For October holiday I traveled with Stephanie and her daughter Layla to Cambodia. We left Saturday afternoon and headed to Siem Reap. The flight was only an hour. The airport we flew into was so so small.  We were able to get out visas on arrival and hotel picked us up from the airport. Siem Reap was very small, compared to Bangkok, it was quite nice to get out of the city life for a bit. Some of the roads were still dirt, some were gravel, the main roads through the city center were paved. Cambodia uses the Riel and the US dollar as their currency. We didn’t know which one would be easier to use so we exchanged our money for both riel and dollars. 4,000 riel equals $1. Quickly we realized they favor the dollar and it’s easier to use.

We checked into the hotel and had them arrange us a driver to got o Angkor Wat for sunset. There are a ton of Tuk-tuks in Cambodia that look like some type of modern day carriages.

That is their version of a Tuk Tuk. There were only a handful of taxi cars in the city. Our driver was Sakorn, he drove us on Saturday and Sunday.

We went to Angkor Wat on Saturday night for sunset. It was absolutely stunning. We stayed on the outskirts of the temple to watch the sun go down. There were people everywhere. There were also tons of children, tons, and they were all trying to sell things. They would walk up to you and just stand there asking over and over, adults would do the same. If you even slightly glanced into one of the shops they came at you full force. I wanted to buy a t-shirt and the woman tried selling me 5 different shirts and 3 different pairs of pants.

For dinner we ventured over to Pub Street. It’s in the city center where all the night life happens. We had dinner at Red Piano and tried some local Khmer cuisine. I tried a curry. It was good, but I prefer the Thai curry. We headed to bed quite early because we were headed to see sunrise early the next morning.

Saturday morning Sakorn came and picked us up at 5:00am. We got to the temple just as the sun was rising. There were hundreds of people all crowded around trying to get the perfect picture with the reflection on the water. It was quite comical people watching as the sun was coming up. After we watched the sunrise we went to 3 other temples before we headed back to the hotel for a “temple break”. Stephanie and Layla stayed at the hotel to rest up. I went on a stroll around the city. It took about an hour and a half to walk around a majority of the city, that may help explain how small it is. I found some souvenirs, a place to rent motorbikes, and travel bus shop to take us down south.

Late afternoon we headed back for our third and final round at the temples. They were so incredible. Its quite interesting to think how people lived back then and how self-sufficient they were. A lot of the temples have parts that have crumbled. They are in the process of putting some of them back together. Piles and piles of rocks fitting together like a puzzle. Super cool. After 1 full day looking at temples we were a bit templed out… stones and rocks all begin to look the same after 10 hours.

We headed back to the hotel to freshen up a bit then had dinner at a Khmer BBQ place next to our hotel. BBQ isn’t the same as back home… there isn’t BBQ sauce. Its basically just another way to say your going to grill your food.

After dinner we headed to the local circus!! Not your typical animal circus… it was a human acrobatic circus. The show is performed by local youth that come from hard backgrounds and childhoods, street children, trafficked kids, and orphans. The organization is really great; it gives these students the opportunity to learn through the arts. They had so much energy and put on an amazing and comical show. Stephanie also learned that it is entertaining to watch my face when I see new things, I think she was nearly in tears from laughing so hard at some of the faces I was making. The performers were doing crazy town things… and making some real strange noises, and the guys on the instruments never even blinked their eyes the entire show.

Monday morning we woke up and had breakfast and ventured to the motorbike shop to rent bikes for the morning. It was only $4 to rent the bikes for 2 hours, steal of a deal. We got helmets, a quick tutorial of the import parts of the bike and the guy handed us the keys. Ummm what?! I was a nervous freak. Not only had I not driven in almost 4 months, I had never driven a bike. I mean, I just rode a bike for the first time in my life two months ago. My friends back home always give me hard time about driving slow. Well…. grandma Karen takes Cambodia.

That lasted a whole 5 minutes.

Driving a motorbike is the greatest thing. It was so much fun! We drove all over the city and down a ton of back roads. I may have gotten a bit to confident on the bike. There wasn’t very much traffic and I really wanted to get some pictures of the area so I thought it would be a brilliant idea to try and take pictures/videos while driving. Yeah, that lasted about 2 seconds until a Lexus came out of nowhere and almost took off my toes. Real stupid idea…. Sorry mom.

After we finished up touring the city we headed back to the hotel to grab our things and head to the bus stop. We booked tickets to take a charter bus down south to the capital city Phnom Phen. When we booked the tickets they had a picture of the bus we would be taking and told us a drink and a snack was included in the price. The bus looked cozy, nice, and modern…..

This is what we rode in for 7 hours. They sent it straight from the 70’s. HAHA!

It really wasn’t bad. I had my own row of seats and could lay back and relax. Sorta. Lets just say Oklahoma pot holes have nothing on Cambodia. Out of our 7 hour drive about 2-3 hours was on semi-paved road. The rest…. dirt roads full of massive chug holes. Definitely made for an entertaining ride. It was great to see the Cambodian countryside. Here are some pictures of the houses we passed.

At one point it started raining. That didn’t stop any of the locals. People were still out riding their bikes and motorbikes. The saddest yet funniest thing on the bus ride was passing all the people on the bikes after it had stopped raining. All of those pot holes were full of muddy water, and well… when a huge bus hits those holes water goes flying… all over the guy on the bike. Oh man, it happened in slow motion every single time. You just hope the person on the bike slows down or covers their face. Nope, mud everywhere. Every time.

We made it to Phnom Phen about 7pm on Monday night. It was pouring rain and the bus got stuck in stopped traffic for about 40 minutes. Coming from Siem Reap, I don’t think we were ready for Phnom Phen, it is in your face. We got off the bus and were swarmed by tuk-tuk drivers, most of them were drunk. Wowzers.

We also hadn’t book a hotel yet so we didn’t know were to tell the driver to go. We just told him to take us to a restaurant with wifi so we could figure out where we would stay for the night. We figured it all out and realized we had booked a hotel quite close to the place we were eating so we were able to walk there. In the rain, because why not?

Tuesday we slept in and had a late breakfast. We had a tuk-tuk drive us around for some sight seeing. Then I headed to the S21 Genocide Museum. Wow. I had no idea about any of that and it was very sad to read about. Thousands of people died because the Khmer Rouge. Out of the 20,000 people that were sent to the S21 site, only 11 lived. It happened so recently that the trials for the people involved are still going on.

I was able to walk through the holding cells, and the torture rooms. There were fingernail scratches on the walls, piles of clothes, and the last room I walked in there was an entire container full on bones and skulls.

For dinner we met up with one of Stephanies friends, Laura. She lives in Phnom Phen and gave us the low down of the city. She explained how dangerous the city is and that we probably shouldn’t be carrying handbags, because after dark they would most likely get stolen. Yikes. Laura invited us back to her place to hang out for a bit. We met her roommate, Madison, who is doing and internship in the slums, lots of storytime about life in the capital city.

Wednesday we went to the national museum. Which was bizarre because nothing was in cases everything was just out in the open. Of course the signs said don’t touch, but you know everyone doesn’t follow that. Definitely not like the museums I was use to. After we went to the museum we met up with Madison at the leather shop.

The night before Laura and Madison had informed us we could get custom shoes made. BEST DAY! We went to the store and picked out the leather we wanted, showed the guy the design we wanted, he traced our foot and told us that the shoes would be ready in 10 days. Laura told us she would bring them to us when shes comes to Bangkok to visit. I ordered 3 pair of sandals and it only cost me $66. After making shoes we went to a Traditional Cambodian Dancing show at the museum. Their costumes were beautiful and the dancing was very unique. After the show we headed to bed, we had an early flight to catch back to Bangkok. Part 2 of October holiday… Khao Yai!!

Cambodia Fun Facts::

-They sell gas along the side of the road in glass bottles.

-Cambodia wins potholes of the century award

-Cambodia has paved, dirt, and gravel roads all mixed together.

-Cows are everywhere. One crossed the road in front of me when I was driving the motorbike

-Lanes exist, but not really. People drive in both directions on both side of the road.

-Tuk Tuk drivers are so aggressive. They follow you and keep asking if you need a ride, even after the third time you tell them you are going to walk.

-Tuk tuks in Cambodia look like modern day carriages. They hook on the back of a motorbike. When the guys aren’t working they just take the carraige part off and have a bike

– There are tons of children everywhere. They play everywhere, in the canals and in the temples. Usually the oldest sibling takes care of the younger ones during the day while the parents are working.

-There are a crazy amount of Lexus cars.

-On our bus ride south we saw a full rainbow. Like the end of both sides, super cool.

– We saw lots of babies naked in trash cans

– We also saw a lot of women wearing pajamas during the day

-You can burn a coconut shell to keep mosquitoes away