Day 49 and 50 Siem Reap, Cambodia

i'm gonna make this quick cuz i'm hot and tired and i need a shower lol

Day 49 - flew to cambodia

it was a chinese propeller plane and the most turbulent flight i've ever been on. kinda scary but not too bad lol we landed safely obviously. we had a stop in one town to drop people off and then we flew to siem reap which was interesting. i'd never had a stopover like that before.

we're staying at popular guesthouse. we like it.

cambodia is REALLY hot! quite a shock after the cool weather of luang prabang in laos!

another shock in cambodia are all the beggars. they're everywhere, of all ages and they don't let up til you buy something or give them money. we now have a book, a scarf and 12 bracelets we weren't planning on buying. it was all really cheap though so that's ok. i certainly don't mind helping the people out but they're just so in your face. it makes it hard to think straight. it's overwhelming. especially when it's 2-3 little bitty kids 4-6 years old and they're reaching up with their wares and saying ÿou buy this lady, lady, one dollaaarrr, no buy from me ladyyy, 5 for one dollaarrr"and you're like ah what do i do!? so i just bought something from each kid.

the temples are awesome though! the first time i heard of angkor wat was in the dallas museum of art. they were having an archaeological presentation and i could get extra credit for my anthropology class by going. i went with jens and we drank wine and it was all very sophisticated lol so to finally see the place makes me feel like i've come full circle!

angkor wat is actually just one of the many, many temple ruins that are in a huge area near siem reap. yesterday we saw one location before the park closed at 5pm.

we had cambodia for dinner. something called amok which is basically a curry with lots of scrambled egg in it and it's not as soupy. pretty good!

after dinner jens and i got full body massages for only $7 each!

then we got kaffir lime and passionfruit gelato, then some samosas (cuz we got hungry again) and then went back to the hotel for shower and sleep.

Day 50 - tons o' temples!

we had a western style breakfast at blue pumpkin and then our tuk-tuk driver picked us up and took us along the "grand circuit" to see a bunch of temples. we probably went 15km outside of siem reap by the end of the day. we saw 4-5 different temples and each one was slightly different. we saw the huge trees growing on top of temples with their roots "melting"down over the stones into the ground. we saw huge faces carved into stone gates. we saw big lions and elephants carved out of stone. and we also saw live cows running about, water buffalo grazing, chickens and roosters pecking, dogs lolling about and loooots of people selling stuff.

we had chicken and veg. noodle soup for lunch and that was good.

by about 3pm we were totally melting and exhausted so we saw one more temple and went back to the hotel.

on the ride home a spanish guy on a bike rode up and hung on to our tuk-tuk to get a ride into town. he said he had family in texas! imagine that!

now we've just got one more official day of vacation before we start heading back. we'll see angkor wat and the huge angkor tham tomorrow. then the day after we'll fly from cambodia to kl, malaysia. our flight to korea doesn't leave til 10 hours later so we'll have plenty of time to get to know the kuala lumpur airport. we fly back to korea at 12am! arrive at about 6am and then we'll take a bus to the train station. from there we'll train to mokpo. then it's just one more form of transportation between us and HOME! a taxi to line apartuh! where our little bitty wuffle pups will be waiting! can't wait to see them!!!!! sigh...we'll have two months with them in korea but then we'll be leaving them for another 2 months more or less when we go on our road trip in the states. i dunno if i can do it! :o( at least they'll be in good hands with my mom. she loves dogs as much as we do! :o)

i can't believe our looooong vacation is finally coming to an end! it'll be so weird to go back to korea. first of all it'll be much much colder and we'll only have about 2-3 days til we have to go back to work and start teaching again! blah! i have and idea of what i'm gonna teach but i just don't wanna do it lol i wanna go back to texas like asap. but oh well, we've got so much stuff we wanna do and have to do before we leave i'm sure the time will fly. i'm ready for some galbi!!! lol

anyway i may not update again til the airport day after tomorrow. dunno what we'll end up doing tomorrow. until next time! bye!