Siem Reap

Looking super fly in front of one of the famous Angkor Wat temples.

Oh hey it's me again, this time writing about a great vacation to Siem Reap, famously known as home to Angkor Wat. So the trip was awesome if I really need to tell you. We got to Siem Reap after a 6 hour bus ride from Phnom Penh on Wednesday - the following Thursday and Friday were national holidays so we were off of work, we couldn't get a bus ticket on Thursday so had to convince ourselves to go a day early, wasn't too hard.

Siem Reap was definitely a change of scenery, lots and lots of tourists. This atmosphere made it even more comfortable for us. All kinds of restaurants lined the streets with foods you don't really find in Phnom Penh and everyone and their dog spoke some sort of english. We were actually praised for being able to speak Khmer - lots of, "Your Khmer is very good!" (it's not). As I stated in a previous post, you don't get any mexican food in Cambodia, but sure enough there was a restaurant in the downtown that served dollar tacos. To me finding dollar tacos is probably the same feeling that Indiana Jones had when he found the Holy Grail. Makes me miss Goshen a bit, and of course late night Tbell runs ("Tbell runs," as in going to taco bell to get tacos, not the morning-after effect).

Siem Reap also has a pretty hopping night life as you could expect, Pub street is packed every night with all sorts of foreigners and fun things to do. It's a nice way to get away from Cambodia and feel like your in *insert big US city*. It was also a good time for us SALTers. Just like when you get to college you learn to live by a 'no parents' mentality (which is an important part of college life and good way to make mistakes), Siem Reap was a bit like the same experience where MCC and our host families would be our 'parents.' Whether it was staying up past 12, eating as much junk food I wanted, or having a few more, uh, sodas than usual - I got to feel like my college-loving self for a few days, which was really nice.

Awesome Awesome Awesome Awesome

We went to see the temples on Friday, which was my main reason for the vacation - a similar feel to what Machu Pichu was in Peru. The temples were absolutely beautiful, I recommend seeing the photos I'll soon post on facebook in my Cambodia album. What didn't go as expected was the experience with the tour guide. Now this is a very interesting story indeed. If you were going to a world famous tourist location to see one of the most beautiful constructions on earth, you would hope to pay for a tour guide that is informative and very helpful in showing you around the sites. Is that what we got? Well if by 'informative' you mean sexually frustrated and by 'helpful' you mean constantly inappropriate, that's what we got. Before we got to the site, he smoothly changed his speech about Hindu Gods into a reference to the "snake in my trousers" comfortably referring to me and pointing to my crotchal region. Yes, I admit I laughed a bit at first, as it was funny and unexpected. However, the series of events that were to occur crossed the line over and over. I was mildly annoyed, but I shared this tour with 3 girls and how that changes group dynamics on such a topic. So it tainted the experience a little bit but it did not make the temples any less beautiful, really they were breathtaking. There are plenty of things that could be said but none too helpful. We are also to blame for not directly telling him to stop. Oh well, I do plan on getting a chance to visit again so I'm not to worried about it.

Amazing Amazing Amazing Amazing

So to sum it up, I had a great 4/5 days relaxing in Siem Reap and found the temples to be absolutely fascinating, anyone who plans to visit Cambodia has my recommendation to go see them. The city is a great way to let off some steam and feel like a foreigner and I hope to back sometime in the future. Now I'm back in the MCC office working away, thanks to everyone who have been sending me email and keeping in touch, I really appreciate it. Miss you all, take care, God bless.

There goes the some, here awakens Pub Street