The one where mom and the girls visit: Cambodia: Part 2

Our second day in Siem Reap was spent touring the temples of Angkor Thom. Many of you may have heard of Angkor Wat or even remember it from Lara Croft, the first movie I think. Angkor Wat is probably the most famous of all the temples there and rightfully so. It's amazing! Our day started off with another free breakfast at the hotel. Mom and the girls were in heaven. Rice for breakfast! Okay, mostly mom.
Unfortunately Chrissy fell ill that day and had to stay at the hotel but I think mom, Selina, and I took enough pictures to make up for it. Try approximately 1200 pictures between mom and I alone. Ridiculous!
Included in the price of our trip was a tour guide at all of the places we visited and our tour guide for the temples was exceptional. An exceptional talker that is. Fortunately I didn't have to sit in the tuktuk with him. Mom and Selina sat with him while I sat by myself, like a queen, with my feet propped up on the other half of the tuktuk. It was pretty sweet. He knew what he was talking about but I know for a fact that mom knew more than he did and the only reason she kept asking him questions was so that he didn't feel like he had nothing to do. In fact when she asked him a question and he said the wrong answer I just wanted to yell out. (I should really learn to be patient.)
That day we saw Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm (the tree temple), the Elephant Terrace and my former favorite, Bayon. It's place as my favorite has since been usurped by Beng Mealea.
After our morning at the temples we went back to our hotel to find Chrissy all jolly from having made new friends. We fell napped, packed and then fell asleep. We woke up the next day for an early morning bus ride back to Pnomh Penh to catch our flight to Bangkok. It was a bit of a dodgy ride due to the fact that we were stopping as often as we were on our way to Siem Reap and I was terrified that we wouldn't get to the airport in time for our flight. I got so worked up I yelled at a few people who I'm pretty sure understood English but chose not to because I was so...well I'm not sure what word I should use that wouldn't display me in a terrible light, but would still let people realize that I was in the right. In any case, we got the Pnomh Penh in time. Naren picked us up and dropped us at the airport. The Pnomh Penh airport is pretty cute from the outside. Better than I expected it to be. The best part of the whole PP airport experience was that it had honest to God, real Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate. Yeah, they're all 'real' chocolate, but I now know better. The chocolate made in Birmingham, England is 'da best!'
The flight from Pnomh Penh to Bankok was only about an hour long. Read more about it in the next blog post. Why? Because I can be annoying like that. ;)

Tales from Cambodia

Just realised I NEVER posted this. I even wrote it a timely fashion! Three years later, here is the very detailed yet brief description of my only Tet in Vietnam.

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Took an 11 and 1/2 hour bus trip from Ho Chi Minh City to Pnomh Penh, spent 2 hours at a closed Cambodia/Vietnam border watching the stars and chatting/learning French with French tourists, ate lunch at several questionable roadside stands, met a guy at the bus stop in Pnomh Penh holding up a sign with my name, took an enlightening yet sobering tour of Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, saw the Emerald Buddha at the Silver Pagoda, tried to become the next Queen of Cambodia by sashaying in front of the Royal Palace, violated the first rule of tourism at the Russian market, took a 6 hour bus ride to Siam Reap, ate at a Khmer buffet and saw an Apsara dance show for dinner, partied with our Cambodian tuk tuk drivers for Lunar New Year in a small village with no electricity so I'm not sure how their insane sound system worked, saw 5 ah.mah.zing temples in one day at the walled city of Angkor Thom, prayed in Bayon Temple, posed in front of the Lara Croft door at Ta Prohm, ate frog for the first time, hit up the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider bars, saw the sun rise at Angkor Wat, took a boat to the floating village of Chong Kneas, spent the afternoon jumping in Tonle Sap Lake, ate various Khmer style grilled foods for dinner, spent all my money at Phsar Chas market (because I'm addicted to shopping), went horseback riding at sunset through several Cambodian villages and temples on the most onery horse ever, took my first ever sleeper bus on a 15 hour bus trip back to Ho Chi Minh.

Angkor Wat

Me and Angkor Wat

Me and the floating village of Chong Kneas

Me and the sleeper bus

Gemma, Matt, Me, Theresa, Lexi, Deepak, Kat, Dean in front of Choeung Ek Genocidal Center

Listening to one of the recordings during the audio tour of Choeung Ek

Picture of a Cambodian Apsara dancer. I think she looks like Hema Malini.

Bayon Temple

Me, Lexi and Apsara dancers on the summit of Bayon Temple

Ta Prohm or the Tree Temple where they filmed Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Ta Prohm

Lara Croft doorway

Eating frog

Angkor Wat at sunrise

Angkor Wat at sunrise