Ruins, ruins, and even more ruins


Before I jump back into our winter vacation, I want to mention the weather in Seoul. On Monday, Seoul got the heaviest snow fall it has seen in 70 years! In all, 11 inches were dumped on a city that is definitely ill-equipped to handle any more than a light dusting. Both mine and Meg's commute took over double the amount of time as usual. Meg's on the bus because the roads were awful and no one knows how to drive in snow; and mine on the subway because all the people who didn't want to drive crammed onto the subway. I have never been elbowed in the gut and shoved from all sides so much in my life! An interesting thing to note is what is used to remove the snow in Korea. Throughout the entire day I only saw one or two real snow shovels and zero snowplows. However, I did see people sweeping the snow, using brooms as shovels, using pieces of cardboard to push snow into open manholes, and using signs (like those politicians use during campaign season) attached to pieces of wood as shovels. Furthermore, there was a massive amount of "snowbrellas" in use, as well as our creative methods to keep the snow off your head such as putting a garbage bag over it. These pictures were from my window, first thing when I woke up...it got much worse as the day went on!

Now back to Cambodia, where it was high 80s and gorgeous!

Sunday:

Sunday was by far the earliest day on trip. We had reserved all day for Angkor Wat since this was our only full day in Siem Reap. When we talked to the guy at our hostel about doing an Angkor Wat tour, he told us that we could hire a tuk-tuk and driver for the day for a grand total of $15. He then told us our driver would be available as early as 5 am if we would like to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat. Despite the fact that this would mean getting up at 4:30 am, we both knew that there was no question that we had to witness this. So there we were, sitting in front of Angkor Wat at 5:30 am, waiting for the sun.

Angkor Wat actually just refers to a temple complex in the area, although many people just refer to all the ruins in this area as Angkor Wat. It is actually the entire region of Angkor, located just outside of Siem Reap that is full of ruins from the 9th to 13th century. The area served as the seat of the Khmer empire until the Thai invaders came in 1431. There are over 1,000 ruins of temples in this area, ranging from piles of bricks to the magnificent Angkor Wat. Meg and I had no idea of the magnitude of the area, and thankfully our driver took us to the main ones, so we didn't have to worry about missing anything!



Angkor Wat was built for the Suryavarman II, the king, in the early 12th century. It is the best preserved temple in Angkor, and has become a national symbol of Cambodia, even gracing their flag. The Wat is a prime example of Khmer architecture and is constructed mainly of sandstone blocks with intricate designs. Meg and I spent about 4 hours wandering around Angkor Wat alone, taking in the various buildings and admiring the detailed carvings on the walls. When we finished at about 9:30 am, we (mistakenly) thought we were done. We were a little puzzled because we had heard it was a least a one day experience, but figured we just move faster than most people. Ha...little did we know. Anyway, we went to find our driver (harder than it sounds considering there was a sea of tuk-tuks and we had met our driver at 5 am when it was too dark to see his face or even what color his tuk-tuk was). We had read about a hot air balloon that will take you up to get an aerial view of the complex, so we decided to check this out. The balloon actually remains attached to the ground and you stand in a huge circular cage. The balloon is rotated while in the air for a 360 degree view. Unfortunately, it was pretty hazy so it was hard to get a good view, but it was still fun!







After this, our driver brought us to the next area - Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom was the last capital city in the Khmer empire, established in the late 12th century by king Jayavarman VII. It covers about 3 square miles and several other ruins are located in this area, including the Bayon. Built around the same time as Angkor Wat, the most distinct feature of the Bayon are the massive stone faces on many of the towers - 216 in total. The Bayon was also the only Angkorian temple to be built primarily as a Buddhist shrine. After spending a couple of hours wandering around here, we were off again.

From here, the ruins started to blur together. Without a map or an English speaking guide, Meg and I were getting overwhelmed by all ruins and the lack of context to go with them. We continued to go to various sites and explore, but seeing as we started so early, we were quickly losing our stamina. For lots (and I do mean lots) of more pictures of all the ruins, check out our webshots!



We were also starting to get quite feed-up with the people selling things. At all the sites, we were immediately bombarded by people, 95% of the time young children, selling cold drinks, postcards, guide books, and other various items. They were very persistent, often grabbing your arm or following you around for awhile. At one spot we made the mistake of stopping and looking at what one child had in his basket. Soon there were about 5 children all crowded around us, shoving things in our face and saying "You buy? 1 dollar. You buy now, ok?" Probably the best one though was when Meg got frustrated with a young woman who kept trying to sell her various things. Since Meg kept saying no to everything she offered, the lady finally asked her "what you want?" to which Meg replied "nothing." Without missing a beat, the lady replied, "Ok, nothing, 2 dollar."



We made it back to Siem Reap about 3 pm, where we grabbed a quick lunch at the hostel and headed back to Psa Chaa. Since we had more time today, we went deeper into the market where we quickly discovered the jewelry section. Meg and I spent a fair amount of time at one lady's counter in particular, trying on all the rings and various pendants. We both came away with some really pretty pieces as well! From here, we decided to try Cambodian BBQ for dinner. We got a choice of 5 meats (we went with snake, ostrich, goat, kangaroo and crocodile) which cooked on a small grill around some soup. All the meat was delicious and the soup wasn't half-bad either!



Monday:



On Monday we allowed ourselves the luxury of sleeping in until about 9:30. We had no set plans until heading to the airport around 3 in the afternoon to catch our flight to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam. We went and had a leisurely lunch at a restaurant nearby our hostel. Meg had sour soup Khmer style and I tried chicken with cashews (which was actually much different than other versions. More vegetables and the sauce was orange). From here we headed back towards Psa Chaa to grab some last minute souvenirs. On the way, we stopped at a Wat that we randomly passed and enjoyed some of the beautiful architecture. Since we still had about 2 hours to kill, we treated ourselves to $5 hour long foot massages and also sipped fruit shakes on an outdoor patio.




We made our way to the airport, the only mishap being that we discovered that you have to pay a $25 exit fee to leave Cambodia. After paying our fee, we made it to our plane and by 5:30 pm we were off the ground and headed an hour southeast to Vietnam!