Saturday 3/22/2008- Monday 3/24/2008:
We arrived with “Mr. Thy” (pronounced “Mr. T”) waiting by baggage claim with a sign for “Dermot”. We hopped on his tuk-tuk and headed to our guesthouse. We were tired from our travels, so we just had dinner at the hotel, got settled, researched about our trip to Angkor Wat the next day and then went to bed.
The alarm clock rang at 4:15 and was snoozed until about 4:55. We got up quickly, brushed our teeth, splashed water on our face, said ‘Happy Easter’ to each other and then met Mr. Thy downstairs for our tuk-tuk ride to Angkor Wat. We picked up Kia, our tour guide, on the way and were in Angkor Wat waiting for the sun to rise at around 6 a.m. We bought $20/each tickets with US currency, as this is their main currency due to the fluctuations of their own economy and government.
The sunrise was definitely worth it, and we enjoyed seeing it, along with most of the other tourists in Angkor Wat. After the sunrise we had some breakfast at the food stands next to the temple and then explored Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, the “Tomb Raider” temple and many other famous sites in Siem Reap. Kia was full of local knowledge and spoke English very well, so the morning was incredibly knowledgeable about Cambodia’s past. We spent about 6 hours in all exploring these temples, before we eventually became “templed out” or as our friend Danae says ‘got templ’itis,’ and decided to head back into town for lunch and a shower.
After our refreshing break, we headed out to lunch at our guide’s local Khmer favorite (it was okay…), then off to the floating village (awesome recommendations from the Varros!!!) it was …incredible, both the drive with so many pot holes, we felt like we were riding bucking broncos out to the lake! We got visit small towns, as well as see the numerous humanitarian projects to help the villages get fresh water and be sustainable. Their method of ‘electricity’ was recharging car batteries, to power mainly their TVs, where antennas were on most shacks and bamboo huts. Our guide was amazed that we didn’t have our own farm and rice field, and that we had to buy all of our food at the market.
After our tour around the floating village, where we saw a school and even a basketball court floating on a boat, we headed back into town to pick up our airline tickets for our trip to Vietnam. We attempted to see the sunset on Angkor to see the sunset (overcast, somewhat of a bummer), and then headed into town after exchanged Easter baskets. Katie indulged in her ability to pick at her nails, while Dermot formed some new cavities eating sugar again. We headed into the cute town of Siem Reap to watch Liverpool lose at Molly Malone’s, while we ate a very very sad attempt at ‘authentic’ pub food.
Our last morning in Angkor was pretty rushed, as we verified our plane tickets and grabbed breakfast at the cool, all white interior Blue Pumpkin (Thanks again Varros!). Mr. Thy dropped us off at airport (after offering to come to Vietnam with us, so he could be our driver! Soooo cute!), we waited for 45 minutes in line to check in (felt like we were on candid camera) then got on plane and headed to Vietnam.