Siem Reap, Cambodia

I’m a little behind in my blogging, I’m currently in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), and I’ve been stuck in my hotel room with a pretty bad case of food poisoning.  It began yesterday and has continued for more than 24 hours. The whole Contiki tour group went on to the Mekong Delta, and will be returning to Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully I’ll join up with them then. I wasn’t well enough to travel so I stayed behind alone. I’m still not better yet, but I have a little bit more energy now so I’m going to recap the past few days.

On our final night in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, (June 9th) before flying to Siem Reap the following morning, we spent part of the evening exploring the markets.

After exploring the markets we went out for dinner, and we were given the opportunity to try tarantulas as an appetizer:

I didn’t try them… but apparently they were quite tasty!

The following morning we flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Our hotel was beautiful, and fully equipped with a fitness center, spa and pool:

In the afternoon we headed over to Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. This lake is the home for many people living in the floating villages. It was really interesting to tour the floating villages (by boat), as their way of life is so different than ours. There are hundreds of houses, all floating on the water, made up of bamboo, wood and scraps, all put together to form a roof on top of either a boat, or a floating platform.

We could see right into most of the houses, and each one contained a living area and a kitchen; some even contained TV’s and satellite dishes!

The whole village lives in poverty, and it’s sad when you look inside the tiny floating houses and see how most of the houses are falling apart. In addition, the water from the lake is pretty dirty looking (it is a red-brown colour), and they use this water for everything including washing, cooking, drinking, disposing of bodily waste and swimming. They only recently got a water filter station, where they can bring their water and have it filtered in one central location on the lake, but before the filter station they would use other methods (like boiling the water) to drink it. For washing of clothing and dishes the water is used straight from the lake. I couldn’t even imagine using the same water where toilets are directly disposed into for washing my dishes!

The day we went to see the floating village must have been moving day for many people, because we saw a number of houses being relocated on the lake. To move a house they hook it up to a boat using rope, and then pull the house to the new location:

The following morning (June 10) we woke up at 4:15am to see the sunrise over the famous Angkor Wat temple. The entrance tickets are pretty interesting. In order to stop people from scalping tickets, they require each person have their photo taken, and the photo is then printed on your entrance ticket. Below is my ticket (keep in mind that my photo was taken at 4:45am).

Angkor Wat was built in the early 12th century as a mausoleum and temple for King Suryanarman II. It was abandoned for a few hundred years in the 16th century, while the jungle grew in around it.Once it was discovered again, and cleared away from the jungle, it was put back into use. It is currently the world’s largest religious building.

It is a magnificent site, and it is breathtakingly beautiful at sunrise. Unfortunately it’s hard to capture this beauty in a photograph. 

Once the sun was up, we were able to tour around the temple and see the beautiful and incredible architecture.

It is incredible to walk through the temple and see such amazing architecture that was built thousands of years ago. Even though I was very tired from waking up at 4:15am, it was well worth it to see such a magnificent sight!

We took a little nap and pool break back at the hotel after seeing Angkor Wat, and then made our way back to the Angkor complex to see two more temples.

The first temple was the Bayon temple, known for the many massive stone faces carved in the towers of the temple. It was an incredible sight!

We then visited the Ta Prohm temple, better known as the Tomb Raider Temple. This is where a number of scenes from Angelina Jolie’s movie Tomb Raider was filmed.

I wish I could write more but I feel way too sick to continue writing. Hopefully tomorrow I will feel better and will be able to continue. I’m sorry this entry is so bare, today I just do not have the energy to write longer stories. I’ve barely eaten anything in the past 24 hours, as anything I eat only stays in my body for about 20 minutes. Once I’m better I will continue with my blogging.