I *heart* Temples!

Cambodia, Kampuchea, Cambodge, Angelinaville. Whatever you call it, Cambodia has been quite the experience thus far. Where to start...

Something I won't be doing ever again #24: Feeling that I was a seasoned traveller by now, I booked a bus from Pattaya to Siem Reap for Thursday, which is the city closest to Angkor (home of about 100 ancient temples scattered around the area). It was supposed to take from 7 am until 5 pm to reach here, which was certainly doable. LIES ALL LIES! Take it from me, if your lonely Planet/Rough Guides/ Fodders/ Uncle Fred tells you not to take the bus directly from Thailand to Siem Reap, they're right. It took about 3 hours to get to the Cambodia border at Poi Pet, which was fine, particularily because I shared the van with this highly highly entertaining UHMERICAN from Flordah...story to come..., anyhow then we stopped off at a Äuthorised Agency to process our visas, where the processing charge was 2x the price of what the guide books stated. I was assured that the extra money was going to be worth it since we got to bypass the lineups at the border. A HOUSE BUILT ON LIES! We waited 3 hours to get over to the border so that other tour groups could cross with us and it ended up taking another hour to get over the border because of the long line of tourists. THEN, the 200 km trip from the border to Siem Reap took 7 hours instead of the 2 hours that I had dreamed about- it was the ghetto-est bus I've ever been on and the road was PURE pot holes the entire way, I'm lucky I wasn't feeling nauseous at any point. Then of course, the bus driver drops us off at HIS guesthouse,which had salivating front desk employees awaiting the exhausted travellers who will pay any price. The price turned out to be $3 a night, but out of principle, 5 of us jumped into a Tuk Tuk and headed to a better part of town to stay at a hostel I'd read about in Lonely Planet (I will never doubt you again beloved guide book!) I met some fun people on the bus who I've still been hanging out with, but let me tell you, it's a loooong looong way to spend a day. But I survived, and just finished booking a plane ticket to go back tomorrow, I just can't put my butt through that uncomfortableness again!

My American Friend Timothy: Think George Bush's accent, with a slight bit less twang

A true Conversation:

The restaurant we are stopped at is out of chicken, so Timothy orders a beef dish and I change my order to a vegetarian dish.

Timothy: You don't eat beef?

Me: No, I stay away for religious reasons.

T-bone: Yeah, I was in Thailand and I ordered this deeeluxe pizza, and the girls I was with asked "Ïs there Beef on that?'" and I said "Hell yeah there's beef on it". Then they said they wouldn't have a peice cause of Buddha er somethin, and I'm thinking- God, there's so many cows around here and so many hungry people WHY DON"T YOU JUST EAT EM? JUST EAT THE COWS! DON"T MAKE SENSE TO ME!

Me: *picking up my jaw from off the floor*

I've perfected his accent and will reenact said story for anyone who wants to listen.

The past few days have been temple-tastic, saw the sunrise at Angkor Wat this morning which was beautiful, although packed with oodles and oodles of tourists who kept talking loudly. And did a boat tour of the floating villages on Tongle Sap lake. I saw crocodiles in this holding pit and there was a little boy and girl with pythons around their necks for tourists to hold..yeah no thanks! I've been spending time with some friends I made from Chiang Mai and the bus, so it's been entertaining, although I don't really enjoy the city here, I feel a bit sick from all the fumes. I don't know how Brangelina does it when they come here.

Okay, i should go now.