Cambodia

We spent a total of...48 hours in Cambodia. We had mixed feelings about it. First we stopped over at Sihanoukville while waiting for a night bus to Siem Riep. Sihanoukville is a verrrry touristy beach town. I realllly did not like it. The beaches were overcrowded, lined with bars blasting terrible music, and you were constantly bomboarded by beggers and people selling things such as hair wax jobs using dental floss. It was way overpriced too, and we ended up spending more than double or triple on meals than we have anywhere in SE Asia. That was a surprise, since we expected Cambodia to be the cheapest. We think it's because they use the USD as a second currency, so everything is priced by the dollar. Fortunately we weren't in Sihanoukville long.

Siem Riep was very pretty, surrounded by a river/canal thing lined with trees. Sort of reminded me of Chiang Mai. Lots of guesthouses and good restaurants. We ate some DELICIOUS Cambodian food (I ate amok, which was sort of like a less-runny Thai red curry wrapped in banana leaves and served with rice, and Mike had Lok Lak)...I was very sad not to have more time to experience the delicious Cambodian food! Angkor Wat was AMAZING. Beautiful. Huge temples covered in ornate carvings, crumbling temples with faces carved in them or huge jungle trees growing through them. Saw the one in Tomb Raiders. It was one of our favs. We didn't run into as many children begging as we expected, but when we did we were ready with stickers to give them, and they were so cute! They smiled, said thank you, and then ran away. Or asked for one for their younger sibling at home. It turned what could have been an unpleasant experience into a positive one. Oh, and surrounding the temples were vast expanses of jungle with paths running throughout....with monkeys! Tons and tons of monkeys! Lots of parents holding babies. It was soooo cute. One of my favourite parts of visiting Angkor! After a day of temple viewing, we were done and ready to move on, back to Thailand. We left the next morning.