Angkor Wat adventures

It is currently 3:22 a.m. Monday morning. We arrived back in Phnom Penh at 1:20 am, so a couple hours ago from Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat. Am I tired? A little, but I will justify my actions at this hour with two things, sleeping on the bus and the world cup. This mini vacation going to Siem Reap was very fun and enjoyable. Not only relaxing, but it was so nice to finally get the opportunity to see Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is something that I have known ever since I was a little kid. In most Khmer-American homes, you can most likely find a painted picture/mural of the main Angkor Wat temple hanging somewhere visible. Angkor Wat symbolism of pride and joy for the Khmer community all over the world. Having this opportunity to be able to see this was an eye shocker, but I will get to that in a little bit. Let's start off with the beginning.
We left on Friday morning out of Phnom Penh via bus. The bus ride was not bad at all. It took about 5-6 hours to get to Siem Reap. But unfortunately, it was hard to sleep on this bus ride because we were booked the first row of seats and somehow I ended up behind the driver. So leg room was pretty much non-existent. Also, my chair was broken as it did not go back, but I had my music so I listened to that as I looked out the window. We made two rest stops, which I was pleasantly surprised. The first stop, I was able to have a bowl of pho for breakfast/lunch, as well as some steam buns. Super yummy. Our second stop, I wasn't too hungry because I got too distracted by all of the cute dogs. This should explained my random upload of a cute brown dog on facebook. It was too precious. But, afterwards back on the road again and we finally reached Siem Reap. We were dropped at the bus station, but as well rolled into it, it was a fun to see someone holding a sign with all four of our names on it. We got off and loaded the Tuk Tuks and headed off to our guest house. We ended up staying at the Tanei Guest House, which was a pretty decent place with a pool and internet, but again, the one time I decide not to bring my computer, there is internet, oh well. But, it was pretty nice. By the time we got here it was around 2 pm. We were all pretty exhausted and we deemed the day as relaxation time or at least I did. Rothany and I took advantaged of the pool right away. The weather was absolutely perfect. The sun was shining and there was a slight cool breeze and the humidity was low. We ended up at the pool for a couple hours swimming and laying out in the sun. Afterwards, we decided to check out the Psaa Chas aka the Old Market. It was surprising to see how touristy Siem Reap was compared to Phnom Penh, the market was definitely geared towards tourists. We ended up walking from shop to shop, confusing everybody as usual with our foreigner looks, but the ability to speak Khmer. We ended up getting a couple t-shirts and ended up back at the guest house for dinner. During dinner we met Saroun, a Khmer guy with awesome English, who works in Siem Reap. We talked about a variety of topics and it was super fun to talked to him in Khmer/English. Naturally, after the conversation, I hoped that my language skills are getting better. Well, we were going to go out that night. We had heard of a bar called, get ready.... "Angkor What?". Funny, huh? But, we all ended up passing out because we had to get up at 6 am, bright and early as usual for our trip out to Angkor Wat.
Early wake up call did not look so pretty, but we were all able to get up and get out on the road. The closer we got to Angkor Wat area, the more excited I got. We made it to the entrance where everyone had to buy tickets to get into the area where Angkor Wat and the other temples. The tickets cost $20 for a whole day, but luckily Rothany and I were both Khmer children and we had permanent visas to Cambodia, so it was free for us. =) We got back on our Tuk tuk and made it to the sight that was so familiar. As we got closer and closer, I saw the right side of the main Angkor Wat temple and the moat that surrounded the temple. I do not understand how this was made, there must have been a ton of hard labor and precision to make this temple the way it looks. As we made it to the front of the temple, I was just awed and I looked straight on to see how massive this place was. The temple had two or three gates, which made the walked from the first gate so far to see the image that we all see of Angkor Wat. I can't described how cool it was to see this in real life. It was fun to match up the picture of Angkor Wat that hung in my living room with the real thing. I never expected to see so many apsaras and drawings depicting battles with elephants and massive armies to be carved throughout the temple. We were able to get to the center and climbed up this super steep stairs and see the wonderful view. I was able to pray at top. I also got my fortune told, but it was not so good. I got three bad fortunes until the good one. So I do not know if that is a good sign and I am pretty the fortune teller told me that he was sorry about my bad fortune. =( But, after that visit we left the main Angkor Wat temple and got into our Tuk tuk and went to the nexy. I did not realized how big the Angkor area was. There were so many temples that filled this area and it was in the middle of a jungle. We were able to visit a couple of temples. We went to Bayon temple, which is the picture above with the faces. This was a very cool temple because my dad had shaved a wood carving of the four faces of Bayon. Once again, super cool to match the wood sculpture with the real thing. We were also able to see the Tomb Raider scene and this place was absolutely beautiful with the fig trees that had consumed all of the temple. Thanks Angelina Jolie for the fun Khmer you spoke in the movie and a feeling that I felt famous when I walked into this temple. We were also able to play with monkeys, but don't worry none of us got bitten. They were super cute, but some were aggressive for the bananas that we bought for them. Oh yeah, one of them jumped on Justin's back and that was a quite hilarious. We ended up being at Angkor Wat temples for about 6-7 hours. It felt like we were there for 24 hours with the extreme heat and the intense climbing.
We finally made it back to the guest house and once again, we went right to the pool to swim, lay out and took some siestas. Rothany, Jessica and I went out to the market again and got dinner at an awesome place with really good shakes. I also ended up buying over 3 kilos of fish and 3 kilos of sausages for my grandma, a request from my mom. Later that night, Rothany and I decided to go out to the bars and we ended up having an awesome time. I did not know the night life here was so vibrant and lively.
The next morning, which I guess was today, I woke up and my mom wanted me to grabbed more dried fish and also prahoc, the fermented fish paste for my grandma. Let's just say that when I left Siem Reap, I had over 20 kilos made up of dried fish, prahoc and sausages to take to my grandmother. I hope she is excited when I get to her this weekend. =) But, afterwards, we ended up just spending the entire day at the guest house because we were exhausted from yesterday's adventures to the temple. We had a ticket return on a bus to Phnom Penh at 7pm ish, so once again we ended up at the pool and doing some work as well. I got dark in the past three days. Kind of scary. =P Well, the trip was awesome until we got on the bus to go back to Phnom Penh. We found out after being on the bus for awhile that we were on the wrong bus to Phnom Penh. Oh boy, we were all confused. We had checked with the guest house and they confirmed that there would be someone to pick us up and take us to the bus. But, I guess they got it wrong and took us to the wrong bus company. But, on the bright side we were all together. On the bad side, we ended up paying for another round of tickets so we could get back to Phnom Penh. AHHHH!!! But, it is okay, we are back safe and sound and hopefully we can get some type of refund back for the other tickets. This pretty much explains why I am still up right now and I just found out that Spain won after a really long and boring match. Facebook pictures will hopefully be posted up tomorrow when I find a cafe with super fast internet.