not work and that we needed to call our bank.  We did and everything checked out fine, we were told to use an ATM.

Our first day we visited the central market, Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. We did about 6.5 miles of walking and weren’t wearing sunscreen, so needles to say, our pasty selves burnt pretty decently. Don’t worry parents, the next day we picked up sunscreen and a hat for Nicholas. The market was DEFINITELY worth walking to though. We tried some street food including a Khmer Meat Crepe (filled with bean sprouts and meat), traditional Khmer donuts, Bahn Mi with some kind of beef on a stick and Rambutan fruit. The Royal Palace was beautiful and it was interesting to learn about some of Cambodias history and religious beliefs. It’s amazing how much wealth is displayed there compared to the poorness of the country. We saw a diamond that was 25 Karats on the forehead of the Buddha inside the Silver Pagoda. 

The second day was a somber one. We visited the killing fields and the S21 museum. It was emotionally draining for both of us. If you don’t know what those are, here is a link with more information ( http://www.killingfieldsmuseum.com/s21-victims.html). Some of the pictures in the museum were so graphic they turned my stomach and I literally had to walk out of the room. You also stare at the floor a lot; it’s eery to walk on tile visibly stained with what would have to be gallons upon gallons of blood. The fields were also sickening; pieces of clothing and shards of bones are still visible on the ground. I have never experienced anything like it.  We all know what genocide is, but it takes on a new meaning when you experience what we experienced emotionally here in Cambodia.  Walking the blood soaked path where events actually occurred, remembering too, this was not the only genocide that has taken place in this sinful world (Holocaust, Holodomor and others).

That evening we decided to go to a local restaurant that was recommended on one of the blogs I used while researching. BAD IDEA. We ordered goat curry (that had ants in it) and a fish curry. The fish tasted amazing and the goat wasn’t actually that bad. Our stomachs, however, disagreed, and we spent spent all of day 3 sitting on a couch or the toilet, attempting not to vomit from a lovely mixture of nausea and dizziness. Food poisoning is no joke, and I am hoping that since we got it day 3 of our journey, it is now out of the way for the upcoming months. WORD OF ADVICE: If you order something from a restaurant that is supposed to come out cooked from raw, send it back if it come out in 5 minutes fully prepared…something is up with that food, take it from some newbs that learned the hard way. ;)

The fourth day of our trip we travel by bus to Siem Reap. It was about 6 hours long and they played Fast and Furious 7 for the passengers.  The bus was quite big and spacious and had WiFi on board! It is too bad we didn’t know it had WiFi until we got off the bus though…we had a veteran bus driver for sure, he was flying and passing cars, trucks, tuk tuks left and right…and hardly slowed for the many cows wandering about in the middle of the road.  There were a few times I found myself questioning whether a chateaubriand or NY strip was included in the ticket price, but unfortunately it wasn’t.  All in all, it was a nice trip to Siem Reap! 

Our first day in Siem Reap we went to the Angkor National Museum. I was glad we visited; it made going to all the temples the next day more enjoyable. Being able to put some of the pieces of history together with what we were seeing was a fun experience. 

On Tuesday we explored the temples of Angkor. Out of 40 some temples we saw 5. That’s just how huge they are.  It amazed Nicholas and me both the true vision these people had to create something so spectacular and all by hand. It’s easy to see that the carvings covering all the temples at one point were basically perfect.  The temples that we saw are were: the sunset temple, Angkor Wat, Bayon, a small temple (not sure what the name of this one was), Baphuon and Ta Prohm Temple (the Tomb Raider temple).

Our hostel in Siem reap was nice, we were on the 3rd floor, this was our first private room and it was great. We didn’t have an air conditioner in our room, so it was quite warm, but we did have a turbo fan that may just have had enough power to move a small plane…regardless, we were thankful for some air movement in our room to help keep us cool. 

All in all, Cambodia was a great experience. Nicholas enjoyed coming back and I enjoyed experiencing Khmer culture for the first time. We met some wonderful people and learned so much. Until next time, Cambodia. 

XOXO 

N & K