Angkor What?

Angkor Wat. It's going to be really hard to do this part of my trip justice, so I'm not even going to try. Ill keep this short and sweet, and if you're interested definitely research more about this incredible place. The temples here are unbelievable; you really feel like you've been transported back in time.

The world's largest religious building, Angkor Wat literally took my breath away as I watched the sun rise over it on the first day of the new year. What an incredible start! After the sun rose and we took tons of pictures, we explored a bit more then had breakfast. Followed by a full day of temple exploring! There are tons and tons of temples to see, it would take a very very long time to see them all. I think in the 3 days we saw a total of 20 temples! In terms of architecture and creativity I think I was most impressed with Bayon, famous for all of the faces carved into the walls/towers. For ambiance and "Ohmygod I'm discovering hidden treasure" and "Woww I'm filming Legends of the Hidden Temple," Ta Prohm wins the award. If you saw Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie, Ta Prohm will look familiar. It was just incredible. So we're the other temples, but I can't describe them all here! So ill be boring and leave it at that. But let's just say we had a few wonderful, tiring, awe-inspiring days. It's one of the wonders of the world and if you ever have a chance to go, I cannot reccomend it enough. It's really not to be missed.

While in Siem Reap we also did a boat ride through a floating village and a floating forest (mangroves), and we took a Khmer cooking class. I made a banana flower salad and Chicken Amok. (Amok is a typical dish here, similar to a curry). It was all delicious and we had a great time! If I can find the ingredients at home I'd love to cook it again!

After Siem Reap I said bye to Joc and Danit :(, then the next day was off to Battambang. The city is really chilled out and relaxed, a nice change from the cities I had been in. It's set on a river, there's really pretty French architecture--just a lovely place to hang out for a few days. My hostel was set in a garden with hammocks and big comfy chairs, so I spent some time just reading and relaxing, which was nice. Also explored some Wats in the nearby countryside (monastery temples), some of which were set atop mountains, or up many many stairs. So lots of walking! On the way to one I stopped to see the Killing Cave, sadly but aptly named from the Khmer Rouge time. You can imagine what it was used for. And the bat cave, also pretty self explanatory. At dusk each night millions and millions of bats fly out to catch their prey for the evening. It was incredible to watch! I also took a ride on the Bamboo train, an old rickety "train" (more like a wooden board with an engjne), no longer in use but for tourism. It's sort of like a roller coaster at times, and if a train is coming from the other direction one has to be lifted off the tracks. Bit sketchy but got the adrenaline pumping for sure. And you see some villages and countryside along the way.

From Battambang I had to bus back to Phnom Penh for a night; to get to a lot of places in Cambodia the easiest thing to do is to loop back through the capital. I did have sushi for the first time in forever though, which made the travel time totally worth it. And had a fun night out, so all in all I'm not complaining.

My next stop was Koh Kong, where I wanted to do some trekking in the Cardamom mountains. I ended up booking a tour for a 2 day, 1 night trek through my guesthouse. It was a bit chaotic and unorganized, and at times our guide was an 11 year old boy, but for the most part it was fun. The 2 days involved boat rides, jungle trekking, pseudo-rock climbing to a waterfall, lunch overlooking the mountains, more waterfalls and swimming holes, getting shipwrecked (ie stuck on rocks) for about 2 hours and needing another boat to come get us, wading through calf-deep mud, sleeping out in hammocks under the stars, and more trekking.

After all that hard work, it was time for the beach. So that's where I went next.

I hear that it's been cold cold coldddd at home, so you may want to skip my next post. Ill be talking about the sun a lot :-)