We arrived in Cambodia the night of the 31st. After a little confusion about which hotel we were supposed to be at, our bus driver successfully dropped us off at a five star hotel that was hosting a New Year's Eve party. The fact that I would probably be asleep when the New Year rolled in was a little depressing, but didn't bother me much because I was in good company, was in a new country and would be going to Angkor Wat the next day. Did I mention we were staying in a five star hotel? I felt so fancy, especially when I looked into the bathroom and saw the TWO SHOWERS that were there. Unnecessary, yes, but brilliant? Of course! In retrospect, I should have taken advantage of the bathtub, because Korea doesn't believe in them, but the standing glass shower was so romantic and sexy, I simply couldn't resist taking all my showers in it.Our pathetic tour guide in Vietnam said that as a whole, Vietnam is a much richer country than Cambodia. Since we stayed in crappy hotels throughout northern Vietnam, then stayed in a five star hotel in Cambodia, I really didn't see the wealth in Vietnam, or the poverty in Cambodia. Each country basically had the same poverty level, I just got to stay in a better hotel in Cambodia. Living like a king is a piece of cake in Cambodia since the country actually is really poor. In fact, Incheon airport wouldn't even let me exchange my money for Cambodian (or Vietnamese) money because each currency is so worthless.
Americans love breakfast. We have IHOP, Denny's, the Waffle House, the Cracker Barrel and dozens of other restaurants whose specialties are breakfast entrees. Koreans, however, love kimchi; Vietnamese love pho; and Cambodians love something between the two. I'm rambling on about this because in Vietnam, the breakfast was pho and some French-like kind of bread. In Cambodia however, maybe it was because we were at a five star hotel or something (I can't seem to stop saying "five star hotel!!"), the breakfast was amazing. They even had PANCAKES! I hadn't had pancakes since I left America, so...I ate a lot of them. They also had noodles and rice and other non-breakfasty type foods, but they had PANCAKES so I was happy, happy, happy. They also had this weird fruit-like thing that looked like a white kiwi with purple skin, but it tasted like...nothing.
We climbed up this very scary staircase to the second level of Angkor Wat and walked around for maybe 30 minutes before we were forced to climb a very scary staircase back down. I'm not usually frightened during these types of things because I'm very sure-footed. I might be larger than most people, but give me things to climb on, and I'm like a monkey or frog hopping from one rock to the other. When it comes to heights and small stairs that aren't big enough for my huge feet, my hands start to shake, my heart beats a little faster, and my vision begins to cloud. June seemed to be having a much harder time with it however, so I decided to go down first, which is where this picture ^^ was taken. You can see how terrified I was by how tightly I'm grasping the bar and how forced my smile is. Oh well, when in Rome...On our way back to the bus, June and I decided to have a jumping picture because while I wasn't overly impressed by the tour itself, Angkor Wat is an awesome place to visit.
For lunch, we took the bus to this Korean restaurant (go figure) and afterwards got to ride in these little rickshaws. The rickshaws turned out to be the best part of the day. The weather was beautiful, if not a little warm and being able to ride outside in the fresh air was a great way to de-stress, sit back, and admire the people of Cambodia. Instead of being driven by men struggling to peddle a bike, our rickshaws were modernized. They were driven by men on scooters/mopeds. It was genius and was a much faster way to get around the city. The little man decided to ride in our rickshaw with us, and because he did so, our rickshaw became the leader of the pack. Driving around, I did happen to see some young men playing sand volleyball...GOOD sand volleyball. There were back sets and everything. It was amazing to see anyone playing volleyball, and I was extremely jealous that I couldn't play with them. 
My favorite part of Angkor Wat was the bas-reliefs carved into the sides of the structure. They depict Hindu stories, my favorite being the "Churning of the Sea of Milk," which is a Hindu creation myth. In the story, the gods and asuras alternately pull on the body of a long snake coiled around a mountain. They rotate the mountain for 1,000 years to churn the cosmic sea, the Sea of Milk, so it will produce the elixir of immortality. The cooperation between the gods and the asuras is destroyed however, as soon as the elixir starts to be produced. The gods go back on their promise to give half of the elixir to the asuras, who then try to steal it. The bas-relief shows the men pulling on the snake's body, which is what you can see above. 
After lunch, we visited the rest of the temples via our rickshaws. We saw the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed, which was pretty cool, but other than that...most of the temples were the same. They were abandoned to the elements. There were trees breaking through the walls of the temples, fallen stones, shattered walls... just basically not as well taken care of as Angkor Wat. The day ended with June and I hiking to the top of the mountain to see the sunset, which is supposedly one of the "must-do" things in Siem Reap. So we hiked to the top, climbed a lot of rocks and were surrounded by a lot of sweaty foreigners. There weren't any seats since we got there around sunset, but it was worth it nonetheless. We didn't actually get to see the sunset because our tour guide was harassing us to be fast, but in retrospect, I'm glad we didn't see the sun go down. If it had been dark while June and I tried to go down the mountain, we would have broken something. Somewhere between hiking up and down the mountain, June touched something and then touched her eye. Her eye became itchy and swollen and stayed that way until about two weeks after we came back from our vacation. She's convinced it was the dirt from the rocks that we had to climb, but who knows. We saw the fist sunset of 2011 on top of a mountain in Cambodia. It really can't get any cooler than that.
I feel like such a bad person for not being overly impressed by Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples, but perhaps I would have had a better time had the little man not stressed me out so much, or had I been on an English speaking tour where I could have gotten all the information I needed to be awe-struck by Angkor Wat. I did have a good day however, and despite the fact that I wasn't smacked in the face with the awesomeness of Angkor Wat, I'm still so glad I went. I don't want to take anything for granted and I won't. My pirated Lonely Planet says, "Angkor Wat is the heart and soul of Cambodia. The largest religious structure in the world, it is the Khmers' national symbol, the epicenter of their civilization and a source of fierce national pride." So the next time a student calls me fat, I can say, "Oh yeah? I've been to Angkor Wat...what have YOU done lately?" They might not understand me, but it'd be worth it nonetheless.
Day Two in Cambodia was much better than the first, though the day didn't exactly start well. The tour guide thought it'd be fun to walk us through a traditional flea market where the locals shopped. I thought this would be fun too since I had wanted to buy some small souvenirs for my friends and something nice for myself. It wasn't that kind of flea market. This was a flea market where locals shopped for their food. The smells were terrible and the things they were selling were sickening to look at. Small Cambodian woman were squatting barefoot on top of the tables covered with blood and meat. I'm not even exaggerating. It was horrible; I was holding my breath for the majority of the walk through the market. I might sound like a spoiled, privileged brat, but I don't care. I'm very sensitive to smells...and I have an atrocious gag reflex, which happened to be kicked into overdrive that day.
After the flea market, we drove to the Killing Fields Memorial. Before Cambodia, I didn't know much about the genocide that happened during Pol Pot's regime, but after I left the memorial and got to a computer, I researched everything I could about it. Ironically, "Cambodian Genocide" was the first thing that came up on google. The Khmer Rouge killed 25% of Cambodia's population; an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people died from starvation, forced labor or were massacred. In 1975, Cambodia's population was only 7.5 million. Why didn't I learn about this in school? They make us learn the names of all the American Presidents, which I do acknowledge as important (and can't remember anymore), but why didn't we learn this? Is genocide THAT common that my history teacher's didn't feel the need to mention Cambodia, at least in passing? We learned all about Vietnam, but why not Cambodia? The memorial was extremely powerful, mostly due to the glass encased stupa that held the skeletons of the genocide victims. At this point, I REALLY wished I had an English tour guide so he could tell me everything that I wanted to know, but alas...I didn't.Next to the stupa, there was a bulletin board full of pictures of the people that were killed. Apparently, before the guards would kill the people, they'd force them to pose for a picture. The people were so weak from lack of food that their heads would have to be supported by a rod. At first glance, it looked like the long stick was going into the backs of their heads as some means of torture, but then June told me that it was there to support their heads and keep them still for the picture. One picture in particular tuned everything out for me. I felt like I was in a vacuum where nothing else existed but me and that picture. All my other senses died while I was staring at it, and the only reason why I stopped staring was because another tour group nudged me out of the way. The picture still gives me goosebumps.
The Killing Fields was an eye-opening experience. At this point in my life, I did feel ashamed of my ignorance regarding the world. I've always thought traveling was enough, but I'm wrong. If I didn't know something this catastrophic, how can I even consider myself as "cultured" or "intelligent"? Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself, as usual, but seriously, Trisha. Get with it.
After the Killing Fields, the bus driver took us to the famed "Floating Village" that's in the Tonle Sap Lake. I was again assailed by a lot of unpleasant smells, but braved through it because what I saw was absolutely spectacular. It was literally a floating village. These people lived on the water, for who knows what reason, and never went on land. I don't know the particulars of bathrooms, showers, or food, but there they were, happy as can be, squatting on the decks of their bobbing houses. And this is why I love traveling. I am constantly being shown a different way of living and finding that even though it's different from mine, the people still seem more than happy to enjoy the life they are given. Yes, they looked hungry and children were begging us to buy a can of soda off of their sad, motorized boat, but they'd go back to their floating houses and play with their brothers and sisters in the water. But who am I to say that they're happy? Perhaps they're miserable.
We were on our boat for about an hour until we came to a floating store/restaurant where I finally bought some souvenirs...and got to have a snake around my neck. YES! You read that right. There was this little girl with a snake who would put it around your neck if you gave her a dollar. I'm not usually one to squirm when it comes to snakes, but having one around your neck is a completely different story. You could feel the soft, scaly skin that felt like it was almost separated from the core of the snake. The skin was hanging off the snake, which felt absolutely disgusting on the back of my neck. The snake had also recently eaten something very large so the bottom half of it's body was just dangling there. But I wanted the picture, dangit! So I braved it. I was also practically strangling the snake because it's freaking head wouldn't stop moving. I felt a little sad for the poor creature, but not much because I didn't want it's fangs anywhere near my skin. Anyway, I felt like Slash in that moment and would have loved to have been holding a bottle of Jack, wearing a top hat while a cigarette dangled out of my mouth...and yes, I would have been caressing the snakes neck, not strangling it. The picture is epic, and I feel no conceit whatsoever in saying that.
I love this picture. This kid is actually sitting in a pot. He's using a pot as a boat!
Okay, final thoughts? Cambodia opened my eyes...to everything. Even though it never made it on the list of places I want to go, I'm still so glad I ventured to that part of the world. Life's all about going to new places, gaining new perspectives and familiarizing yourself with customs and ways of thinking that are completely unnatural to you. I'd probably never go back to Cambodia, but I feel like I was supposed to have made it there. Call it destiny, fate, chance...when I was there, I knew, for the time being, that I belonged there.
I can only leave you with this: "I've been to Angkor Wat...what have YOU done lately?" Hehe.
