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Published: August 11th 2008
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Lobster?
A delicious shellfish we tried in Sihanoukville, called lobster, but shaped much more like a praying mantis. Hrmmm. Wow...
Before diving into our three days in the temples of Angkor, lets bridge the gap a little.
As mentioned prior, my clothes were missing for two days in Phnom Phen, captives of an uncaring guesthouse it would seem. When they were finally returned to us it was such a joyous occasion that we couldn't bring ourselves to care about the mildewy smell. In all fairness, with the amount of rain we saw, it would be difficult for anyone to dry clothes in southern Cambodia that week. We happily said goodbye to the lakeside district of Phnom Phen and jumped on a bus headed towards Sihanoukville on Cambodia's southwestern coast. While the weather was nice (our first 24 hours there) Sihanoukville was the best. The beach we were staying on was lined with seafood shacks begging to be the place you would sit for barbecued shrimp and draught beer. Further down the beach there were bamboo roofed palapas where vacationing Cambodians purchased heaps and heaps of seafood off of baskets on the heads of seafood vendors. Just outside of town we visited a fantastic national park where we saw all sorts of locals fishing (legally; they had been grandfathered
Ream National Park
if you can believe it, twenty minutes after this photo it started pouring buckets on us.
into the park when it was formed in the 90s) and visited a deserted white sand beach looking out into the Gulf of Thailand. As our boat putted down the mangrove lined estuary in the Park you would see people standing up to their necks in the water, ducking down for a minute to come up with oysters. Fantastic!
Then it started raining, and kept raining, and raining, and raining. Once you couldn't spend a day reading a book on the beach Sihanoukville lost some of its charm for us, though we did brave the weather to get more terrific Cambodian seafood with a Californian named Jess working for an NGO in Kampong Cham. After catching a showing of "Sex in the City" at an expats small movie theater, we decided we'd better move on, and booked a bus ride to Kampot, the next town to the South.
Kampot is home to some of the world's best tasting pepper. We had beef with Kampot Pepper, and you could tell that you were getting something special. Kampot is also home to armies of angry dogs once the sun goes down, though we met a fantastic dog at the guesthouse
Check out this flower
Incredible cinnamon-smelling blossoms from a tree at the National Palace in Phnom Phen we were at. Fortunately, our guest house was out of town, so no dogs attacked us. Unfortunately, it rained non-stop while we were in Kampot, making a visit to the pepper plantations impossible. One night in rainy Kampot and we knew it was time to head north, see our friends Kevin and Bronwen off, and finally behold the Angkor Temples. We returned to Phnom Phen and stayed near the Royal Palace, which completely changed our feelings on Cambodia's capital. Now we like it. To get to Siem Reap, we took a five hour long bus ride. Wooh! Along the way we stopped at a rest station/restaurant where I tried fried crickets (not very good) and a fried tarantula (not bad at all).
We only included a few of the photos we took at Angkor. If you are wishing to see more, rest assured we can bore you to death once we return with the countless photos of the ten plus temples that we visited over three days. The engravings of various Hindu myths abounding in most temples are absolutely stunning, as is the fact that they are still there to be seen after nearly 1000 years! Some temples, such
Yummy
Fried crickets and tarantula at a roadside stop on the way to Siem Reap as Angkor Wat, are in very good shape, and blow you away with their size and intricacy. Others, particularly Ta Prohm, have been left more or less as they were when Europeans first saw them. (They were never lost, hence they were never "discovered" in our minds.) These temples proved far more interesting and alluring to us, their tumbled down state of affairs triggering all sorts of emotions. Seeing hundreds of years-old trees slowly strangling and tumbling the enormous sandstone blocks of the temples is quite sobering. Some of the trees rising out of Ta Prohm seem to be taken straight from a horror movie with their slimy-tentacle-like roots and their sinuously curved trunks ripping apart ten foot thick engraved stone walls. The churning of the Sea of Milk motif appears on many of Angkor's temples, and we have included it not only as the title for this post, but as one of the photos with the blog.
In terms of logistics, we purchased a three consecutive day ticket to see the temples and hired a wonderful Tuk-Tuk driver named Savonn to take us all over for the three days. He even took us to a grim Land Mine
Angkor Wat under the influence
This is what Angkor Wat would look like on drugs??? Museum, where we saw hundreds if not thousands of deactivated mines that one man has collected as he demines Cambodia. At the museum he and his wife take care of ten or so children who have lost limbs to the millions of landmines all over Cambodia. All over Cambodia you see beggars staggering around on one and a half legs, missing arms, hands, feet, you name it. If I can use this blog as a soapbox for a moment, I would urge the USA to sign the global ban on landmines, as they seem a truly horrifying and indiscriminate weapon to keep in an already loaded arsenal. Our guide was an extremely kind, and, somewhat surprisingly, considerate and safety oriented tuk-tuk driver (probably the last of his kind in Southeast Asia.) Now that we are through with the temples, we will be moving on to Laos. August fourteenth we fly out of Cambodia. Until then, go Team USA, and happy birthday to Katie (turned 25 on 7/8/08)
Tucker and Katie
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Caitlin
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Happy Birthday to Katie!
Hey Kate, Just wanted to let you and Tucker know that I've been religiously reading your blogs and am so enthralled with your journeys. I hope you're coming to Ben's wedding so I can hear about everything in person and view your thousands of pictures. I hope your birthday was memorable. Can't wait to celebrate when you return to the States. Much love, Caitlin