Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat

Free at last!  And where do I go?  Another South East Asian country…Cambodia.  Ryan, me, and my 20 year old brother (spring break was never like this for me).  I finished Peace Corps on March 27, spent a few days hanging out with my friends in Bangkok and then we flew to Siem Reap on April 3.

Because my brother came along, and he is a bit of a burden, my mother was gracious enough to pay for the whole trip.  Which was super nice- way better than I would’ve done on my backpacker budget.  We flew there and back, and had a nice hotel (with a pool!).  If I had planned the trip on my own it would’ve been bumpy bus rides and fan hostel rooms.

Me, Ryan, and my brother Ivan

Thank you Daddy and Mommy.

Out first day in Siem Reap was very chill- got picked up at the airport by the tour guide, was driven to the hotel and that day was a free day.  We could’ve done anything- gone to the lake or the cultural center- but I just recently left a life of two years spent sitting in a village with few amenities…that a/c hotel room and swimming pool were enough to entertain me for that first afternoon.

We arranged to have the 3 day Angkor pass (60 US dollars) and a tour guide for each day…very nice.  The Angkor ruins are so immense and intricate that having a guide really helps explain the details you would miss by going at it alone.

Folk dancing

Every day we followed the same schedule: 8am pick, tour around the temples until lunch, have lunch with our guides at local restaurants and then rest at the hotel until 3pm (it’s pretty hot in Cambodia- dry heat).  After 3pm we would head to another few sites, stopping at one for the sunset- beautiful everyday.  The last day this schedule altered so that we could go shopping in the “downtown” area…

Having lived in Thailand for two years I was pretty prepared to Cambodia…what I wasn’t prepared for was the Khmer’s (Cambodians) attitudes towards Thai people- the Khmer don’t like the Thai too much, and that’s saying it politely.  Other than that the Khmer were some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met: genuinely smiley and happy to help. 

Cambodia is beautiful, filled with gentle people and a marvelous history.  I would try to learn about some of that history before you go; it helps put all the temples into context and make sense of everything.  I wish that I’d had more time to explore the country- but I was anxious to get onto the next step in my trip…home.