Siem Reap


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February 18th 2016
Published: February 20th 2016
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The bus to Siem Reap picked us up on time. At 7am Diana, Hayley, and I piled into a van to begin our 7 hour journey (only 7 hours!). The van drove us a few minutes into the center of town where it stopped and waited for other people for an hour. That was fun. The ride itself was mostly uneventful, as far as Southeast Asian bus rides go. We stopped every few minutes to let people on or off. Sometimes we were squeezed in 4 to a 3-person seat. I was sitting next to a really smelly Slovenian man. A little Cambodian girl sitting on her mom's lap got sick all over the van, her mom, and the person next to her (who they seemed to know, at least). We had to stop to take a ferry across the Mekong. The driver drove fast, weaving in and out of traffic and pedestrians recklessly. You know how it goes.

And, of course, we arrived on the outskirts of Siem Reap because what's Southeast Asian about getting driven into the actual city? No no, get a tuktuk for those last 4km. We brought the Slovenian man along with us in our $4 tuktuk packed to the brim with us and all the things we owned.

We arrived at the hostel around 3 and jumped in the pool. The water was cool. The hostel had draft beer for a dollar a pint and that was always cold as well, which was terrific because the sun was so hot. Diana wasn't feeling well, so while she slept, Hayley and I found a girl named Jorden and went into town with her, across the bridge to pub street. Things were pretty quiet, and we caught glimpses of the famed $0.50 beers. We found night markets, but none with good street food. We settled on an open-air restaurant that looked just sketchy enough with blue and white-checked plastic tablecloths to be really good. In my now quest to test the limits of my stomach, I asked about the barbecued frog. “How big is it?” using my hands to mime different sizes. The waitress left and returned with the frog. Uncooked and with its head chopped off and looking an awful lot like a small slimy version of my dog, Risky, when she sleeps upside down. So...that big. I ordered it and they cooked it up, and it was really delicious. I washed it down with a 50 cent beer and an order of fish amok. We walked around the night market a bit more and I bought a pinky ring to replace one I lost on a bus in Vietnam. It's real sterling silver and still hasn't turned my finger green. I was going to a yoga retreat the next day and was exhausted from the bus ride, so I went to bed when I got home. My 14-person dorm was surprisingly really nice and quiet. Or else I was just exhausted and completely passed out.

I woke up in the morning and had breakfast in the hostel. I spent the whole morning lounging around waiting for my 12:30 pickup. Hayley had been up until 5am the night before, so I didn't see her until much later in the morning. I waited for my pickup. And I waited. And 12:30 came and went. And I thought, “it's Cambodia. Everything's late.” And then 1:00 came and went, and I thought, “...Cambodia...” and then 1:30 came and I used the hostel to call the yoga place. Marc was extremely apologetic and gave me a number to give to a tuktuk driver who they would pay to drive me over. A very confused tuktuk driver called the number and I watched as clarity reached his face as he was given directions in Khmer. He drove me down a very long and VERY bumpy road. Potholes and dust and garbage galore.

Finally we pulled into an oasis. That's how the reviews describe it. And that's what it was. One large room with three walls serves as the common area, kitchen, and dining room. There's a small pond next to a beautiful pool with chairs shaded by flowering trees. There is a small circle of bungalows and across the field lies the dorms. Just past the bungalows is the yoga and meditation pavilion with only one wall and a Buddha in the corner. It is...mostly quiet. Absolutely beautiful.

I checked in with Marc who gave me a tour of the place and showed me to my dorm room, which I was sharing with an English girl my age and a Canadian woman in her 60s. First I pulled out all my laundry and washed it in a bucket and hung it out on a line (a line!!) to dry (shut up, it's the little things when you're traveling). The next three days were bliss. Yoga started at 6:45 am and lasted until 8. At 8, when we were still in Savasna, a gong would sound for breakfast of granola, yogurt, honey, homemade toast, and chai. At 9:30 a meditation class started where for 2 days we did breathing exercises and walking meditation. The third day we did tree meditation and drew mandalas. That lasted until 11. During the long breaks I would lounge by the pool reading and jumping in to swim laps because I was being healthy and detox-y. I indulged in lunch the first day, which was incredible and vegetarian and all fresh veggies from the garden on the site. The second day I opted out of lunch and got a Khmer massage for an hour in a bungalow walled by sheer white curtains. My sore muscles were so thankful. From 2:45-3:45 there was a deep relaxation class in which we would lie down on mats in Savasna while Elizabeth talked us through each part of our bodies. She led all our classes. She is a beautiful French woman in her 60s with the most gorgeous accent and relaxing voice. I could listen to her speak forever. At 4:00 we had tea and snacks which were homemade cookies or pancakes or coconut/chocolate energy balls. At 4:30 there was an hour-long flow course that always left me drenched with sweat, the hottest part of the day just ending. At 6:00 there was 45-minute meditation. Chloe (the English girl) and I called it meditation boot camp. We sat on pillows trying to keep our backs straight and our eyes closed as night fell and our legs fell asleep crossed beneath us. 45 minutes is an incredibly long time to sit still. But I did it all three days. At 7:30 we would all sit around together for dinner, which was, again, always unbelievably delicious food with some kind of fruit for dessert. I was in bed by 9:00 every night.

Here are some highlights of the retreat:



Yoga Cat. Yoga cat was always in the yoga studio. He really liked to come and sleep on people's stomachs or on their mats or in their crotches, especially when we were in the middle of a class and it was super convenient.

All the other cats. Cats were everywhere. People often found them in their rooms, jumping through the windows at night. There were mosquito nets above the beds, but the windows probably should've had screens to keep cats out.

Dogs. There was a German Shepherd named Polly and a Black Lab mix named Nico. Nico was 6 months old and huge and had no idea how big she was. She was crazy and jumped and always wanted to play, and I loved her.

The people. It was mostly women at this yoga retreat, and everyone had a story. Many had left jobs, some were backpacking like me. Some were running away from things or trying to heal themselves. Some were yoga instructors, some were beginners. We aged from me to Carol-Ann, the Canadian woman. But it was so easy to talk to everyone.

There was strange music happening. All day, and all night. Boom, boom, boom. Some of the women took bikes and went to investigate. There was a Cambodian wedding that they were preparing for by listening to music FOREVER. It was pretty funny, though.


After three wonderful nights, it was time to head back to the real world (just kidding. I'm still traveling, and my life is super cool). I showed up back at my hostel, where Hayley and Diana had extended their stay. Diana was leaving that evening, though. Back upstairs in the dorm room, I noticed that there was a small room in the back with just one bunk bed and a private bathroom. I claimed it for my own, set my stuff down, and moved down to the bar where Charlie, the bartender, directed me across the street to rent a bike. I walked into the hotel and for $2 plus a $20 deposit, I could rent a bike for the day. A security guard came and helped me. First he struggled with the locks. Despite things being numbered, he could only find some of the keys for some of the bikes. The first two bikes he gave me were broken. The chain (which was covered with a thing) was completely off of both of them. Back to struggling with keys, disappearing to places, and unlocking things. Finally I got a shitty bike with a basket. So I biked about 20km to Angkor. I bought a 3-day pass for $40 and turned right at the junction, away from Angkor Wot. I was saving that for last.

I've seen a lot of temples in Southeast Asia. Temples are cool, but after 3 months, I was kind of like, “Ugh. Ok. Temples.” DUDE. NO. Holy crap. The first temple I got to was a crumbling mess as old as the world itself. There were very few tourists and very tall spires of rock. Everything was just rocks piled onto each other like a puzzle. There was artwork carved into these rock piles. There were doorways and columns, and paths. I felt like I was in a labyrinth. At the entrance was a woman who gave me some incense for Buddha and then tied a bracelet around my wrist and told me it was for good luck and good year. I put 2000 riel into the donation basket. I wandered around that temple like I was Indiana Jones. It was truly spectacular. I walked back to the entrance, got back on my bike, and moved on down the road. My next stop was a much more crowded temple. For good reason. As I found out much later, it's the Tomb Raider temple. Having never seen Tomb Raider, I may not have appreciated it in that sense. But in all the other senses, holy crap. So this temple is a lot like the first one. Except there are these enormous centuries-old trees that have grown around the temple. And into the temple. And uprooted the temple. The temple was bombed by Americans during the secret war, so there's rubble everywhere. But also tree roots in the rubble. And nothing really shows you quite how old a thing is until you see the tallest trees ever growing out of it, having come after this thing was built. It was pretty daunting.

I was tired. It was hot, and I was being all respectful in long pants, which were now drenched in sweat. So I biked the 25km home. I stopped on the side of the road to say hi to monkeys. Super casual.

That night I made friends at the hostel. Over beers I met a Canadian guy named Kyle who was traveling with his cousin Justin. There was another Canadian (they're everywhere!) named Rob who was going to get up in the morning to bike to the temples for sunrise. I had signed up for a tuktuk, which others were starting to sign up for to share with me. Justin came downstairs and asked Kyle if he was ready. “Ready for what?” I asked. “The circus!” So I got a ticket and went. An English girl named Claire joined us, but she got the cheaper ticket and had to sit in a different section. Kyle, Justin, and I sat in the small tent with a bunch of other white people (probably a couple hundred). The circus started. There was some really cool weird dancing and costumes. It was 6 guys and 1 girl. And holy crap (I keep saying that, but that's a lot of what Siem Reap was). There were 3 of them standing on each others shoulders. There was a guy who did a double backflip from the hands of two people and landed in the hands of two other people. There was a routine done on two broomsticks. But the broomsticks were the only thing touching the ground. They were funny and talented, and it was absolutely worth the $25. The tuktuk driver drove us all home where we had a couple more beers before I went to bed at 11:30. I had to get up early.

A bit about my roommate who moved in that day while I was at the temples. We'll call him Weird Asian Guy. WAG for short. When I came home from the temples at 3, I just saw that the bottom bunk had men's underwear drying on it. Guess I have the top bunk. When I went upstairs to get my stuff for the circus at 6, WAG was laying in bed in his underwear on his phone. We exchanged no words, despite being the only two sharing that room and bathroom. When I went to bed, WAG was asleep. Fair enough.

My alarm went off at 4:45. Didn't wake WAG. I got up and silently put on my clothes and got everything together. When I went downstairs, there were four other people who had signed up for the tuktuk. Except the tuktuk only holds 4. Rob and Will (an English guy) were also down there to rent bikes. So I gave up on my tuktuk dreams and walked across the street at 5am to rent bikes. If you thought my bike rental sounded complicated when I tried to rent 1 bike at 1pm the previous day, just imagine how it was for 3 bikes at 5am. Chains were broken and fixed only to break a block down the road. Keys were fumbled with. At 5:30 they just gave us our money back and told us to go next door. Day's off to a great start. The night guard next door unlocked the bikes for us and got so confused when I tried to give him money that he had to wake his boss up so he could charge us each $2 and a driver's license.

Finally we were off. We pedaled in the dark with no helmets, no lights, no gears, and (on Will's part) no brakes. We pedaled hard as we raced the sun. Will and Rob quickly got tickets, and as we turned left for the temple, we saw three people jogging on the side of the road shouting, “our tuktuk broke down!” We shouted encouragement and raced on as the sky got lighter. We arrived and got $2 lattes (real ones) outside of the temple. We got there just in time. As we were pedaling, Rob had been saying, “this better take my freaking breath away.” ...it did. We went to the left pool with the thousands of less-sweaty tourists and snapped some pictures. Then we went to the right pool with a more obstructed view but the same temple, the same sky, and way fewer tourists. We lay down in the grass and sipped on our coffees and watched the colors brighten and fade and the sky turn light. Tourists started pouring into the temple. But I knew better from some Maltese guy I had met on my first night in Siem Reap. We waited and chatted and finished our coffees. At 7, as predicted, the sun itself rose next to the temple to start the second sunrise show of the morning. Definitely worth the wait. When the sun was high enough, we went back over to the left pool, which was still crowded, snapped a picture, and went to find breakfast.

Breakfast at Angkor Wot is loads of stalls on top of each other in the same area. They all have crude signs where the names are written. Examples include: Lady Gaga, Nelly the Rapper, Spiderman, Harry Potter. We made a deal with the Harry Potter woman. Despite there being a menu with prices written down, you MUST bargain your breakfast. The menu charged $5 for breakfast and $3 for a shake. Pshh. We got both for $4. Boom. Haggling. We each had omelets with onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and bread. The shakes were all mango with pineapple, orange, or both. This is important later. Remember, we all had the same thing.

It was time to go into the 8th wonder of the world. And it was so beautiful. It was enormous and vast and easy to avoid the crowds. We didn't stand in line to go up to the top because it was forever long. Instead we explored the hallways around and the murals carved into the walls and made up our own history of the place, which I'm sure was way more entertaining than the actual history. We walked along the ledges that wrapped around the whole complex and climbed up and down terrifyingly steep stairs. My stomach got a little cramp, but I shook it off. Then Will said, “I have to go to the bathroom. I'll meet you guys outside when you're done.” He did not look comfortable. Rob and I continued to explore and then met Will at the entrance, who had just made it. Then Rob had to go. Right now. Will and I waited on the steps. My stomach was cramping like it was imminent, but it was just cramps for the moment. I told Will I could make it to the next temple. We swapped indigestion stories and deliberated on what in our breakfast caused this. Rob emerged and we followed the tuktuks to the next temple. I went into the bathroom, but it was just gas. IRON STOMACH PROVES ITS WORTH. It took me forever to find Rob and Will when I got out, so they thought I was in the bathroom the whole time.

We wandered to some smaller temples, which were huge pyramids of stone that were really hard to climb up. The guards made me fully put on my cardigan, which I had been wearing like a preppy person to cover my shoulders. Sweat city. We found our way back to the temple where we had parked our bikes and lots of faces were carved into stone. After a lot of walking in the hot sun with a hot cardigan, I had a coconut. The whole thing. Still no stomach issues. We got back on our bikes, looked at the map, and followed the directions to Death's Gate. Sounds easy enough, right? Except the road it took us on was really bumpy with like 1 tuktuk and it led to this huge gate and then just past it the road turned into a thin path, which we continued to ride down without seeing any humans. Will and I, in our beach cruisers, kept getting stuck in sand hidden under leaves. We just followed the path, assuming it would turn out somewhere. Wanna know how to avoid Chinese tourists? This. Do this. We finally popped out onto a road outside of the real Death's Gate, which looked an awfully lot like the one we had seen.

We found two temples across the road from each other. I pointed at the shadier one, so we pulled our bikes in. Then a bus of Chinese tourists pulled in behind us. We walked across the street to the other temple. There was a big pyramid temple that was impossible and terrifying to climb up but I did it anyway because 30km of biking in the hot sun just wasn't enough. The boys went to the Tomb Raider temple. I sat outside to rest and meditate and be away from humans. When they came back we went to my favorite temple from the day before, but they liked tomb raider better. We biked home, said good riddance to our bikes, and walked back to the hostel. I immediately went upstairs to shower. WAG was laying in his bed in his underwear. It was 1:30 pm. After my shower I napped for an hour and a half. When I woke up at 3:30, I got dressed and went downstairs. WAG was sleeping.

People started filtering into the bar from their days out. Around 5:00, WAG stormed down the stairs wearing a fanny pack (bum bag for you Brits), rapidly turned the corner, and was gone. Michael, the quiet blonde German, started a game of Shithead, the card game all travelers know. I taught Kyle, and Will and Jason (another Brit who looks and sounds JUST like Harry Potter) joined us as well. The game was competitive and the beer was flowing, and it was good vibes all around. This random old American guy showed up with two mics and started karaoke. Basically he would put a song on, and whoever kind of knew it would sing it. This led to hilarious Macy Gray impressions, a terrible rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, and the two whitest girls in the world (Hayley and I) singing Gangster's Paradise. Some guy named Max who had been sick all week appeared out of nowhere and was an awesome singer. So we made hims ing Billy Jean for us. The karaoke and bar closed at 11, so the boys and I went out to pub street. Kyle, Jason, Michael, Will, and I. We ran into Justin there and rather than get drinks from the incredibly crowded expensive bars, we found a tuktuk bar (literally a bar in a tuktuk) and got cheap cocktails, which we brought back to the pubs. We never entered the pubs. Angkor What? and Temple Bar are across the street from each other blaring music. The street in between is a huge dance party. Turns out Michael is an awesome dancer. He and I start flailing around while the others man-danced near us. We just stood closer to whichever bar had better music and danced there. A 13-year-old Cambodian girl named Linda, who I had heard about back in Vietnam, was selling bracelets and was also an unbelievable dancer. She was stealing the show. That's pretty much how our night went. Tuktuk bar and dancing in the street until some drunk British guy grabbed my ass (I and everyone else assumes he was British). I turned around and pushed him and yelled at him because stop assaulting women please and when has that ever even worked??? Jeez. The boys got mad and I made them go back to dancing but then they kept being mad at this guy, so we all went home before any fights broke out. Exciting.

I stayed up until 4am. I like going to bed at 10. Oof.

The next morning I woke up nice and late and got a nice late breakfast and sat by the pool as people slowly woke up. Our big activity for the day was an Escape Room at 3:00. They have these all over Budapest and I never went to one in the two years I lived there. An American girl named Alison was gung-ho about it, so she was rounding up the troops. In everyone's hungover states, we managed to get a rough estimate of 6 or 7 people we knew. Charlie (bartender) kept mentioning that a guy named Jamie wanted to come and we should check, but none of us knew who Jamie was. At 2:30 we sent Jason into the room to get Jamie because he mentioned that he might sort of know who Jamie is. He came back with a Jamie, but she knew nothing about the escape room and had other plans. I started yelling Jamie into the general hostel area. Finally some guy stands up and we were like, “are you Jamie?” It was! He was real! 8 of us walked to the escape room but couldn't play until 4:30, so we got 50 cent beers in the meantime. The guy gave us the option to do one room all together or two identical rooms competitively. It was North America vs. Europe. The escape room was so fun and everyone should do it given the chance. Europe beat us by 10 seconds. We had staked a beer on it. It was a devastating loss.

We got dinner on pub street because I had seen a sign for crocodile pizza and decided that I must have it. While we were eating, the puppet parade I had extended another night for came right by the restaurant! It was a children's parade and the puppets were huge and elaborate and detailed (right down to the lion having testicles) and gorgeous. We watched the parade go by and then went back to eat. The crocodile pizza was delicious. Still not sick. We didn't go out beyond the hostel because we were all pretty exhausted from the night before, and half of the people had to get up early to leave. That night there were at least 3 couples having sex in the hostel room, and these incredibly drunk loud trashy Scottish girls made a huge racket at 4am when they came in yell-reminiscing about their day. WAG woke up at 5am, packed all of his things in what I'm convinced were separate plastic bags, but the loud kind, and stormed out of the room at 5:30. I think he just storms. That was the end of WAG.

In the morning we said goodbye to Kyle, Justin, and Rob who were heading to Phnom Penh. Alison, Jason, Will, and I had a great nothing day. We lay by the pool and judged the Scottish girls who were being trashy in the pool and had started taking shots at 10:30 am. The whole demeanor of the hostel had changed completely. It was a good day to leave. Alison had paid $18 for a hotel bus to Sihanoukville at 8:30. Jason had paid the same for the 11:30 bus. Will and I paid $15 for a 10:30 bus. We hung out at the bar with girl Jamie (who's American) and waited to be picked up. Alison got picked up at 8:15 for her 8:30 bus. Will and I got picked up at 9. The earliest anything had ever been in Southeast Asia EVER. Jason got picked up shortly after We drove around the city for an hour and a half picking up everyone until the van was full and people had to stand. Then we picked up more people. We got to the bus station and thankfully had a bottom bunk. It was a double bed again, so I was glad I was sharing with someone I knew. Will had seen Jason at the bus stop before he got on. The seats didn't quite recline all the way so I took a Valium and passed out. The bus stopped in Phnom Penh at a weird hour of the morning and a guy came on and said, “Phnom Penh! Off! Sihanoukville! No!” and then left. It was 2:30 in the morning, and Will and I were confused, so we gathered our stuff and got off the bus. We waited for our luggage and then realized we were supposed to still be on the bus. So we got back on and promptly fell asleep again. Will saw Alison at that stop. Remember that her bus had supposedly left 2 hours before ours.



We saw Alison again at the bathroom break between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville. She was not pleased. We arrived in Sihanoukville at 9:30, and Alison arrived 5 minutes later. Jason's bus was a mystery to everyone.

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24th February 2016
Ta Phrom

Cambodia
So many temples so little time.

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