Relics and Ruins

We arrived in Cambodia by plane in the late afternoon met our guide Kong who was adorable and stopped at the hospital on the way to our hotel. Paul needed to check on his ankle because it seemed infected from when he fell in the manhole. The doctor told him he was lucky to have come in when he did because he was a week away from amputation! He had to go on heavy antibiotics immediately. We still can't believe it. After getting that problem solved we continued on to the hotel.

After a short break exploring a little of the hotel and changing into cooler clothes, we went out for an afternoon tour of the first few temples. We transferred to two smaller vans from the bus at the site because most of the gates had been made for the width of an elephant in ancient times.
The ruins were gorgeous. There were statues of men holding a huge snake with seven heads which doubled as railings over the river bridges into the temples. Trees grew out of the ruins almost looking as if they were taking back the materials that were borrowed from them.

After returning to the hotel, Nick, Kathleen, and I went out to find some dinner and do some shopping at the night market. We found so many neat things at the market and because of Cambodias economy the American dollar is worth a lot to them. We were able to find a delicious dinner of rice eggs meat and veggies for them and yellow curry and vegetables with rice for me as well as three beers all for 9$ total. That night we went back worked a little more before going to bed.

The next day we woke up and began a trip back to Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom to see more of the ruins. Outside of the ruins children ran around trying to sell bracelets and postcards only asking one dollar for them. It was heartbreaking to see but we knew we couldn't help them. We went into the largest temple first where there was a huge reflection pool outside. It was neat to see all of the ancient worship spaces and all of the people visiting the famous site.

We continued on to Angkor Thom where there were giant sculptures of faces covering the temple. As I was walking through a woman reached out of a small window to hand me incense sticks and gestured for me to come inside. There was a Buddha sculpture with the seven headed snake in the center. She pointed to where I should place the sticks and as I did she held my hand gently praying and bowing and wishing me peace and happiness. I don't know what it was but there was something in the way she looked at me that you could feel her blessings and see how genuine they were.

After some quick sketches we headed to see more of the temples. The last temple we visited had steep sides with small treaded stairs. They had built a small single person wooden staircase up the side. As we waited for the group to head up and then for people to come down a few of us decided to climb up the original stone treads. It was slightly scary but worth it once we were at the top. That night we returned to the hotel where we went back out to dinner and to the market for our last night.

Our flight was delayed six hours the next day so were given a free day to do what we wanted. A group of us woke up early to meet at seven and ride a tick tick to the place where we could ride elephants. A tick tick is a small carriage pulled by a small motorcycle. We got there just in time after a misunderstanding with our tick tick driver. We got into groups of three and loaded the elephants and began a walk to the ruins. It was so much fun. After taking lots of pictures we returned to the hotel where we had until three to pack, work, eat, swim, and layout until we left for the airport. Saying goodbye to our guide Kong was one of the hardest goodbyes we'd had yet but it was time to continue on to Vietnam.