Goodbye Thailand, onward to Cambodia

Sunday, we left Bangkok at around 11:30 am, and arrived in Siem Reep, Cambodia around 12:15. Stepping off the plane and onto the tarmack, I can tell this place is even hotter than Thailand. Oh my gosh, the heat!!! We get our visa for $20 per person, and go through customs smoothly.

At this point, we had looked on the net for hotels in Cambodia, but had nothing booked. We saw a brand new hotel with pool, AC, TV, etc for only $42 a night. Our cab driver, Tey (who've seen a lot of lately), convinced us to try another hotel in town. After not letting up about it, we decided to check it out. It was clean enough (not as quaint as the hotel in BAngkok but good enough), and only $25 per night. You can stay pretty comfortably here for as low as $15 per night. It's so cheap!! So, as we agree on this place, Tey's already onto us about hiring him as a driver for 3 days, and he can take us out of Siem Reap for so much more. What I know about Cambodians thus far is that they are desperate. The people here are poor, and tourism is their main source of income. But, they also dont know when to stop. We finally allow him to give us his number, so that we can phone him.

Well, after walking around the dusty town of Siem Reep for about 25 minutes in the scorching heat, we decided that hiring good ole' Tey might not be such a bad idea. Any tuk-tuk driver that we passed on the street was yelling at us for him to take us around. We walk on and sit down at the first place that has AC for a couple of beers. I'm telling you, Siem Reep is really Third World. The main road in town isn't paved, leaving your toes full of dust. There's very few restaurants with AC - i think we found the only one. There's no side walks or traffic lights. One thing that is scary, and we saw this in Bangkok as well, are the motorcyclists (really vespas) that stuff as many people as possible onto them. We've seen babies right behind the bike's steering wheel with 3 more people on the bike...no one wears helmits. And I think back to Britney Spear's getting so much negative press for having her baby in the front seat of the car! That's nothing.

So, we decided today to head out to the famous Ankor Wat temples, accompanied by Tey driving us around in lovely AC and San, our guide. We felt it would be a good idea to have a guide so that we knew a little bit about what we were looking at. The temples were built during the 8th century, and spands over at least 30 kilometers. The most famous temple is that of Ankor Wat and Ankor Thom, both of which we toured today. The temples have held up reasonably well, considering the harsh climate here, and that they were covered by jungle for most of their existance. These temples were also a source of shelter for the Vietnamese army, when they invaded Cambodia, and one can see bullet holes in the walls. It is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and standing in the temples today, you can see why. The etchings on the temple walls illustrate stories of how the ancient people lived, and it's done so, in amazing detail. I hope our little camera got some deceint pictures.

We only made it until 12, when the heat really starts to get bad. We had a traditional Khumer lunch with out guide and driver. Of course during the whole meal, they were both trying to convince us to go see this temple far away, and go eat at this restaurant, and do this and that on your last day, and please call me to take you to the airport. It's so sad, but it really gets annoying after a while. I hate to say it, but I think It's preparing us for the begging in Vietnam. It's supposed to be really bad there. Makes you appreciate our own lives, that's for sure!

Anyways, we're off to have dinner. Hope everyone's doing well. Love to all! - Kate