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Published: October 21st 2007
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Hotel Rules
It is interesting that only #3 is stricly prohibited by Cambodian law I want to start this blog off with an apology, I’m sorry for this blog not having more detail on the places we saw, but I left my journal at home in Korea, so this is coming from my vague, old-age memory. There are quite a few pictures so I hope you enjoy those.
This trip was taken on a long weekend with a co-worker and his wife and Pearl and I. Pearl was the only one that has been to Cambodia so she suggested we go to Angkor Wat, which is what we did. And it was an excellent choice.
I will do my best to get this story in chronological order.
Day 1
Our first stop was in an area called Ruluo’s and it consisted of three temples, we visited two of them. When we exited the bus at Preah Ko, our first stop, you are immediately approached by the hawkers, which are very young and sad looking children trying to sell you things from bracelets to tour books. The next stop was Bakong these temples were built in 880 and 881 respectfully.
After the Ruluo’s temples we stopped at a land mine museum. The
museum was started by a teenage boy who took it upon himself to find a way to locate and dispose of these mines that still litter many parts of Cambodia.
After lunch it was off to Angkor Wat, which was built in 1113-1150. It is the world’s largest religious monument.
Day 2
I think we visited Ta Prohm which was built in the late 12th century. These ruins are being overtaken by Silk and Cotton Wood trees. The trees are growing over the temple walls, it looks very cool. It is hard to describe you will have to look at the pictures to see what I’m talking about. I think the first “Tomb Raider” movie had some parts filmed here.
The Killing Fields monument was our next stop. The monument was basically a small, maybe 4 feet x 4 feet, glass enclosure filled with bones from the Cambodia’s that died during the Khmer Rouge communist guerrilla group led by Pol Pot, during his reign in the late ‘70’s an estimated 2 million Cambodians died, which was approximately 30% of the Cambodian population at that time.
After lunch and a show at a North Korean restaurant
it was off to Angkor Thom, built in the late 12th century. This is one of the largest Khmer Cities ever built. The city is over 9sq kilometers in area. Inside Angkor Thom we visited The Bayon, this is a temple which at one time had over 49 four sided towers with a face on each side. Now there are only about 37 towers remaining. It was here in Angkor Thom that we saw the monkeys, unfortunately we were riding in a bus and I could not get any pictures of them. When we finished at Angkor Wat we took a Tok-Tok, basically a motorcycle pulling a cart, back to our hotel. The ride was actually very relaxing seeing the country side without having to look through a bus window.
Day 3
We went on a boat ride on Asia’s largest lake, Tonle Sap. The lake is 2,500-3,000 sq kilometers (965-1158 sq miles) in the dry season, in the wet season the area increases to 10,000-16,000 sq kilometers (3861-6177 sq miles). This lake is the major source of animal protein for Cambodia. It was very interesting to see all the house boats and houses along the banks, seeing
kids swimming, parents doing laundry and actually one person was taking a bath, with all that going on you can only guess that this is not a very clean lake, since over 1 million people live on or around this lake.
Next we went to an open market and shopped for bargains, which there were many to be had, you just have to bargain, and stick to your lowest offer, if they don’t like it, just walk away, 90% of the time they will agree with it, if they don’t you can find your item at another booth.
Later that evening we went back to Angkor Wat to hiked up Bakheng to see the temple at the top and watch the sun set, unfortunately it was cloudy, but it was still a nice hike.
We had our final dinner, than we had free time, Durwin and Kathy, the co-worker that came with us, and Pearl and I went shopping again and finished at a bar that had a live band, well Durwin plays the drums so he sat in with them for a few songs.
We caught another Tok-Tok to get us to the airport, upon
arrival I saw some flashing lights and smoke, and sure enough there was a fire in part of the airport. Since we, Durwin and I are “Fire protection” personnel we waited to see how long the alarms would go off and what would happen. It took about 10-15 when we arrived for the alarm/evacuation notification to sound. Not very many people evacuated, and actually we were told we could go into the airport while the alarms were going off, that this happens all the time and it was no big deal, well we waited till it was ok.
Again sorry for the non descriptive blog will do better next time. Looks like the next trip will be around Thanksgiving; right now we are looking at Saipan or maybe the Philippines.
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Judy Spasser
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Great Pics
It's awesome that you are taking advantage of seeing so much of Asia. It makes me want to make the trip some day. I would imagine the steep steps to get to the temple (or whatever) has probably induce a heart attack or two from the looks of the people climbing. Hope all is well.