Cambodia

The swine flue is out in full force in BKK, and the height of the scare happened in Late June and early July. My school was cancelled for a week, and that dovetailed into the Buddhist holiday from July 6-8, so I had REALLY long break from class. A big group from Baylor decided to go to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat, considered THE wonder of Southeast Asia.

Getting there was an adventure. Instead of taking the quicker, air conditioned bus, we elected to take the slower and cheaper open-air train. We arrived at the train station at 4:30 in the morning to ensure that we got tickets. I had stayed up packing until 12 the night before, so was fantastically tired, and questioning whether we really needed to get to the train station an hour before leaving. It was definitely worth it. I was blessed to get an incredibly comfortable seat (-it was as if we were sitting in first class, as opposed to on the wooden benches) Not only that, but the train began to fill to capacity----and a large number of people had to stand in the hot, stuffy train for hours. The train got so packed that you had to part the sea of people to get out of your seat and walk through the car.

Getting to Siam Reap (Where Angkor Wat is located) proved even more adventurous. Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world, so when they see white people, they see dollar signs. I could write pages on the people doing anything they could to try to tap into us as a source of income. "Government buses" taking you to Siam Reap for cheap, only to a very specific, isolated hostel. Tuk-Tuks taking you to a "border crossing" out in the middle of no where, where the visa suspiciously costs twice what your guidebook says. People, ranging from amputees, to children, to new mothers, begging you for money anywhere that Westerners congregated.

Through all the wading through the scams, we were able to meet a really cool couple from Switzerland that were backpacking through Southeast Asia. We rented a tuk-tuk with them to tour Angkor Wat, watched the Wimbledon final, and they even came and visited us in Bangkok this Thursday (July 30) for the conclusion of their tourr. Now I REALLY want to visit Switzerland again.

Angkor Wat is like a zoo of temples. They were all very old, but they were also all very unique, some seemed to have become a part of the jungle, with massive trees growing inside of them. Others were many stories high, with steep staircases that made it feel like you were really CLIMBING stairs. Finally, Angkor Wat ITSELF (the big, famous temple) inspired awe through its sheer massiveness combined with impeccable upkeep. We finished off our tour of the temples watching the sunset at a temple on top of the mountains.