Angkor Wat 2

Pics as we approached...

Angkor Wat 1

The next day we got up fairly early. The hotel had a great breakfast - I ate a lot of fresh pineapple and papaya along with an omelet with many vegetables inside. Yum. My idea had always been to bike to Angkor Wat because I had remembered how fun it was in Sukhothai. As it turned out, it was also free as our hotel had two bikes left for us to take. Angkor was about 2k away, and there don't seem to be any hills in Cambodia, so it was a nice ride. Lots of traffic of course, but the air seemed okay. It was expensive to get in (40$ us for 3 days) and unfortunately we were only going to be there for about a day and a half, but it was worth it. Quite a shame that we hadn't allowed more time, but that is a place I would like to go back to. Anyway, it was a hot day, but there are lots of trees on the road and in the shade it's not so bad. When we got there, of course lots of people came up and started to try to sell stuff. We locked the bikes up and headed in...

Tara Angkor Hotel

The hotel in Siem Reap. Very nice.

trip from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

These are blurry pics I took as we whizzed along in our taxi.

Cambodia 2

The next day I got up and walked around. My neighborhood had lots of piles of garbage and recycling on the street. Odd place to build a hotel. Lyon showed up somewhere around 12:30 and we went to a pretty nice local place to eat some lunch. More Amok, and a tremendous amount of other food came. Cambodian food is good, though I didn't have anything that killed me in the way that Thai food does. It never gets that spicy, and seems to be more sweet and soft. Still, has lots of SE asian flavor, with the usual influence from China and India along with the local delicious flavors. After lunch we tried to get a mini bus, but we had missed the last one. Our only option was a taxi to Siam Reap, which would be extra expensive because it was Chinese new year. Everyone I spoke to seemed to think that they had a Chinese great-great-grandfather, though they didn't look too Chinese and weren't actually going to be celebrating the New year. Anyway, it was a good chance to charge more. We paid 80$ for the trip which took about 5 hours and was interesting for as long as it was light. Reminded me of driving through rural India a bit, lots of farmers and cows and tropical looking villages. Then it got dark and the lack of lights combined with the continued presence of farmers and cows walking in the street made it pretty harrowing. Anyway, we made it in one piece and the hotel (which Lyon had generously offered to let me share with him) was very nice.

Cambodia 1

My flight arrived in the early evening, maybe a little bit after 6. The Pnomh Penh airport was small and immediately after I got off I was besieged by taxi or tuktuk drivers trying to get me. Finally went with this tuk tuk guy who didn't speak English but seemed smiley enough. 7$ seemed to be a set price to town, but maybe i got ripped off. Not terrible, anyway. The ride was interesting enough and bumpy and I got to my hotel just as it got dark. My room was not particularly nice - no full sized bed (which I had requested), window painted black, and mosquitoes. The hotel was in an inconvenient location, but I took a tuk tuk down by the river to walk around. Lots of shops selling pirated software, movies, and books. All in the open, but much more laid back than Bangkok. Almost peaceful except for the regular chirps of "tuk tuk?" and "motorbike?" as I walked down the street. Tried some Amok (pretty good, but very mild after the fire of thai food) and I relaxed. Went home early so I could meet Lyon.