Siem Reap, Cambodia

My apologies for taking a while to post about my trip to Cambodia! The past week and a half have been a bit hectic with interviews and schoolwork. And…..I’m lazy.

The first of our four days in Cambodia was spent in Siem Reap. Well, almost a day. We took a night bus from Phnom Penh that left at midnight and arrived at 5:00am. From there, we bought our tickets to go see the 3 big temples of Siem Reap ($37 USD, pretty expensive actually but well worth it).

Temple #1: Angkor Wat

Oh my, it was so cool! It’s the largest religious monument in the world. By 6:00am there were at least 1,000+ people, probably more, gathered there to watch the sun rise over the temple. I took some pretty sweet pictures of it, which you can see below:

*Disclaimer* All photos past Angkor Wat were taken on my phone. I forgot to charge my camera before leaving for Cambodia. Classic Peter move, am I right?

Temple #2: Ta Prohm

Another cool temple! This temple was far smaller, and far less intact than Angkor Wat. There were crumbling rocks everywhere, as well as trees within and without the temple. It was actually really cool, but by this time we were exhausted from the lack of sleep on the night bus and immediately going straight to sight seeing. Here are some pictures:

Temple #3: Bayon

I feel like Lara Croft! One of the Tomb Raider movies was filmed at Bayon, which I think is pretty cool! Bayon was less intact than Angkor Wat, but more than Ta Prohm. Here, I came across a girl traveling alone, and I could tell she wanted me to take a picture of her but she didn’t know how to communicate. She tried speaking in 3 or 4 different languages before she spoke some words in French. I was excited to speak a little French, and we agreed to take a photo of each other! Here are some pictures of Bayon:

It was a short day in Siem Reap. We were only there for 7 hours, and we took a day bus back to Phnom Penh. I tried to fall asleep but occasionally a beetle would fly out of the air conditioning above my head and so I decided I wanted to stay awake. Good times!