At 4:25am my alarm from the previous day woke me up. I was a bit annoyed at first, but quickly dozed off again. At 5:05am, I said shit! I forgot to give charles the attachment for the tripod to the camera, as it was still attached to my camera. It would have been a bit disappointing if he carried the tripod all the way to sunrise to realize he couldn't attach his camera to it. Luckily I remembered.
I went back to sleep and around 9am, alan and I decided to roll out of bed, especially since we booked our tuk tuk to meet us at 9:30am. We showered, changed and got our bags ready for departure that night for hanoi, vietnam in 30mins. We then greeted our tuk tuk driver to negotiate what our itinerary was going to be for the day then went to eat breakfast. Yes, we were late and continued to make the tuk tuk driver wait. But, it really doesn't matter because they sit and wait for us most of the day anyways.
Alan had the fancy french breakfast while I had toast and fruit plate. While we were eating, steph and charles returned. They had the same "sunrise" experience as us, but enjoyed it too because it was less crowded and hot early (6am early) morning. Steph and charles also went to the travel agent to change their flights out of siem reap. Originally alan and I were flying out that evening, while steph stayed behind to leave with charles the following afternoon. Somehow they were both able to change their flights free of charge, this seems to never happen in the states. Good for them.
After some discussion, we decided that we should use our two day angkor wat tickets since we paid for them already. But quite frankly, we were both pretty templed out. I suggested that we should go take an hour tuk tuk ride to a far temple called Banteay Srei. At first, alan was a bit hesitant because it was far away, but I wanted it to be far away because I enjoy being on the tuk tuk. Eventually we agreed that we'll just go there since there weren't that many temples closer that seemed appealing.
Steph decided she was going to join us too, especially since charles was leaving at noon that day. At 10:30am we began our journey to banteay srei.
Our tuk tuk ride there was very enjoyable. We felt pretty secluded with barely any other vehicles around and got a glimpse of the rice fields and village life.
When we arrived at banteay srei, we got really excited. It looked like a small lost city, with only a few tourists around. The carvings on the stone were very intricate and elaborate. We especially loved the ambiance as it just rained and there were puddles and mud everywhere. We had to be mindful of every step. It was really impressive, and you know what's better....it was designed by a woman!
We stopped by the tourist shops afterwards to find the t-shirt I couldn't find the other day. After searching through piles we each found a tshirt we liked. For $2 a piece with gap quality tshirts, we thought we got a good deal. But of course not, as later on some woman offered it to us for $1. You can never win.
This visit gave us a second wind to go check out more temples. We decided to go visit some more temples outside of angkor thom called pre rup, ta som, preah neak pean, and preah khan.
Pre rup was pretty neat since it was really tall and felt very abandoned. On the top we got a nice breeze and view out to the plains. We discovered siem reap wasn't that hot that day, but the sandstone radiates heat, making it a bit unbearable. So the breeze was much appreciated.
Ta som was similar to Ta Prohm (tomb raider temple) in that it had giant trees growing everywhere, with their roots on a destructive mission making its way into every nook and cranny of the stones. It was really cool, hence deserved lots of photos. We really have to go through our photos and decide which tree growing out of the temple stones we like most. Right now we each have roughly 200 photos from angkor wat. Yes, photo happy.
At Ta Som, there were many little kids trying to sell us things. One boy was haggling stephanie to buy a book about angkor wat, which she was happy to buy it for $3. The boy didn't like the price, but kept on following them despite the many no thanks and sorry I don't want it. The boy's response to sorry was, sorry means no eat, which disturbed steph a bit. Granted it is a poor country, but we get the sense these little kids do get a lot of sympathy from the flow of tourist purchasing things from them so saying things like that was unnecessary. That's when alan's manly side came out and asked the boy to go away. The boy wasn't so happy, as he shouted back at alan saying he had no right to tell him to leave and alan should leave since he was crazy. So, rule of thumb don't tell them to get lost, just say no thank you and ignore.
As we got to the end of the temple, where there's a huge tree strangling the gate, we saw a bunch of children selling things again. We said no, but it was interesting to see their tactics. They would ask you where you are from, and after you respond, they'll say things like if I name the capital and population will you buy from me then. New york was just too easy so I started to say I was from wisconsin. That triggered confused looks. I guess Wisconsin people don't travel to cambodia. Other tactics included playing tick tack toe with us and if you lose you need to buy. Of course they always want the upper hand by going first. We all know the trick to win.
As we were being amused by the kids, we saw a baby girl, maybe 3 years old, holding a cleaver chopping at things. It made us all really nervous. Why would a baby girl have a cleaver in the first place? When we asked one of the older kids (seemed to her sister) to get it from her, she refused saying she would cut her. Eventually I spotted an older woman, which I think was her mom, to tell her to get it from her. Thank goodness she actually paid attention and got it from her. It would of been disappointing and scary if she just ignored our concerns.
After all that craziness we headed to Preah neak pean, which was ok. Very different from the others in that it has a giant pond surrounding a fountain. At that point I was pretty tired and ready to give up on the temples. I did find a tiny tiny tiny, the size of your fingernail, frog to photograph. It looked weird.
Even though we were all pretty exhausted by then, we still went to Preah Khan (sacred sword) since it used to vlbe a buddhist university with more than 1,000 teachers. It's one of the largest complexes at angkor...and it was large indeed. It took us forever to walk from one end to the next, but you can really visualize the different rooms. It was rather impressive, but not as impressive as Stephanie randomly bumping into an old friend from college. Random, but cool. His name was Matt and he was travelling through cambodia and vietnam with his girlfriend. He gave us some really good recommendations in vietnam, so we were thoroughly excited to go there that evening.
After all the temple trekking, we went back to our hotel for a quick meal and fake shower. We just rinsed our body off with water since getting the all the shower stuff seemed too difficult.
We took two tuk tuks to the airport and enjoyed a beautiful purple/orange sunset ride. Of course it's a beautiful sunset when we can't take pictures, but we have our memories to keep forever.
Our flight to Hanoi was pretty smooth sailing with our first vietnamese meal before entering vietnam. When we got to the airport we realized we could of bought our visas there for $25 versus the $80 we paid in china. Damn chinese for ripping us off!
Our taxi ride to the airport was pretty enjoyable and then turned scandalous. Hanoi seemed pretty calm and deserted at night, with barely any people or cars around. Very unlike the bustling streets people warned us about. When we got into town, our taxi driver tried to drop us off at some random hotel. We bet he would of gotten a kickback if we did check in there. After several annoyances, he found our hotel, which looked a lot better than the one he tried to dump us at. For $22 a night we got a triple with comfortable clean beds, ac and private shower.
We were all pretty tired, so after catching up on our emails we went to sleep. We were too tired to plan our itinerary for the week in vietnam. That would have to wait till tomorrow morning.
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