Vive le Baguette!
Trip Start
Oct 24, 2005
1
20
150
Trip End
Ongoing
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
We finally made our exodus from Thailand, and are currently in Cambodia. It took a bit longer than we expected.... We just could not drag ourselves out of bed the day we intended to travel all the way from Bangkok to Siem Reap in Thailand. Finally we got up around 9:30. We packed up and hightailed it across town, but w/so many transfers, we didn't get to the bus station until about 11:45. We grabbed tickets on the next bus to the border, which didn't leave until 12:30, which meant we wouldn't be able to cross the border that day, so we resigned ourselves to one more night in Thailand. My stomach had been feeling wonky all day, which I attributed to not really eating much, but after checking into the hotel, I started to feel worse. Eventually, I came to terms w/the realization that I was going to be sick. Me, the girl w/the iron stomach. How long had it been since I last vomited? Freshman year of college? Anyhow, it was (imaginably) unpleasant, and I knew that we wouldn't be able to leave the next day either
Funky Truck
. It was a good thing we didn't b/c, although I was feeling better, Konrad appeared to experience the same affliction the next afternoon/evening. So one more day in Thailand. Finally, after three nights on the border, we packed up and our weary legs carried us across the border into Cambodia. After a more or less full day in transit, we arrived in Siem Reap around 8:30. Tired and hungry (finally!). we settled for the second guesthouse we could find and bargained him down to $4 a night (while Cambodia has its own currency, the Riel (about 4,100 R to 1$), everything is listed in US$, and everyone carries them). We spent three days touring the temples of Angkor (a three-day pass was $40 each). We chose to rent bicycles (usually about $1 per day), so we were free to roam as we pleased, which was really nice. We visited 3-4 ruins per day, and left w/plenty more unexplored. Angkor Wat is of course the most well-known of the ruins, but our favorite was Ta Phrom, which we visited on our second day there. Ta Phrom has been used in a few movies lately, the most famous of which is Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider. We liked it b/c it was set amongst huge towering trees, many of which are attempting to take the ruin over. Unlike many of the other ruins, Ta Phrom is not tall -- its size is stretched out horizontally, rather than vertically, so there were many places to explore. Speaking of verticals, most of the temples were built onwards and upwards, and we had to climb up and down some very steep, very narrow, and somewhat eroded steps to get to the top -- given my recent tumble down the stairs, I was a bit worried, but fortunately, I didn't slip or fall once
Independence Monument
. ..> We left Siem Reap on Saturday and headed to Phnom Penh, the country's capitol. We've meandered about the city and have really enjoyed it -- there's a lot of great French colonial inspired architecture to see, and the town is set on the convergence of the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers. Yesterday, we walked to the Vietnamese Embassy to get our visas for Vietnam. Once we got there, we realized we had forgotten our pictures for the visas, so our long walk was for naught. From there we headed to the Tuol Sleng Museum. Tuol Sleng is a grade school the Khmer Rouge converted into the S-21 prison during their reign of terror. Adults, teens, and children were taken to Tuol Sleng to be interrogated and tortured by the Khmer Rouge. Of the tens of thousands of people who went into Tuol Sleng, only seven survived; the rest were taken to the Killing Fields (about 12 kms south) to be executed and dumped into one of the many mass graves. Needless to say, the museum was horribly depressing and I opted out of heading to the Killing Fields, as I didn't think I could stomach it.
Today we returned to the Vietnamese Embassy -- this time w/pictures in hand. However, once there, we were told they could not process Konrad's, as he doesn't have any blank visa pages left in his passport. He jumped on the back of a motorcycle and ran over to the US Embassy to secure more pages... only it wasn't open -- a new American Embassy was just opened. He dashed over there, but today was the grand opening of the embassy, and it was closed. Another trip to the Vietnamese Embassy for nothing. We'll try again tomorrow....
We plan to spend the rest of the week in the south, on the beach in Sihanoukville and then to Kampot. We'll then return to Phnom Penh in order to head over to Vietnam. ..>
Pictures are coming soon -- I swear! I've been uploading them when I can, but I can't seem to find a decent connection, so it's very slow going.
Keep the emails coming -- it's good to hear from y'all. Until next time....
-KOP
