EAPSI2011: Siem Reap, Cambodia Part I

Friday 07/29- Monday 08/01 I traveled to Siem Reap Cambodia to see the Angkor Wat and other Temples. I traveled alone, but met up with two of my EAPSI friends there, Alex and Juanpa, and Ola came on Sunday night. The temples were striking, however Siem Reap itself was much more touristy than I imagined it would be. On the flight, it was shocked that I was almost entirely surrounded by white people—it was quite an odd feeling actually. And I was even more surprised to discover that the preferred currency is the the $US, though they would basically take any kind of currency and give change in mixed currency as well. I stayed at the Golden Temple Villa for $13 per night—such an amazing place for the price and it had free internet! The food was incredibly cheap—you could get a whole meal for ~$1.50-2 and it was great though it had some interesting options on the menu (See below—I end Fried Beef with ants!)

To see the temples I hired a Tuk Tuk with an English Speaking Guide through the hotel. My guide was Sotick and he was absolutely phenomenal! If you ever come to Cambodia, I would highly recommend his services (his website: www.angkordiscovery.blogspot.com). He was highly knowledgable, friendly, and great photographer! The temples were absolutely fascinating especially considering they were built between 800-1300 A.D. They are in such good condition for being 1000+ years old!

To summarize what I did this weekend:

Saturday we traveled about 45 km north of Siem reap to Kbal Spean Waterfall. It was a 1.5km treck up rocky terrain but it was amazing to see. There were beautiful scultpure carved directly into the rock.. incredible. On the way back to Siem Reap we stoped at Bantaey Srei Temple, nickname Lady Temple. It had the most intricate and well preserved sculpture of all the temples in the area and was definitely my favorite temple. In the afternoon, we did some of what is called the Grand Temple Tour seeing East Mebon, Ta Som, and Preah Khan Temples.

Sunday I did what was called the small tour. We started the day at Ankor Thom which has what is known as the Elephan Terrace. We then went to the Elephant station near Bayean Temple so I could do an elephant ride and feed the elephants. This is one of the things I had really wanted to do when I came here. It was a bit bumpy ride, but I really enjoyed it. The ride took me around the Bayean Temple and I got some really great views of the temple. After the elephant ride, we toured the inside of Bayean Temple—this temple has 5 towers that are all multi-side faces. I think this was my 2^nd favorite temple that I saw. Following this, we visity Ta Prom temple nickname Tomb Rider because this is where the Angelina Jole film was made. This temple was slowly being distroyed by giant trees that grew up from the stones. Unfortuntanely, I have no pictures from any of these temples as my memory card malfunctioned L On Sunday Afternoon we toured Angor Wat—this is the largest temple in the world and is considered one of the 7 wonders. It is an incredibly massive structure with very impressive sculpture.

Monday Ola joined me on the tour. Our first stop was the Rolous GroupTemples about 15 km outside the city. These are the oldest of the temples being built in 800A.D. There were two brick and one sandstone. At the last temple was the Little Angels Orphanage and Khmer Art Center. This place saddened me so much, it was basically a workshop of children hard at work making these leather pictures. The profits were supposed to go to the help the children buy food and school supplies so I bought 3 from them and gave all the money I had on me to the kids. I wish I could have done more. After the temples, we visited the floating village of Tonle Sap. It was pretty amazing to see, everything the houses, general store, drinking water filtering system was on either rafts or boats. They didn’t have electricity, but they did have batteries and most of the houses actually had TVs.