Cambodia

I fell in with Cambodia the minute I got off the plane. We had to take the stairs off the plane then go into the airport. The airport was sooo beautiful. It was small, of course, but I just loved everything about it. We got on our bus and met our guide, Narun. He told us that there are 292 temples in Cambodia. We got to our hotel, Khamara Angkor Hotel, which was my favorite because it was a day spa. Anyone who knows me would know that is the way to my heart. We had a free afternoon, so we got lunch at the hotel. It was fantastic! We got Fish Amok and Chicken Curry. Fish Amok is my most favorite thing I've ever eaten. It was so tender and the flavor was incredible. I have looked and looked for a restaurant that would sell it here or in LA and nothing.... no fish amok around me. Devastating. We also tried fried taro ice cream. It was okay...not as good as Mexican fried ice cream that I make tho. We decided to get some tuk tuks and go tour the town. The streets were crazy! After being in Cambodia for 4 days, I still couldn't tell you how to drive them. There were four lanes on each side of the divide but cars were going both ways on them. I'm usually pretty quick...but umm...yeah, I didn't catch on to those streets. Most of the hotels looked more like fairytale homes. They were really fancy. And for a third world county where the people looked so poor, those hotels looked out of place. We first went to a local Cambodian-made market. It was pretty cool. The stuff was expensive (for Cambodia) but it was nice stuff. I fell in love with this wooden elephant that had a sterling silver blanket and face décor. I still wish I would have bought it but I figured I might could find it cheaper somewhere else. They had a macaron store that sold them for $1 each. I think I bought like 6 and ate them all in just a couple days so I had to buy some more as I was leaving town a few days later. They were delish! There was a lot of jewelry and silk scarves. I mean, silk must be the most common item in these countries. They tried to sell it like it was going out of style! Nobody needs that much silk! The items were nice. I am not..so I didn't buy anything. Sorry...not sorry that I suck. The next stop on the tour was the Killing Fields. I was reading a book called, The Rent Collector, when I went there. I wish I had finished it before I got there. I would have had a more intricate understanding of what was around me. I didn't get the full capacity of the place because I didn't really know about the genocide that had taken place in Cambodia in the late 70's. Between 1.5 and 3 million people died because of this greedy and fearful government. They made themselves a third world country by murdering anyone who had an education. Our guide lived through the genocide. He said his cousin was ordered to kill and ended up being killed himself. We were at this killing filled looking at a memorial with bones from the fields. Fragments of skulls. It was heartbreaking to see. It was difficult to imagine that less than 5 years before I was born, these people were murdered because they were smart. They went to school to be a doctor and try to help those around them... and because of that, they were murdered. It still crushes my soul to think about it. The place felt like a church. Which oddly enough, there was a Buddhist temple there. We watched some monks worship there. That was different. All of them were in Orange robes. All shaved heads. They had a leader monk who would chant something at the Buddha's in the temple, then they would chant. It was interesting. And I guess because my heart was so open from the killing field experience, I was even more open to the worship in front of me. Watching those kids gave me peace. When we left there, we went to the night market. It was cute. It was along a river and they had lanterns along the sides of the river. I never did get a great picture of that on any of the nights I was there. Probably something you had to experience to appreciate anyways! The night market was endless booths of souvenirs, food, clothing, bath products, and basically anything else you could need. I ended up buying some tiger balm cuz my weak immune system was giving out on me and I was starting to get sick. I was very thankful I made this purchase, as I still think it helped me get better much, much quicker. We went back to the hotel in a tuk tuk. We're so cheap that we only wanted to pay $1 each, so we fit 5 people in a tuk tuk that carries 4. We're kind lame. But it worked out. Breakfast in Cambodia was amazing...and I'll tell you why... It might have been 7000 degrees outside (Okay... like 94 degrees and the most humidity I've ever been in during my lifetime), but eating breakfast by the pool in the hotel's garden area was something I could do every day for the rest of my life. The breakfast was also very, very good. Of course I was eating Lilikoi and dragon fruit every morning still. They had cheesy potatoes that I couldn't keep my tummy from craving. Today we got to go to Angkor Wat. Whatever you are picturing..no matter how incredible...doesn't do it justice. Other than that damn heat. It can go to hell. I got so hot that I wanted to go back to the bus and sit in air conditioning at one point. Forget the awesome temples, that heat was unbearable. And no matter how many ice cold waters that would 3 minutes later be warm, I stuck it out. I endured through that misery. And if you have seen the pictures I took at this place, you know it was worth it. I can't even put into words the beauty, so I won't even try. The place was worth seeing. It was pretty fun to see so many monkeys trolling the area. A lot of guides gave their customers coconuts to drink the milk from. Those monkeys fought over the coconuts. And you could tell who was boss! some of those monkeys just had to look in a direction and the others scattered away. It was funny. Dog eat dog world, for sure! We were told stories of the carvings on the walls. Trust me, I don't remember a single one. But they were cool to hear at the time! haha. The carvings are so timeless tho. In all seriousness, it is amazing some of them are still so vivid. You can make your own story from them. And it's kinda fun to do just that. They had big areas in the center that they said were pools. I wish they still were. I would have gotten in. Did I mention how hot it was?! We were told stories of how the elephants were used in war as suicide bombers. That is why Cambodia doesn't have many elephants these days. I guess it is more logical than those who use human suicide bombers in this day and age. They say elephants are very loyal. Similar to a dog. They say they are the most gentle and protective animal. I must be a sucker cuz since I heard these stories, I have a certain fondness for elephants. I have statues of them all over my house now. If I keep traveling like I have been and keep falling in love with the stories of other countries, I'll have more "stuff" than I'll ever need! We went to a very fancy restaurant for lunch. It was small, very yummy portions... but so many courses that you get full. We had the most incredible green papaya salad with cute banana leaves and flowers to make it pretty. I have a thai friend who makes me papaya salad. It was very different, but so good. I could have eaten everyone's. We had a beef sour soup. It was soup...nothing to write home about. The next course was a fish and chicken stir fry curry. It was good, but I was still dreaming of my fish amok. Who am I kidding? 6 months later, I'm still dreaming of that fish amok! For dessert we had pumpkin custard. I'm your very typical white gurl... I LOVE pumpkin everything. So naturally, I thought Cambodia was trying to steal my heart. They must not have realized they had it from the time I stepped off the plane. After lunch, we stopped at a silver factory. It was expensive. I don't think one person on our tour bought anything. But it was air conditioned and it felt good to be in there. After shopping, we headed to Angkor Thom and the Bayon Temple. They had a really cool entry that had sculptures of faces on the bridge that lined the street to the temple. We walked over the bridge and took pictures. Every face on that bridge and at the temple was unique. Sooooo many faces. At this temple, there were water buffalo EVERYWHERE. There were bats as we went under the tower at the end of the bridge. It started to rain while we were at this temple. On our way out, we passed the elephant terrace. We wanted pictures so the tour guide had the bus stop. I had on flip flops that flipped mud from the field all over me and everyone around me. I was a muddy mess. It was bad. But worth it. When it rains there, it really rains. It came down fast and hard and we were soaked. No matter the umbrella or not... it didn't help any. I was wet for the rest of the night. It stopped raining by the time we got to our next stop, the sunset temple. The sunset temple was pretty. It was an orange color and it was a lot of steps up to the top. The views were great. No wonder they call it sunset temple. The clouds didn't give us the best sunset, but it was still beautiful up there and it was the end of a perfect (ly hot) day. Well, not quite the end. We went to the Phare Cambodian Circus. Again, I had food I can't find anywhere. My choice was beef lok lak. I need more of it in my life, so if you find it, please let me know! We also got popcorn to eat at the circus. What is a circus without popcorn?! This circus had no animals. It was humans... that danced and did some acrobatics. It was a story of ghosts. Admitting, it was kind of cool. They did balancing acts, aerial silk acrobatics, and all kinds of floor acrobatics. It was high energy and fun. We spent more time the next day at the twin temples. Chau Say and Tevoda. We saw elephant rides as we went from temple to temple. I was somewhat jealous. I wanted to go on one. No time. But how cool is that? Riding elephants at Elephant Terrace in Cambodia surrounded by these amazing temples! We went to Ta Prohm Vine Temple. This one was probably my favorite next to Angkor Wat. The vines on the trees were so much fun! The roots engulfed the temple walls and tore some of them down. It just shows the age of these temples. A lot of the jungle surrounding this temple hasn’t been cleared. They say it is exactly as it would have been when early European settlers first came exploring. I wanted to settle there…so I can see why the Europeans did as well! While we were at Ta Prohm, I got to see why I am biased towards certain races… We were all waiting in line to take the perfect shot by these vines on the temple. We were next and as we were going up, these Chinese tourists came up cuz they didn’t want to wait in line so they just went in front of us. As my jaw dropped, those quick thinking English men behind us chewed out the Chinese. Lol. I liked it. Those jerk Chinese! Actually, my bias doesn’t end there. In Cambodia, we constantly saw signs asking that the Chinese tourists don’t stand on the toilet seats to squat to use the western style toilets. So many times I went into the restroom and there was footprints on either side of the toilet seats cuz of those squatters! Annoying! It is a bias…not racism!  Back to the beautiful temples at Ta Prohm…. My favorite thing was this spot on one of the temple walls… the vines had grown around the wall, but perfectly surrounded one of the faces, almost to frame it. It was sooo sooo cool. Mother nature at its finest, for sure! We went back to Elephant terrace. Yeah..that muddy adventure of mine was for kicks and giggles. Oh, the memories I’ll have forever! There we also visited the Terrace of the Leper Kings. We went to the Bakong Temple. That one had elephants at each corner of the terrace levels. It was pretty cool. It also had a Holy Bull at the entrance to the Temple. We went to Preah Ko, which had some awesome carvings still. At this point, the temples all seemed to blend together. There are so many that it is hard to keep track of them. We went to Les Chantiers Ecoles, which is an artisan school. There was Wood and Sandstone carving, paintings, precious stones, silver melding, perfumes and all sorts of bath and body aromatherapy, coffees, and teas. I don’t drink coffee, but hear Cambodia’s can’t be beat. I also purchased some of their aromatherapy stuff and love it. They are well known for their bath and body products. They train about 650 apprentices in the fine arts and crafts at this place. It was very cool to see. Warehouse that looked like cheap labor…but I gotta trust the locals that it was a school! We went back to the hotel and some of the folks left this night. I stayed. Of course.  We took a dip in the pool and then headed off to a cultural dinner show. It was extravagant costumes and some traditional dancing. It was interesting to see how those women moved. They bent their hands and fingers in way that I didn’t think was natural! It was cool tho. The costumes were fun and probably my favorite part of the show. The food was good… Mango salad, pumpkin soup, chicken, fried rice, and pancetta (which I could have eaten every day for the rest of my life). After the show, this guy went on stage to get photos with the cast. He put his arm around one of the girls and I thought she was going to slap him. You could see how offended she was that he touched her. It was awkward. On our last day, we went to the old market. The weather didn’t accommodate us very well. It was so crazily hot. That heat was brutal. We walked nonetheless and enjoyed exploring the local neighborhoods. I found some awesome face scrubs at a local grocery store and got some snacks to take home. We stopped for a Fish Pedicure. Oh man… I couldn’t keep my feet in at first. Those lil fish made my feet tickle. It was soooo hard to stand. I hate my feet being touched anyways. It’s just something I can’t stand. I think feet are gross. But those things and my ticklish feet…it just made for a total crack up. It was fun once I got used to it. We paid $3 for 3 different foot baths. One with tiny fish, one with medium fish, and another with bigger fish (still small tho). They gave us 15 minutes in each. Seriously…. $3 well spent!!! We went back to the local market and got macarons again. And this time I got ice cream from Blue Pumpkin. I was upset at my friends who got this the first day. Ice cream makes me sick. It is just so sweet that my stomach can’t handle it. But other countries don’t use so much sugar, so this ice cream didn’t make me sick. And it was soooo good. I got coconut and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Seriously…I would have been eating that ice cream on the daily if my friends had given me a heads up on the first day! (Let’s not mention that I read the reviews that it was insanely good before I went to Cambodia! Lol.) After Ice cream we decided more pool time was necessary. I actually went to get more fish amok too…because I needed more before I left the country! I got an hour and a half massage for like $30. It was AWESOME! And needed at this point. We headed to the airport, where we were given star treatment and had a lounge with all kinds of drinks and snacks. I couldn’t get enough popcorn, as usual. We had a layover in Thailand and I couldn’t keep from sleeping. I was sooo tired. We did have mango sticky rice…cuz who goes to Thailand and doesn’t get mango sticky rice?! Not us…. It was delicious. We then had a 9 hour layover in China, so we went to the zoo. I thought it was so cool! There were so many animals we don’t have here. Plus, the pandas…duh! They were so active and so fun to watch. I think my Youtube channel has at least 10 panda videos from Beijing. It was the perfect way to escape that layover.