Ahh, traveling is amazing! Learning about new cultures, meeting new people, trying new foods, and making the most amazing memories; nothing can ever top it!
Sunday morning was our first day together. We let ourselves sleep in a little bit, and then it was temple time!! We left our hostel in search of breakfast, and stumbled upon a place with the most amazing coconut curry, a popular Cambodian food, and a "Dr. Fish" pond. As we waited for our food to come we sat by the pond where I was able to stick my feet in the water and have the fishes nibble the dead skin off my feet...talk about ticklish!!
Tina and I got to Cambodia late Saturday evening (January 30th) and while Tina crashed early for the night I went out and explored the large night market about half a mile from our hostel. Ok, to be honest about everything was half a mile from our hostel as we were literally on a dirt road...I loved it! Coming back late from the market, I met up with Tory and Rebecca who had arrived in Cambodia earlier that morning...the 4 of us were finally together and we were ready to party...or at this point in the night go to sleep lol. {side note: we scored with this hostel as it was for 4 "random" people and we booked all 4 beds for $4.70 a night and had the room to ourselves!}
Sunday morning was our first day together. We let ourselves sleep in a little bit, and then it was temple time!! We left our hostel in search of breakfast, and stumbled upon a place with the most amazing coconut curry, a popular Cambodian food, and a "Dr. Fish" pond. As we waited for our food to come we sat by the pond where I was able to stick my feet in the water and have the fishes nibble the dead skin off my feet...talk about ticklish!!
After breakfast we found a tuk-tuk driver willing to take us for the day and we headed out for Angkor Wat {a natural first choice!}. Angkor Wat was AMAZING!!! It reminded me so much of the feeling of seeing the pyramids in Egypt for the first time; it's so surreal you get goosebumps. If you would have told me 6 months ago I'd be with 3 people I didn't know at the time standing in Cambodia staring at Angkor Wat I would have told you that you were crazy...but there I was, and it was beyond incredible! We saw ancient temples and cities over 900 years old still standing (or restored) to much of its former glory...it was truly spectacular!
We walked around with our jaws dragging on the ground for a good 2 hours before finding our tul-tuk driver and heading to the next temple. Our driver proceeded to drive us around the "temple circuit" (a cluster of temples remotely close to each other {fun fact: there are over 300 temples in the town of Siem Reap alone!!}) for the remainder of the day stopping for us to explore Angkor Thom, Bayon, Ta Prohm, and Banteay Kdei. The last of these, Banteay Kdei, was very much unlike the first 5 we stopped at for several reasons, first, it did not appear that much, if any, money had been put into its restoration over the years, and secondly, there were hardly any tourists there. This temple in particular was amazing to explore. It had this calm sense about it and being able to walk through the old door ways and the rubble piles really let your imagination run wild as to what this place might have truly looked like almost 1,000 years ago!
Leaving the temples we were beyond exhausted and head out driver drop us off at a restaurant for dinner on the way to our hostel. After dinner we checked out the market for a bit, relaxed with some nice cheap foot massages on the side of the road and headed back to the hostel for an early{ish} night in!
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