Cambodia

So Cambodia was great. We especially loved the temples at Angkor. Once again we found ourselves busing it–this time from Vietnam. In the beginning of the trip our guide came around to collect money and passports to expedite the border crossing. Kev and I thought it was a little sketchy that he was charging an extra five dollars per person (our guide book told us how much it would cost). So we chanced it and told him we would take care of it ourselves. It was a great moment when Kev saw the guide splitting the five dollar bills between himself and the bus driver (ours $ not included). Our first stop was Phnom Pen where we visited the killing fields. It was shocking and disturbing. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Phnom Pen because we saw so many gross sex tourists there, but go anyway and spend money to support the many legitimate local tourist businesses.

The royal palace in Phnom Pen. It was beautiful.

A gas station.

This bus is so full of people that they had to keep the back door open to fit (or not fit) all of them in. Hold on tight!

This is the monument that houses thousands of skulls at the killing fields. All the grassy holes in the ground were mass graves. Some of the graves are still intact. As we walked around we saw pieces of clothing still partially buried near the graves.

This is at the beginning of Angkor. All of the stone for all of the complexes was brought in by elephants from over 60km away. As you can see all the surfaces are carved. It was truly incredible. And if you can get there, do it soon, because I predict that the park administrators may limit how close you can get in the coming years as its popularity grows. We were able to walk and climb all over everything. It was awesome.

It was sooo hot. We got burned here. There was a picture I thought about posting but decided not to that was a close up of our faces. It was gross. This is a better shot. This is the main temple, Angkor Wat.

Tomb Raider? Yep. Tomb Raider was shot here. There are a couple complexes that have not been restored. They have been left as they were discovered. They were probably our favorites because of these incredible trees that grew up out of the ruins.