Andrew and I had a quick flight from Bangkok to Siem Reap Monday night and were graciously welcomed at the Golden Takeo Guesthouse. We had an early start Tuesday morning and were driven to 7 temples by our awesome tuk-tuk driver, Titi.
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| Andrew and I about to start our first day of exploring in Cambodia. |
First, we rode about 15km out to Kbal Spean Waterfall where there were beautiful carvings in the rushing river. The hike up to the waterfall was a pleasant 2km and we enjoyed the scenery along the way and welcomed the challenge of the hike.
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| The ride out to the waterfall was one of our favorite parts of the trip. We rode through rural towns and the scenery was amazing. |
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| Carvings in the water. |
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After that we went around to a bunch of temples along the "outer loop" of Angkor Wat. I didn't realize before going, but there are hundreds of temples at Angkor. You could spend weeks exploring them all but we just had a few days, so we saw about 15 in our 3 days.
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| It was a beautiful day. This is one of my favorite pictures from that day! |
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On Wednesday, we were joined by Mary-Katherine and Emily! We went to Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Bayon, and then watched the sunset on the top of Phnom Bakheng hill.
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| The gang in front of Angkor Wat. |
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| The faces at Bayon. |
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| View of Bayon from the back entrance. |
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After visiting the main temples of Angkor we then headed to Phnom Bakheng hill to watch the sunset. We rode elephants up the mountain and it was so fun! I've always wanted to ride an elephant and we were all giddy with excitement.
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| Hitching a ride up the mountain :) |
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| It was a beautiful sunset and a great way to end the day. |
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On Thursday, our last day in Siem Reap, we all woke up at 4:30am so we could watch the sun rise over Angkor Wat. It was very peaceful and definitely worth waking up for.
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| Andrew and I after we watched the sunrise. | |
After the sunrise we headed to see a floating village and forest. They were both so awesome! It was about an hour tuk-tuk ride to the river where we got in longboats and went out to the floating village. We then had the opportunity to get in a small canoe-like boat and go through the floating forest and along the canals of the village. The forest was breathtaking and the village was interesting to see.
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| Andrew and I in the floating forest. |
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| A glimpse of a home in the floating village. |
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| We got a picture of the four of us with the best tuk-tuk driver in the world, Titi! |
After a long day, Andrew and I took a taxi to Phnom Penh because our flights back were the next day. I don't have any pictures from our day of exploring in Phnom Penh Friday because we went to the Killing Fields and S-21. Both of these landmarks are places where people were tortured and killed during the Khmer Rouge regime. It was depressing to learn all about the atrocious actions of the Khmer Rouge during that time but Andrew and I were both glad we went because the exhibits were very well done and we learned a lot. I got on a plane that afternoon and headed back to Bangkok, a little sad. I was sorry to say goodbye to my big brother and also subdued from the long day of hearing about the millions of innocent Cambodians that were killed in the genocide that took place in the 1970s.
All in all though, Andrew's visit was amazing and we both couldn't believe how much fun we had together. We will always remember our week together in Southeast Asia.
