After a couple of months being gone from Cambodia, Alia came back to visit the country! Siem Reap is the closest midway point for Kyle and I to all meet together and so we conveniently had a weekend in Siem Reap, and got to see all of the cool temples too! Peace Corps usually only lets you take off for vacation when you do not have school, but you are allowed some “special” vacation days when family and friends come to visit. So for this we used one of our special vacation days to head to Siem Reap on Friday. I took a taxi to Siem Reap on Friday and got some snacks at a cute, gluten free food (The Muffin Man, Siem Reap). I went to get lunch with another PCV who is closing service soon to talk about Small Grants Committee information because he was the old chair of the Small Grants Committee and I am the new chair (therefore we talked about transfer of leadership and things to do for the team). After lunch, I went back to the bakery to meet up with Kyle again, and this time, there was another PCV there also with some Fulbright teachers there as well. We spent a couple of hours just talking with each other at the bakery before Kyle and I left because we wanted to go to the West Baray reservoir and swim and see an archaeological site. We started to swim, but then saw a man pull up on a boat. I asked him from far away (in Khmer) if he could take us to the island. He said yes and I negotiated the price (maybe not as best as I could) and we were off! While we started to take the boat it started to rain and there was a significant amount of waves in the water. We kept going and made it to the island and entered for free (which I think is one of the few free sites for the Siem Reap temples). The archeological site/ancient structure is still severely under construction but we got to see it. The man who guards the gate found us looking at the signs and he asked in Khmer if we could read Khmer. We responded that we can read at a low level, but he was excited we could speak could Khmer and so he spoke to us for 15 minutes about the history of the island and the restoration they are doing. The old airport is near this area, so he said that people used to see it from the plane and be intrigued to go, but now since the new airport was built and is 50km away, they get an average of 4 visitors per day. It was for sure an adventure! We headed back on the boat, swam a little, and then went back to get dinner at our favorite spot, WILD Spring Rolls (there is a location in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh and it is always a favorite). At 9:30, we headed home because we had to wake up at 4am the next morning to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat.
As a side note to the narrative, I will give a little plug to the tour company we used this time in Siem Reap. Recommended by a new friend we met in Siem Reap, we used the group “Driver Srey” (if you look this up on Facebook, you can find them! If you want to book it, you just send a WhatsApp message to the owner of the company). In Cambodia, most (like 99% of the time I have taken a tuk tuk) tuk tuk drivers are male and it is something notable my friends and I have noticed. Starting after COVID, this organization promotes women empowerment and job opportunities by having female tuk tuk drivers to take tourists around Siem Reap and around the temples. The tour was awesome with our driver and she was so nice, and so again, I recommend for those coming to Siem Reap to use them! Also, it is very common in Cambodia to reserve/book things over text/call, so it should not raise alarm bells for you (at first I am always wary to book by phone call, but I have learned that is how things roll).
Back to the story: 4am. I snoozed my alarm twice and woke up to Kyle saying to me “Ok it is time to get up” I was so delirious I thought she was someone who came into the hotel room. Got dressed and met our driver outside, who (thank God) asked if we wanted to get coffee. We stopped to get coffee and then headed to Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise. It was pitch black when we got there, and so walking in the dark was spooky (and snakes were on the mind). We walked around to take pictures and watched the sun come up over Angkor Wat. After that, we met a new driver who took us around for the day to the temples. We went in an atypical/reverse order of what people usually do, which meant that at some temples we were the only people walking around. There are so many more temples beyond just Angkor Wat and although by the end of the day I was feeling what we deemed “temple fatigue”, it was still an incredible sight to see. If you have ever been to ancient ruins with me (interesting that I can make that sentence), you would know I love to play fake archeologist. The information to all of these questions may, or may not, be on Google but I love to ask “What was this place for? Did someone live here? Why are there so many structures?” etc. I just like the sense of wonder. (And Cambodia is the Kingdom of Wonder, so it is fitting!) Overall, Siem Reap is a place you can only experience in person because it was just incredible. Especially because most of the temples you can still climb up to them and walk around all of it, very little seemed to be blocked off-unless it was not structurally sound.
After that, Kyle and I said bye to Alia and then we went to a cafe to get some food and then after that went to swim at the hotel (however took a nap before that). We got dinner and went to sleep! The next day was just waiting around for our taxis to come, but before that, we went to the Angkor Botanical Garden which was really nice (and free!) Kyle went to meet her taxi first, so I stayed at a coffee shop, but then I got a call for my taxi driver saying they were waiting at my hotel. So I sprinted back to the hotel (and also realized I should probably be training for the half-marathon). I got in the taxi and headed home. I was planning on resting when I went home, but my extended family was at the house, and so we loaded in the car to go to visit some other family members!
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