During the bus ride we stopped alongside a little town for a bathroom break. The first impression I got of Cambodia was that it was dirty, sad and poor. Right when you step off the bus kids swarm you trying to get you to buy little bracelets from them. If you wouldn't pay for it they would start saying "here you can have it for free, just take it!" We all made sure not to take anything from them. I reall
y wonder what would have happened if we did. We were afraid they would scream bloody murder that we stole from them and next thing you know you're in a Cambodian jail - not good. We grabbed a few snacks from a local stall and got back on the bus. When we arrived in Siem Reap we took our first tuk-tuk to the Happy Guest House - our favorite of all our hostels. The people there were SO nice. In Cambodia they use Riel (their currency) and the US dollar since their currency is so weak. It is 4000 Riel for 1 dollar. We only had a few dollars so we got a tuk-tuk guy from the hostel to take Andrew and I to a Union Pay (our Chinese bank) ATM. It took us three tries. The first one didn't accept Union Pay, the second the computer was broke, but on our third try it was success! It was great because we got a small tour of the city along the way and the tuk-tuk driver was great about pointing everything out. What was even more crazy was that on the way back I saw a bunch of CTLCers hanging out at a bar so I shouted out to them and we chatted a bit before heading back to the hostel.The next day we rented two tuk-tuks for the day to tour Angkor Wat. M
arie and I received Tom, the best tuk-tuk driver around. He was such a cute little guy and tried his best to entertain us. He would shout things back at us about the temples and he would swerve in and out with his bike and turn around and grin at us to see if we were having fun, which we were. The downside of the day was that I had gotten a pretty bad head cold so I had a small fog over my brain for the day. During the trip we saw Angkor Thom which includes Bayon (has the large face statues), Terrace of Elephants and Terrace of the Leper King, Angkor Wat (actually smaller than Angkor Thom but the iconic site of Cambodia), Ta Prohm
(has trees growing all over the buildings), Banteay Srei (the pink sandstone
temple), and Phnom Bakheng (where you go to watch the sunset). A little fun fact - Tomb Raider used Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm as sets during the movie. The temples were breathtaking. They all looked slightly similar but also each had something unique. Angkor Thom was gigantic and you could always seem to find something new to look at. The different sections were each terraces with different etchings. When Marie kept telling us there wa
s a Leper Terrace we kept convincing ourselves she was saying Leopard. 
But sure enough there was a Leper Terrace - though it was not etched with pictures of people losing body parts. This specific area had changed colors over the years due to the rocks that were used and people thought it was very similar to the leper disease, hence the name. We found another building in the area that has extremely steep stairs that were halfway falling apart. Warning signs and "Climb at your own risk" postings were up everywhere. So of course Andrew and I wanted to get to th
e top. Once reaching the peak there was a little old woman asking you to light incense for the gods (leaving a small monetary tribute as well was encouraged). Touring the top we were going to head down, which would have been the scary part, when we found a new wooden staircase built in the back...so much for the need to climb the steep side - but it was more fun. At one part we were really lucky because in one of the wats we observed what was either a movie/commercial/music video/? being shot. There were a bunch of girls in traditional Cambodian dance costumes. Two of them were up on the outcroppings of the temple performin
g a dance while being filmed. There were even lighting guys and helpers that shaded the girls between takes. The other thing that I greatly enjoyed about the day was the tuk-tuk rides. The pink temple was out in the boonies so it was a 45 minute ride there and back. You passed through tons of local villages on the way that partly survived because of tourism. There was the typical stalls and food for sale but you also were able to see some of the daily life as you went by. One interesting part of the temples was the renovation efforts. Due to their age, large portions of the wats were falling apart
. Generations have gone by that have been trying to help preserve these areas. There were piles and piles of stones around the wats that some group of people had taken out and numbered at some point. Well of course since then the notes have been lost and a lot of the curators are not positive how the system works. So now it is a giant puzzle to find where to put the stones back. We ended up finishing the day early. We were all tired and hot and the only thing left that we were supposed to do was to watch the sunset at Phnom Bakheng which wasn't for another hour or so. Instead we reached the top of the temple (which was up a large hill might I add), looked around and went back down to go get some rest. That night we went and saw some traditional Khmer dancing. The dances tell stories, most of the ones we saw were about relationships and the historical day to day life of the Cambodian people. Afterward we had told some CTLCers that we would meet up with them so we headed for the tourist street of Siem Reap. We were a bit early so we stopped by the night market beforehand. While there we got a fish massage! For $2 you got a 20 minute fish massage, a can of beer and a back massage. A fish massage is where you take off your shoes and you put your feet in a large fish tank full of small fish. The creatures come and eat your dirt and dead skin off. A gross thought but it actually felt pretty good. It tickled a lot at first but you get used to it. I was the first one up on the seating area and there were already 
three women who were probably in their late 60s with their feet in. I was really nervous and they were really funny because they were yelling at me to get my feet in and that if they could do I could too. Poor Cliff and Andrew though, they both had sores on their feet from traveling and so the fish were biting them open. It was a bit disgusting because once the scratches opened there would be blood and the fish's mouths would get all red. We ended up staying for over 40 minutes because we were live advertisement for the stall owner. Eventually some other people came and we were getting over the excitement so we headed out and found the CTLCers. It was nice seeing everyone but we didn't stay for too long because we were all very tired.The morning started with going horse back riding through the rice fields. It was t
his cute little ranch away from the city. The guide was a woman who had been a tourist in Cambodia two years before and had asked to start working for the barn and next thing she knew she had a semi-permanent residence there. The owner was a Cambodian from California called "The Sheriff". He was a nice guy and chatted with us after the ride about politics and tourism in Cambodia. The ride itself was great and we got to see some temples, schools and neighborhoods of the locals. Next we went back to the hostel for lunch and had our first experience with Chicken Amok - the signature dish of Cambodia. It is sort of like a yellow curry. We spent the afternoon at the butterfly garden and landmine museum. The butterfly place was very beautiful. You got to walk around and just take in all the butterflies fluttering past you. We also 
got to see their hatching closets and the whole process from egg to butterfly. The workers go around and collect the leaves with eggs on them and then sort them according to species. The worms get placed in tupperware containers until they start to make their cocoons. Then the cocoons get moved into the closets in the garden. The landmine museum was the first taste we got of depressing/inspirational information about the countries we were visiting. Aki Ra is an amazing man (he is in the top 10 CNN heroes this year) who has spent the last section of his life removing active landmines from around Cambodia. So far he has deactivated over 50,000. The museum is all about his life, the life of Cambodia, the terror of landmines, and exhibits of mines they have found. He has a movie playing on loop explaining the m
useum and the effect landmi
nes have had on Cambodia's history. It included an account of how much damage some of the main landmines would cause - whether it would blow off one leg, two legs, or your entire body. We unfortunately were a little bit rushed during this time because we had to get back to the tourist section of town for a Cambodian cooking class. We got back just in time and joined a French woman, her five year old daughter, and an Australian man. The class allowed you to each pick an appetizer and entree to create. I chose fried steam rolls with vegetables as a starter and amok chicken with rice for my main meal. The class was a lot of fun. We all got to put on cute little aprons and chef hats and started learning. The lady running the class, in my opinion, seemed to hate her job. The others th
ought she might have just been a bit stressed by having to teach so many people how to cook at once which is understandable. Luckily the class was set up in a way that you almost did everything yourself. So the teacher would come around, tell you what to do, give an example, and then move on to the next person. We got to slice and dice, chop and mash, fry and boil, etc. In the end we all had great food. The four of us shared a bit of each others. Marie had fresh spring rolls, Cliff had a unique salad, Andrew had pu
mpkin soup, and those were just the starters. There was so much food that I couldn't even finish my meal. Sadly half of my chicken amok was left over, but I was very content and had a happy belly. After dinner we headed home to relax a bit. Cliff, Andrew and I ended up heading back out for a nighttime stroll of the pub street. On our way we saw an unfortunate tuk-tuk accident! A bicyclist and tuk-tuk driver both tried to merge into the same lane and slammed into each other. The rider fell off his bike and landed underneath the tuk-tuk as it tipped over. We ran over quickly to help lift the tuk-tuk off of him. Luckily he wasn't hurt and we walked away as he was shaking it off. Pub street wasn't too exciting, we hung around for a bit and then headed home. On our way back a motorcyclist started driving alongside us. He stared at us intently and quietly said "You want skunk?". We said no. He replied "You want coke?". Again no. Finally "You want opium?". Still no. He finally got the hint and rode off.On day 13 we found about the power supply of Cambodia. There was possibly a commercial shoot...or a wedding...or something that needed a lot of power (we kept hearing different stories from the same tourist that obviously
didn't have a clue) and they had cut the power for the entire block to meet their needs. Classy. So we didn't get our usual morning email check, but that's what vacation is for. We soon left and got on our next bus to Phnom Penh. This was one of our worse riding experiences. We were second or third row behind the horn crazy driver. Literally every person, animal, or tree that he saw deserved a honk - just in case the thing decided to jump out in front of the vehicle. If it was another car, it got 2-15 honks. The constraint we all kept to not hit him before the ride was over was admirable. Also along the way we saw a military procession. Six or seven tanks and soldier trucks passed on their way to who knows where. Arrival didn't come soon enough, but we were thankfully quickly to our new hostel. As circumstances would go we ended up staying next door to our reserved space because there was not room for us - but luckily the next door hostel was much nicer so we got it easy for a night. To get a feel for the town we walked around a bit, got stalked by a shirtless guy, stopped for a few beers at a local restaurant, were seated directly next to the bathroom where the door didn't close, and had an appetizer kindly bought for us by some Cambodians. Overall it was a very good end to a not so good day.After moving to our new room at the original hostel we started walking to the Cambodian Royal Palace...and ended up going to the National Museum instead. In certain places you have to wear pants out of respect and the boys didn't have theirs on so we couldn't go to the palace, but it worked out. Out of all the museums we went to this one was the least note worthy. It
had some interesting information and some great artifacts, but the best part was the courtyard which had a beautiful garden and small ponds. Going back to the hostel for lunch and a nap, everyone got on long pants and we headed back to the palace (along with requiring long pants, a lot of places are closed from 11ish-2ish for lunch). I really enjoyed the palace - mainly because I quietly followed around this couple's tour guide for a bit so
I actually learned some things that were not written down. The thing I liked the best was the palace has a color of the day. There are seven colors and you are supposed to wear a specific one each day and it will bring you luck. This is a tradition that has been occurring for generations and is still in use today. In case you want to start the trend: Mon-Dark Yellow, Tuesday-Violet, Wed-Yellowish Green, Thur-Green, Fri-Blue, Sat-Blackish Red, Sun-Red. On the outskirts of the palace you can also go see silk scarves being created on looms. Then in the upstairs section there is a man playing the xylophone. There is a second one and he 
will teach you to play a simple song so you can play along with him. Of course he expects a small donation afterward, but it was fun. We had a bit of time left before dinner so we went to Wat Ounalom - the supposed location of one of Buddha's eyebrow hairs. The place turned out to be a functional wat and there were people living and praying within the walls. It is always a bit awkward walking into a temple that is in use since you don't want to seem like the annoying tourist who has no respect for the local religion, so we didn't really want to walk up to anyone and request to see Buddha's 
hair. Instead we looked around for a few minutes and went on our way. The central market was our next location, but we quickly found out that all the markets shut down around 5pm (which seems weird) and we were just a bit late. We ended up grabbing dinner at a local restaurant and headed back to the hostel for a quiet evening hanging out and chatting in the room.January 31st was our day of depressing activities. (Just in case) For anyone who doesn't know, in the late 1970s the Khmer Rouge, a communist political group, took over Cambodia. They believed that Cambodia would be better off if they started anew. To do so they evacuated Phnom Penh, the capital, and sent most people out to the fields to start farming. They believed they needed to wipe out the educated citizens to help start over as well as remove anyone who might question their efforts. Anyone who was known to be a doctor, teacher, student, etc was rounded up and killed. A fourth of the population - about two million people - were murdered during this time. Now parts of the areas used are museums and memorial sites. We first went to the Choeung Ek killing fields, one of the largest of its kinds, where trucks of people arrived every day to be beaten or stabbed. A tall Buddhist stupa stands in the center of the area to house all of the bones that have been excavated from the shallow graves. At the monument there are about 8,000 skulls inside. The different tiers of the building hold different kinds of bones with the lowest one having all of the clothing remnants that have been found. After viewing that you travel around the grassy area seeing each of the mass graves that have been dug up. The two main graves that were referenced multiple times were one that every body was missing it's head and one that had over 150 bodies with only women and children. In total there have been about 20,000 bodies found on the property. After touring the area there is a small museum where you can view a short film. The museum spoke about the individuals responsible for the terror that took place there. The trials for the crimes these people committed are still going on today. After the killing fields was the genocide museum. This was placed in the S.21 prison used to hold intellectuals and people against the Khmer Rouge before they were sent to the killing fields. The museum was set up where you walked through the cell rooms to learn about different portions of the prison. A large part of the presentation was rows and rows and rows of pictures of the prisoners. Each prisoner had a head shot taken when they arrived and all of these were on display. In 2006 a large tour was given of the killing fields and the museum for Cambodians who had suffered during the Khmer Rouge's rule - one woman found a picture of her brother among those in the museum - she had never known what had happened to him. Another part of the museum had biographies of men and women who had served the Khmer Rouge and what their feelings of their actions are today. The whole day was very heavy but informative. Cambodia notes that this was an extremely dark part of it's history but the people feel it is important to keep these areas preserved and let Cambodians and the world know the crimes that were committed so that it does not happen again. During our time in these areas our group was very somber, none of us even took out our camera to put what we saw on film. Other tourists did not have the same reaction and were still taking pictures of each other while doing the peace sign. Not very respectful... After the museum the tuk-tuk took us to the Russian
market which turned out to be a regular trinket selling market but it was fun to walk down the aisles searching for the best deal on whatever it was that you wanted as a souvenir. We got back early so Andrew and I took a walk around town. We ended up finding a large stadium that the neighborhoods had taken over. There was a local soccer game going on, tons of women doing aerobics, little food stalls, kids running around, etc. Andrew and I just sat and took it all in for awhile. Then we went back for dinner and every night the hostel has a showing of a movie about Cambodia so we stayed and watched The Killing Fields - a Hollywood film about the reporters and some locals when the Khmer Rouge started taking over.We had one da
y left in Phnom Penh so we decided to go 
see the animal sanctuary. We were hoping that it would be happier than a zoo because a lot of the animals were rescued from poachers...our hopes didn't really come true. The sanctuary started off with an area where you could pet Samba Deer and see some crocodiles and monkeys. A couple of men were following along with us telling about each of the animals. Their hope was that we would hire them as guides for the rest of the park. One of the Gibbons that we saw was blind and obviously had been fed by a lot of foreigners because once he heard you coming he would stick out his hand for food. You could hold hands with him for a bit until he realized you had no treats and he lost interest. We left that enclosure and headed for the
next set - the small ground animals and some more monkeys. Our guide admitted defeat that we weren't going to hire him and left so we didn't get the same input and fun facts about these. We were standing around the next gibbon cage watching a baby excitedly swing through the fake vines - they are very fast monkeys. All of a sudden the biggest one swung over to us reached his hand out of the cage and grabbed Cliff's arm and started t
rying to drag him towards the fence. Cliff obviously freaked out and smacked at the hand and jerked away. Luckily he got away with not bites or cuts. We were very wary of our distance from the cages and the locations of the animals after that. The next stop was the birds. There were some fun ones that were like parrots and tried to mimic the tones they heard. We had fun teaching them how to say "Wei" a common Chinese phrase for hello. Then there were larger birds such as eagles, hawks and owls. These were a lot more sad to see because the cages were large but they were such big birds that there wasn't really much room for them to move about in. After seeing some bears the last stop was the elephants. This was also a very sad enclosure. Each elephant had chains tying their feet together. Most of them did have some evidence of poacher attacks so they probably were rescued creatures but it was still sad they didn't have much freedom. It was time for lunch and there were was a section of tables and hammocks inside the sanctuary so we decided to stop. Our tuk-tuk driver helped us order three different chicken dishes and we asked him to join our meal. He told us all about his life in Cambodia so far and the general life of the majority of people in the country. There was a
set of little boys that also surrounded us while they ate. After getting us to buy some coconuts for drinks they stuck around and were very curious about our language. At one point I pulled out my notebook to write something down and one boy stared at it very intently so I got him to say his name so I could show it to him written out. After lunch conversation turned to our driver's tuk-tuk and he offered us a lesson on driving! It actually wasn't hard at all. I was the first and went up and down the road a few times, even making tight turns to get back and forth. Soon after we headed home. That night we walked out to the waterfront, got some pizza and walked along the sidewalk, watching the water. In the morning we were headed out for Vietnam. It was our earliest morning yet, we had to get on the bus at 6:45am. But no worries! Dragon practice for the upcoming new years started at 5:30. So there was loud drumming coming from the building next door and it made the perfect wake up call. With the end of our time in Cambodia I rethought my reaction that it was a poor, dirty, sad place. It is a poor country with a recent tragic history, but they have done a very good job rebuilding themselves since then. Phnom Penh was a bit strange because the town shut down at about nine every night and it wasn't what you would really expect of a capital but it was still an interesting place to visit.
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