Siem Reap, Cambodia

Phnom Penh was a fun "urban" town to see, but it was Siem Reap that really took my breath away. Home to Angkor Wat (which the entire time I was there I thought the city was called) it a must-see destination for many tourists. The ancient ruins of Angkor Wat are still working buddhist temples, so when we visited there were many little monks in crimson and orange robes running around. They were so cute! in the sunset the grandiose architecture was absolutely stunning with the orange sun sinking slowly behind it and its silhouette sharp against the sky. What was upsetting however was that although there were monks praying in peace, the physical surroundings told another story. Much of the temple was riddled with bullets, silently reminding the world of the struggle Cambodia has gone through. You could even find left over bullet shells in the divots in the walls

Everything we saw in Siem Reap revolved around temples. Angkor Wat was the most well known, but we also visited three other temples (that unfortunately I can't remember their names, oops!) My favorite however was the temples that Tomb Raider was filmed at. Of course I took a few pictures pretending to be Lara Croft (smaller and less endowed however.) It was so much fun to crawl all over the caved in roofs, crumbled walls, and trees that had grown over and in the ruins! My dad and I even were daring and crawled up on the stones of a "danger" zone.

We stayed in a Resort and Spa which I figured was arranged specifically to cater ti the parents, although Semester at Sea does a great job of finding comfortable hotels usually. Although the accommodations were wonderful- air conditioned rooms and great food!- I felt bad when I stepped just outside the hotels boundaries and was greeted by tuk tuk drivers that wanted work or children who hoped I had spare change. I did manage to take a tuk tuk though, and what a ride it was! I was riding at night to go out to pub street and it was fairly safe, although I admit I held on to the others riding with me, just for good measure. Didn't want to be thrown out into the streets, which are just as busy as the ones in Vietnam. Pub street was fun, unfortunately I got there a little late so I didn't get to have my feet cleaned by fish like some kids did, but we drank drinks out of buckets that looked like upside down hats at a bar called "Angkor-What?" If you ordered two of these buckets you got a free tshirt sporting their bar name and on the back a slogan "Promoting irresponsible drinking since 1989." Perhaps they weren't wrong because a group of us went back to the hotel and hopped in the pool at 1am, blasting country music until we were kindly asked to get out of the pool because they needed to "add chemicals to the pool." Oops!

Cambodia was certainly an exciting experience as I had no idea what to expect. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I guess it just gives me an excuse to go back!