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We started this morning at 7:30am so that we could have breakfast before we left. We hit a few of the temples that we had not made it to yesterday including: Ta Keo, Thommanom, and Spean Thma.
We then set out for Banteay Srei, which is appx. 27km from Siem Reap (a long tuk tuk ride!), but again where we love travel. On all of our rides and this one, we saw Monkeys, Elephants, several towns, people working/sleeping, kids, cats, dogs, roosters, cows...all crossing the road and on the side of the road; and they all react to horn honking, never a dull moment!
Banteay Srei is older than Angkor Wat, built around the 10th century. It means "Citadel of Beauty," and unlike most major sites at Angkor was not a Royal temple. We have to say that it is indeed a temple of great beauty and compared with very little of the other Angkor temples, it seemed almost miniature in scale. Definitely worth the trip out and so glad that we came! Another notable thing was that this had a very nice visitor center with actual flush toilet bathrooms...what a luxury! Here is where I say that there
are like 2 bathrooms in all of Angkor and 99% of toilets here (outside of your hotel) are not flush toilets...nor is their TP. There is usually a big barrel of water next to the toilet with a floating pot in it that you scoop water and dump into the toilet to manually flush. If your bathroom standards are high, you have to adjust here and just go with it! Don't forget, "When you gotta go, you gotta go!" And thank God we didn't have to go that much (all the sweat!)
We stopped at the Cambodian Land mine Museum on the way back and what a heart wrencher! We have seen several bands here at various temples raising money for land mine victims. They're mostly blind and de-limbed, and this museum painted the history. They think there are still over 3 million land mines here in Cambodia. The Museum is in of front a complex that houses and educates children who are victim of land mines, whether that be through disability or they were orphaned, etc. Very sad to know this is not the only country plagued with this problem.
Today was the hottest day by far,
probably because of the thunderstorms yesterday. There is very little breeze, if none, and the humidity is off the charts. Checked Accuweather and it says 93 but "real feel" is 111....sooo we came back to the hotel for a swim and to relax. Matt then went to spend a couple more hours at Angkor and I dutifully stayed behind to do these travel blogs I am SO behind on :-( We're going to eat dinner at the hotel tonight, and I have a massage scheduled for 9pm that I can't wait to enjoy as a way to work out all of my hiking muscles :-)
As we always do on the blog, we share general observations that may not have made it into regular posts. Some are just interesting, some are funny...they're just different than what we see everyday! So here they are for both Thailand & Cambodia!
- Why did the USA have to be SO different in everything?? What a pain in the #$%! Metric system, temperature, voltage (we can't be 220v really?), the way we write the date...the rest of the world is DD/MM/YYYY, we say "to-go" and the world says "takeaway." Travel would be
so much easier if we didn't have to be different!!
- Gas is sold in any bottle they can find here at roadside stands. There are very few gas stations, if any. Gas comes in liquor bottles, soda bottles, etc. most are filling motor bikes so they can be small. Fill up with a Johnny Walker please!! LOL
- IF any of the motor bike people wear helmets, it's only the driver. Mothers would cringe seeing their 2-3 kids riding on it wear nothing
- No such thing as napkins (unless at a hotel or fancy place) If you need something they literally bring you thin as kleenex sheets that dissenigrate in your hand....ugh
- Thai cigarette packs feature pictures of lung cancer infected lungs, people with giant holes in their necks, and other disgusting images...pretty awesome but does it help???
- Umm....who would have ever thought Matt and Erin would drink beer with ice in it??? Yep...in these hot countries you do because it makes it instantly colder
Most of all the takeaway is seeing how most of the world really lives. Honestly our levels of poverty do not even touch
average living conditions here. I wish everyone could travel and just for once see how most of the world really lives (in terms of population). It's an instant slap in the face and snap back. We are so fortunate in America with all of our modern conveniences, our opportunities. It's hard to even lay eyes upon what you see here (and other countries we've been to) sometimes. The garbage, the "homes" you see surrounded in trash, kids running naked along the side of road, animals everywhere that scrounge for any garbage/food they can get because there's no such thing as dog or cat food here, no one wears glasses because there's no such thing as optomistrists....people just see what they see, kids ages 3/4 selling souvenirs at every temple with their "learned" English sentences of "buy fridge magnet 2 for $1?" because they won't have the opportunity to go to school......We are fortunate and we so easily take our lives for granted. This is why Matt and I travel and want to experience the world...not just see it. Yes, we love Paris and other big cities, but these places keep it real and remind us how lucky we are.
Also would like to give some special thanks to some products that we couldn't have made it through our trip without. First off is Heliocare, an antioxidant I saw on Dr. Oz that provides internal UV protection. Many women take it daily for anti-aging but we took 1-2 pills a day and did not burn at all. We still used SPF 30 spray, but I can tell you there are certain spots Matt & I always get red on despite our best sunscreen efforts and not this time. We were in the sun like 12 hours a day. Fab product, check it out on Amazon. Second is Eddie Bauer's Travex Free Dry clothing. The shorts and shirts/tanks were lifesavers in this humidity. They were light and airy and dried super fast, which is what you need in places like this!!
This has been another trip of a lifetime! Thank you for coming along :-) Tomorrow we get the Tuk Tuk Outta Here!!! M & E
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