Exploring Cambodia

As part of my quest to have an Invincible Summer, I spent most of the month of June traveling to Cambodia and Vietnam with a couple of friends. We did very little pre-planning, and decided to let the wind take us wherever it may go. This was the first time I didn't have all of my lodging and destinations mapped out before the trip, which turned out to be kind of exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time.

Devatas, or deities, at Angkor Wat

We flew into Phnom Penh, the largest and capital city of Cambodia, after taking a hop from Singapore. The main attractions of Phnom Penh are the Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields. Prior to the trip, I had absolutely zero knowledge of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot.

Ta Prohm

We hired a guide at the museum, and she took us through the various rooms of S-21, just one of the over 150 execution centers during the Cambodian Genocide. One of the most shocking parts of the tour, at least for me, was how recently this happened. The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, reigned from 1975-1979. The Khmer Rouge sought to eliminate capitalistic activities, and therefore, many of the almost 1.5 million prisoners were educated, racial mixed, or connected to foreign government.

Ta Prohm

Every room was essentially a torture room. There was blood splattered on almost every ceiling and wall. I didn't feel right taking any pictures, so I didn't. At the end of the tour, she introduced us to one of the only 12 survivors. I cannot imagine enduring that amount of torture and sitting across from that very building every single day.

One of the rooms at S-21 (courtesy of trekearth.com)

The second half of our tour included the Killing Fields, where thousands of prisoners were executed and buried in shallow graves due to overcrowding at the execution centers.

At the Killing Fields (courtesy of traveltelly.com)

Upon arriving at the Killing Fields, we are given a pair of headphones, as the entire site is an audio tour. They are still working to recover the bones of victims and place them in Choeung Ek, the memorial to the victims. As we were walking along the path, I saw a set of teeth, which was very upsetting.

Banteay Srei

We were originally going to spend two days in Phnom Penh, but after the emotional heaviness of the first day, decided to move on to Siem Reap. We took a bus between the two cities because it's fairly safe and was only $13.

Ta Prohm

Siem Reap was definitely more to my liking. It was less city, and more beautiful as far as land goes. There were also a ton of temples in the Angkor Archaeological Park. The first night we were there, we went to Pub Street, which if you couldn't guess, was full of bars and $1 massage parlors. It is also where the night market is located, where artisans sold all kinds of merchandise. If you've been to Southeast Asia, they all pretty much sell the same thing.

Strolling down Pub Street

We ended up drinking way too much the first night, but that didn't stop us from hopping on a tuk-tuk, a motorcycle rickshaw type of thing, the following morning and touring the temples.

Banteay Srei Temple

The way the temple circuit works is you drive through a checkpoint where you buy a pass for one, three, or seven days. They take your picture and print it on your pass so you can't give it to someone else. You then drive past another checkpoint where they stamp your card and then allow you to drive past all the temples.

Banteay Srei Temple

The first temple we went to was Banteay Srei, dedicated to the Hindu god, Shiva, and also known as the temple of women. What made this temple special is that it was built out of red sandstone, and is known for its elaborate carvings. It was first built in 967, remained in use until 1303, and was rediscovered and restored in 1914. Overwhelmed can't even begin to describe the feeling of seeing and walking through these ruins.

Carving of kala, a creature representative of time and Shiva

About halfway through our visit, we started sweating out the previous night's festivities, which influenced our decision to eat a quick lunch and head back to our hotel.

Absolutely breathtaking

Apparently our tuk-tuk driver wasn't feeling the best either because we literally stopped about every five minutes so he could stretch. Banteay Srei was located about an hour away from our hotel, so we had a lot of time to sit and wait in the 100 degree heat.

We offered him a beer and Diet Coke hoping that might help. It did not.

So many cows along the road

Random temple we got to see on one of the many stretch breaks.

We spent the rest of the night recovering and enjoying the air conditioning in the room and scheduled the sunrise Angkor Wat tour, which is the main tourist attraction in the area.

Angkor Wat at sunrise. Kind of a crappy day for it, but whatever.

The hotel packed us a breakfast, plus an extra for the tuk-tuk driver, who was luckily better rested than the previous day. Angkor Wat was packed by the time we got there, so we sat on a wall, ate our breakfast, and attempted to watch the sunrise. We unfortunately went on an overcast day, so it wasn't as spectacular as it could have been.

Apparently I'm not the only one overwhelmed by the ruins.

Angkor Wat was the center of the Khmer Kingdom, and is now an UNESCO World Heritage site. It was built in the 12th century and is the largest religious monument in the world. The temple combines the two types of Khmer architecture, the temple-mountain and galleried temple.

Temple-mountain

Galleried Temple

It took us forever to tour the entire temple because it just kept going on and on.

After we made our way through, we found our tuk-tuk and went to Bayon Temple, another famous temple in Cambodia.

Bayon Temple - can you find the faces?

Bayon was the last state temple to be built at Angkor, and is known for the massive stone faces carved into the walls.

Oh yeah - there they are! There are over 216 on the temple!

We didn't spend a lot of time at Bayon because it looked like it was about to rain, and since we had spent so much time at Angkor Wat, we were getting worn out. The final temple we went to was Ta Prohm.

Leaving Bayon

Ta Prohm was the one I was most excited to see because the pictures I saw of it beforehand showed trees intertwined with the architecture, a true nature meets man ordeal. For some reason that sort of I Am Legend type of thing really gets me going.

Needless to say, I wasn't disappointed.

Unlike many of the other temples of its time, Ta Prohm has remained mostly untouched, which explains why the trees have taken over. Just like Angkor Wat, it is an UNESCO World Heritage site, though it wasn't nearly as crowded, which was nice.

There were multiple ways to access Ta Prohm, so once we were done exploring we had a bit of an emergency trying to find the exit. It was only an emergency because we really had to pee, and there's just something that feels wrong about peeing on a world heritage site.

Was this our exit?

As we were trying to find our way out, we ran into a nice Cambodian man who started telling us about the temple. He led us to areas we hadn't been and seemed very knowledgeable about it. We asked him if he was a tour guide, and he told us he lived there. Can you imagine living there? He then showed us a small carved face peeking out from behind the massive trees. It was honestly one of my favorite parts of the temple.

We thanked him for showing us everything and gave him a few dollars for his time. After locating what would pass for a bathroom, we headed back to our hotel to decide what we were going to do next. Originally we had planned on going to Laos, but the plane tickets had tripled in price. One of the girls I was with suggested we go to Vietnam since she liked it the first time she went, so we applied for our visas using the least secure application process known to man, and booked our tickets for Hoi An, Vietnam!

So long, Cambodia!