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Published: March 25th 2009
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an elephant cruising down a city street?I arrived in Phnom Penh after many many hours on the bus and found a guesthouse (pricey one...4 dollars a night). It was located right on the lake with many hammocks just asking to be lounged in! i met 3 Canadian girls who were traveling together and we all went and got some dinner. they had the same next few day plan as me, so I ended up exploring the city with them and then traveling onward with them for a few days. The next day, we went out to the killing fields and the genocide museum which were super depressing, but interesting. It is unbelievable to learn about all the torturous things the people of Cambodia have gone through. And it is even more unbelievable to learn that this was not that long ago. crazy. It is something like 1/3rd or 1/4th of the population had been killed. That means all people who are older than me and survived can remember losing someone they know. it was horrible the way the people were treated and they even killed many children. I had been unsure whether i was going to want to see all this because it was really horrible. There
Jenga!
This game got very intense! were areas where they had piles of skulls that had been recovered from the mass graves. It was completely awful. I am glad i went but i can definitely say that it was a very rough day.
Afterwards we went to the Royal Palace. I knew you were not allowed in with a tank top, so I was sure to pack a scarf in my bag in order to cover up my shoulders (It was too hot to be in tshirt all day). One of the girls i was with had on a top that had small sleaves and she was not allowed in. I bought my ticket, they didn't say anything to me and then the guards would not let me in. They pointed to a sign that showed someone wearing a scarf with a line through it. i don't really understand why scarves werent allowed (maybe to increase the sales of the crappy t-shirts they sell at the door), but i was able to get my money back and just hung out until my friends were done. i had some icecream (orders of jose when i told him my day was depressing) and shopped around while they
boating
off to the floating village! were enjoying the palace. Afterwards, we all went for a drink and then i met up with megan's friend, graham. 2 of the canadian girls headed back to our hotel to relax and one of them stayed with me. We hd few drinks and it was really good to hear about the city from someone's perspective who actually lives there. He works for an NGO and has been there about 15 months. We later went to dinner with him and his band (before they had practice) and that was also really cool. they were a very mixed group-one american embassy worker, one American who had been living in Cambodia since 1998 and one girl from the Philapines who had been in Cambodia on and off since 1997. I enjoyed hearing them all talk about the massive changes that have occurred in that time. We had a really good dinner and they even payed for it! Afterwards we went back to the hotel in order to meet up with the other girls and then went out for few drinks. We went to a super comfy place that was full of pillows and played jenga. we were joined by a local 3ish
house
house in floating village year old who was super good at jenga! we had to help her a little, but she totally was able to follow directions and would be in deep concentration as it got harder. She was so cute and didn't even seem to mind the fact that many people were openly smoking pot in the bar. It was very strange...you would think her mother would be against it, but they stayed until our game was over. Weird. I also found it weird that there were signs on the wall to buy 'happy' chocolates and stuff. crazy. It is illegal in cambodia so i dont really understand how these places get away with it. i was happy to stick with my Angkor beer! We created a huge Jenga tower, although did have to cheat a bit (especially when it was the youngings turn!). We then returned home, knowing we hd to get up very early the next morning for our bus to Siem Reap.
In the morning, we jumped on a van that took us to the bus. We got to the bus and it happened to be a bus from the company that I had been told not to use.
sunset
sunset over the lake! oops. It ended up being ok, but was a lot less comfy than some of the others and I wouldv'e not been surprised if we broke down along the way. We survived the journey, although I was so mad when I looked at my phone for the time and read it wrong and thought it was 2 insted of 12 and thought we were about there. That sucked. nd I was so mad that I could not watch the episodes of grey's that i had downloaded onto my ipod becuase my videos have decided not to work. We finally arrived to Siem Reap after about 8 hours of bumpiness. We got to a guesthouse that ended up being pretty nice. The rooms were only 7 dollars (3.50 each!) and there was a nice balcony next door to hang out on.
That night, we got a tuk tuk down to the lake and got boat around the lake tht eventually took us to a floating restaurant for sunset. They completely scammed us by telling us we would go to a school and could buy supplies at one of the floating shops. I loved the idea of helping the school, but
truck
traveling in style, huh? had they mentioned this earlier, we could've bought stuff in town instead of the incredibly inflated stuff at the shop they brought us to. It was really sad because it made you realize they were not doing this for the school-they were just trying to rip you off at the store. If it was for the school, they would prefer that you could buy more supplies. It was absurd...a tiny pack of small notebooks cost 15 dollars and a bundle of about 8 pencils was 5 dollars! In town that probably would have been about 2 dollars total! We still bought stuff but that is insane, especially considering the fact that it costs a kid 10 dollars to go to school for the entire year and a year of university costs 40. ridiculous. we did have fun visiting the school though. We boated around a fishing village which was pretty cool. we saw an awesome sunset and then sat around with our boat driver and guide for awhile watching the heat lightening all around us. It seemed bit bad to be on a boat when there was crazy lightening but it seemed to be pretty far away. We headed back
Angkor Wat
the sun did not work with me for the pic into town in the complete darkness and our boat had no lights!
We got back, went to dinner and then had an early night since we had to get up at 4am the next morning to catch the sunrise over Angkor Wat.
We caught a tuk tuk in the morning and headed out to see some amazing old temples. I hadn't read up too much on Angkor, however i knew it would be cool. We got there in time to see the sunrise and the whole thing was pretty spectacular! It was a massive temple complex set in really pretty surroundings. I didn't like the harassment to buy stuff everywhere outside the temples, but it was very peaceful immediately near them. We journeyed around to many of the temples, but by 10:30am had had enough. Many people spend weeks here as there is so much to see, but I know myself, and i easily go into anything-overload. I enjoyed the ones we saw, but was happy to escape the heat-especially as it kept getting hotter and hotter.
We got back to our guesthouse and decided to find somewhere to swim. We ended up at an amazing pool
DQ!!
blizzard for breakfast!!! at a brand new hotel where they only charged 6 bucks to get in. We ended up doing the pool package for 15 which was pool, a 1 hour massage and lunch! It was great! I felt kind of bad doing this when there was so much more cool historical things to see, but it was just too hot and i may have not survived there. I knew i could survive in the pool so that was a good thing. Riding bikes to the pool was fun except when my bike ate my bag and my camera battery. That was not fun. oh well. That night we had some Indian food for dinner and then had an early night.
I flew this morning to Pakse in southern Laos and the other girls met up with some other friends and floew to northern Laos. We were all on the same flight, except I was the only to get off at the first destination. it was fun traveling with them, but I really wanted to hit southern Laos and they all didn't have the time too. i may end up meeting back up with them later on in my trip.
We got to the airport in Siem Reap this morning and were shocked to see a Dairy Queen! I had a chocolate extreme blizzard for breakfast which was great! I was thinking I may get my DQ icecream cake in my bday month afterall, but they did not have cakes. The blizzard was delicious though! IT was so weird that they have dq here because you barely can even find one in LA (as jackie knows since she drove 1,000 hours in traffic to get to N.Hollywood one year when visiting on my bday!)
I am now in Pakse and had initially thought I would go right to the 4,000islands, but i decided to stay here and check out some of the surrounding areas and waterfalls. i will go down to the islands in a few days which are meant to be wonderful!! so happy I am caught up....YAY!
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LUKAS
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BLIZZARD
WELL WELL HMMM YOUR TOTALLY ROUGHING IT NOW AREN'T YOU? HAHAH I LOVE THAT THE WORLD IS BECOMING SMALLER AND SMALLER AL THE TIME. WHEN YOU GET SOME MCDONALDS FRIES OVER THERE BE SURE AND WRITE.. LETS SEE IN VEGAS CAN YOU GET A POOL SESSION AND A MASSAGE AND LUNCH FOR $15 MAYBE WHEN MY POOL IS DONE AT MY HOUSE I'LL OFFER THAT DEAL!! HAHAHA BUT AT A RESORT I DON'T THINK SO MUCH.. I CAN GET THAT FOR FREE IF I BECOME A PRETTY BOY HOOKER!! WELL SISTER KEEP UP THE GOOD TIMES AND ABSORB ALL THAT IS AROUND AND SPREAD YOUR AWESOMENESS OR WHATEVER IT IS THAT MAKES YOU SO SO SO AND YOUR TAN IS HOTT DAMN DARKY I HOPE YOU HAVE TAN LINES?? WHO AM I KIDDING I HOPE YOU DON'T HAVE ANY TAN LINES!! MWA