Siem Reap, Cambodia

It's Saturday night and we've been in Siem Reap for 5 days now. I like it here! We were in the countryside for a week, but it seemed longer, and now I'm quite happy to be back in a city again where the tourists are abundant, the English language is ever-present and the showers are hot. It's funny - I used to really love traveling to cities, but during the last couple of years I've really come to enjoy traveling into nature, as well. When I read my Lonely Planet, tales about places off the so-called 'beaten track' are never far way. One gets the impression that this must be where all the cool/hip travelers are going. Soon being one of these travelers off the beaten track becomes something of a holy grail. Well, it took me just one week of rural existence to be glad to be back in 'civilization.' It reminds me of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love where she explains that just when you're ready to accept this new definition of who YOU are, something happens to show you just how little you knew about yourself. It also makes me think of what Anna told me before we left - something about 'running into yourself' as we say in the Dutch language. That girl knows me well.

So, we've been enjoying Siem Reap a lot. It took us a quite a while (and two different tuk-tuk drivers) to find a place to stay to our liking, but now we're staying at the Jasmin Lodge and we like it here. On our first full day in Siem Reap we found a great tuk-tuk driver (who's been driving us around for 4 days now) who took us to the War Museum, Wat Thmei (where there is a stupa filled with bones and skulls of Khmer Rouge victims) and the Cambodian Cultural Village - a kind of Madurodam (sorry, no English equivalent) meets Disneyland. Afterwards we had dinner at a very romantic restaurant called Madame Butterfly, which sounds like a whorehouse, but is actually a lovely garden restaurant with both Cambodian and French cuisine. Here we indulged in such things as chocolate mousse and lemon tart, things I haven't had in a very long time.

On Thursday, then, we embarked on our biggest challenge yet: exploring the temples of Angkor. The # 1 reason why this was so hard? I had to get up at 4 AM to be at Angkor Wat for sunrise. 4 AM, without coffee or breakfast. I feel bad for the poor little Cambodian children approaching me that morning, asking me whether I felt like buying a scarf/a packet of postcards/a painting. That is the annoying thing about Angkor - there are so many tourists and so many Cambodians who want to sell things to you. I tried to be a good tourist by being polite and by remembering that they're only trying to survive, but they can be very persistent and sometimes you just want to say: "Please, just let me watch these temples in peace!" But it must be said that, of course, overall, the experience was wonderful. Angkor is breathtakingly amazing. I won't bore you with the names, histories and stories of all the temples that we saw (and there were many), so here is an impression in pictures of our three long (sunny!) days at the temples of Angkor:


en route to Kbal Spean ('River of a Thousand Lingas')


Phnom Bakheng


Kbal Spean ('River of a Thousand Lingas')


This is embarassing, but I actually don't remember what temple this was!


Angkok Wat at sunrise


Angkor Wat


Bayon


Ditto - I don't remember. There are MANY temples at Angkor.


en route to our guesthouse after a long day at the temples of Angkor

Tomorrow we have the day off, so to speak. I've hiked up and down so many ancient temples that my poor legs need a break. Perhaps we'll visit a swimming pool because it's been even hotter here than normal. And then now for some news: we won't be going back to Bangkok after all. We're staying in Cambodia! Let me explain: I just finished reading a very impressive memoir written by Loung Ung called First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (a book which I highly recommend whether you ever plan to travel to Cambodia or not) and it's gotten me very interested in Khmer Rouge history. I asked our tuk-tuk driver about it, who lost his sister and her father-in-law to the Khmer Rouge violence, and he smiled and said: "It's okay!" The strenth and resilience of the Cambodian people makes my jaw drop (and surely makes me forget for a while about my silly little concerns about what I want to do with the rest of my life). So yesterday I said to Jochem: I want to go to Phnom Penh to see the Tuol Sleng Museum and the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek! And so today we changed our bus tickets from Bangkok to Phnom Penh. We leave on Monday morning. We also booked a flight with Malaysia Airlines from Phnom Penh to Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, because we didn't feel like traveling all the way back from southern Cambodia to northern Cambodia, to Bangkok, to southern Thailand and, finally, to northern Malaysia via a ferry ride from the Thai mainland to a Malaysian island. This is easier. And all because of a book. Funny, isn't it?

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!