Since then we've been visiting the temples from about 9-5 each day then taking a nap. We're still waking up around 6am each morning and being out in the humidity here all day is exhausting!
I was pretty worried about the flight since I think the longest flight I've been on was 6-8 hours. We left Dulles around noon for a 14 hour flight to Seoul. I can never sleep on planes so I had no idea what I was going to do for that long! We played Tetris, ate two meals, watched movies and played more games. I got a little reading done and tried to walk around a bit. I was mostly surprised by the amount of food they give out! Who wants to eat that much while you're sitting around for 14 hours?
The most notable thing about the flight was our very nice seat mate named Sun who beat Brandon at Tetris when I couldn't after many games. He would like me to mention that it was at the tail end of our 14 hour flight so he was probably a bit tired.
Anyway, it really wasn't that bad and after landing in Seoul I wasn't too tired. Brandon wanted to eat so at a fast food place I ordered what was described in English as "sesame noodles with black bean sauce" thinking it wouldn't have meat in it but upon picking it up it had octopus and muscles in it! Apparently if I ever decide to go to Korea vegetarian food might be a problem.
Our second flight was 6 hours from Seoul to Siem Reap and I was much less comfortable. Unfortunately I was in a middle seat and definitely couldn't sleep and my meal was some kind of unidentifiable loaf. I started to listen to Serial though (a new true crime podcast) and that helped time pass quickly.
I had prearranged for our hotel to send a car to pick us up from the airport and that was wonderful. I highly recommend doing that after a long day of traveling. We checked in and fell asleep immediately.
The next day after breakfast our hotel set us up with a Tuk Tuk driver to take us to Angkor. A Tuk Tuk is like a scooter towing a pedi cab type thing with a roof that can hold 4 people. They don't go fast at all but it's a great way to get around and also see the city at the same time.
We thought we would just buy our passes and see one or two temples but it ended up being a full day affair which was great so now we have time to see smaller temples or out of the way places at the end of the week. Our driver pretty much decided the itinerary for us so that was really easy. He doesn't act as a guide though but just drives us around.
On day one we saw:
South gate of Angkor Thom
Bayon
Baphuon
Phimeanakas
Terrace of the Leper King
Terrace of the Elephants
Ta Prohm
Angkor Wat
Day Two
Preak Kahn
Neak Pean
Ta Som
East Mebon
Banteay Kdei
Prasat Kravan
Day Three
Banteay Srei
Land mine Museum
Banteay Samre
Pre Rup
All the pictures are on my camera so I'll update this or maybe make a new post when I'm home. Tomorrow we have one more day of temples then Friday we head down to the beach and Sihanoukville.
Surprises so far:
- Vegetarian food is really easy to find. Even restaurants in remote areas will have noodles or fried rice. The food is similar to (American) Chinese or Thai food.
- A bathroom with both soap and toilet paper is a luxury
- Most people speak some English so getting around has been easy
- The roads and traffic are insane. Most people are on scooters or bikes and there are almost no stop lights so intersections basically work like everyone going at once and if you're about to run into someone you slow down. No one ever gets mad or yells.
- The neighborhood our hotel is in (Pub Street/Old Market) is mostly a tourist party area. There are lots of tourist bars and it can get pretty wild. I haven't seen too many Americans. There mostly seems to be Asians and Europeans here.
Since it's not really fair to post this and not show any pictures here is a huge spider I saw in the bathrooms at one of the temples.
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