Jarrod and Sara’s Site

What’s up everybody? We’re in Southern Thailand right now, having just returned from a ridiculously great scuba dive trip (I’ll write about this next blog) and wanted to check in to update everyone about the second and final part of our Cambodia trip.

We basically spent three days in Siem Riep, Cambodia, which is the home base for thousands of tourists to explore the various Temples of Ankor. Siem Riep itself is a little strange in that it is a huge, western, touristy, resort oasis in the center of Cambodia. The rest of the small portion of the country we saw was covered in vast farmlands and extremely poor towns and villages. So it was both nice and strange to arrive in the town that had guesthouses, huge plush resort hotels, restaurants, shopping, bars, etc.

The first afternoon we arrived we headed right into the complex and watched the sunset at a large temple on top of a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside. This place in particular was really beautiful and a great start to the trip. The place was packed with tourists as this was one of the most common places to watch the sunset at the temples, and we were a little worried that it would be like this everywhere.

For our first full day, we hired a tuk-tuk for the day to take us to a number of temples. We started early to catch the sunrise and were picked up at 5am. It really seems impossible to describe the places and hopefully the pictures we put up will do the place some justice. The temples were mostly built in the 1100-1200s and it was so amazing to see how massive and detailed the construction was. The temples were all constructed of huge pieces of rock (like a puzzle) and the solid construction has left the buildings incredibly well preserved in many places. As great as the preserved sections were, we actually thought the best temples were the ones that had been overgrown by the jungle. These were the types of ruins we both had imagined when we thought about a lost city in the jungle. Again, hopefully some of the pictures will give you a better idea, but these huge trees, that are a few hundred years old, grew directly out of the top of the rock walls so that it looked as if the roots were holding the walls up. Others grew out of the floor in the middle of temple common areas and courtyards. I don’t really know how else to describe it but it was like something out of Indiana Jones. Part of the movie “Tomb Raider” was filmed at one of the temples, Bayon. We were also pleasantly surprised that, although this place has thousands of tourists visiting it at any one time, because there are so many different temples in such a huge area, it really didn’t seem too crowded. There were lots of people at a few of the main temples, but other than that, it was really peaceful and you could explore a lot on your own.

The next morning I awoke at 5:45 am as if it were Christmas morning. We had talked to the owner of a large Irish bar who said that we were more than welcome to have breakfast on the second floor of his bar and watch the Super Bowl when the bar opened at 6:30 am. We arrived and I couldn’t believe it when I turned on the TV and there it was, the Pats game! the Super Bowl! first game I’d seen since Thanksgiving! The bar itself was beautiful and had a decent size TV, and Sara and I had the entire place to ourselves except for our incredibly nice, private, waitress. We feasted on omelets, home made bread, and huge cups of delicious coffee, and a few beers for me (it was the Super Bowl) while watching the game. We even moved the couches around a little bit for a better view, I think they were more curious about our game watching enthusiasm. I don’t believe I sat down the entire second half and was enjoying the game so much, especially when they scored the go ahead TD towards the end of the game. I can’t write or even think about the end of the game. Sara captured the event with a few photos and the first one shows the go ahead TD, the second shows… you know.

After the game, I pretended it was just a bad dream. I couldn’t have just watched the Super Bowl at 6:30 in the morning in Cambodia, couldn’t have happened… this day was more of the same, except we rented mountain bikes to explore the closer temples on our own. This was a great way to explore the temples as you see more along the way and it was just more fun riding around on our own trying to find various places. At many of the temples, young children (5-12 yrs old) hang out outside and at some places they try to sell things (postcards, magnets, bracelets, etc.) and at other ones they seemed to just be playing (we assume their parents worked or lived nearby). Once you got past their sales pitches, it was great to be able to hang out and talk with them as most were incredibly smart and spoke English well. Most said that they had learned English from tourists, which it pretty amazing considering how well some spoke it, others had learned it in school. While part of seeing this was really sad because the children were poor and most didn’t go to school, they were such great kids and it was nice to be able to interact with them and hear them talk about themselves. It was also great to hear that many of them aspired to a career in the tourism industry, as thats one of the few opportunities they have to escape poverty (to a degree) in Cambodia.

That was about it for the temples. I think we both felt like it was one of the most unique and visually stunning places we’ve been. It is a difficult place to describe adequately, but we would both highly recommend it.

We miss everyone a lot and hope you are doing well. We’ll be home soon, can’t wait to see everyone!

Jarrod and Sara