Cambodia - No, It's Not Just a Place to Pick Up a Cute Orphaned Child

Place: Siem Riep, Cambodia

Language: Khmer

Hello: Johm riab sua/sua s'dei (jome riab su/su sduee)

Thank you: Aw kohn (aw gowne)

Standing at a whopping 5'2", with normal sized lips and nowhere near a 36DD, Angelina Jolie I am not. However, I did fall in love with Cambodia and, if HK Immigration would allow me to smuggle in one of those adorable dark skinned Asian children, I would have.

I'm not going to lie, before moving here, I had no idea where Cambodia was and I probably wouldn't have known it was an actual country if Maddox didn't exist. I'm not dumb, I just never had world geography in school and the existence and location of third world Asian countries just didn't factor into my life in the States.

So, for those of you in my same boat, Cambodia is a small country sort of squished between Thailand and Vietnam. Its capital is Phnom Penh and unfortunately, its history is quite a bloody one. I had heard about the Khmer Rouge but I really didn't know where it was. Well, it was in Cambodia. Different estimates say that the communist Khmer Rouge rebels assassinated between 1 and 3 million people out of a population of 7 million. It is hard to know for sure because the rebels would bury thousands of executed bodies in mass graves called the killing fields. It's embarrassing to admit that I really didn't know much about this genocide until I visited but now I do and I am in awe of the resilience of Cambodians.

The average worker earns $30/month and many women and children are pushed into prostitution. But despite their bloody past and destitute present, Cambodians are a fiercely proud, hard-working and happy people. They are hopeful for the future and you often see children playing and laughing in seemingly dismal conditions. It's hard not to be thankful for what you have and want to give something, anything, to the locals. During our 2 full days in Siem Reap, we were approached by dozens of children selling little trinkets, water, books, etc. for $1 each. It took all the willpower I had to just buy 2 bottles of water at a time, knowing that if I bought from each child, I wouldn't be able to climb to the top of the temples!

We went to Siem Reap in Cambodia, again tempting the valid threats of malaria, dengue fever, typhoid fever, et. al., to see one of the wonders of the world: Angkor Wat. Not knowing that Cambodia existed, I didn't know about Angkor Wat either but I did my research (read: I watched Tomb Raider) before I got there and I wasn't disappointed!

The ancient temple ruins of Angkor are what remains of massive temples built for the gods from 900 and 1200 AD. The most famous is Angkor Wat which is the largest religious building in the world and one of the ancient wonders of the world. Its magic is apparently best captured at sunrise when the sun rises up from behind the grandiose temple but those of you who know about my nocturnal biorhythms know *that* wasn't going to happen, so we settled for 9am-ish. Not bad and definitely a much less grumpy experience for Marc.

Cambodians are so proud of Angkor Wat that it is featured smack dab in the middle of the Cambodian flag.

Angkor Wat was first a Hindu shrine dedicated to Vishnu, then it became a Buddhist temple and you can still see Buddhist monks in their regal orange robes. For all the fun I poke at Marc for his trigger-happy finger, I seriously think he could win a photography contest with this pic. It's one of my all-time favorites.

Of course, not to be outdone, I managed to nab the camera for a minute and snapped this one outside Angkor Wat.

There wasn't a shortage of amazing picture-worthy shots so we actually had a little contest going on who could take the best picture. And as I told Marc, it's not how many pictures you take (ahem Mr. 230 pictures in 2 days!), it's the *quality* of the pictures. So, as usual, I could just post an entire blog with nothing but National Geographic worthy snaps, but after a while even these magnificent temples all start to look alike so I'll just post a few of the very best and let you guys decide on a winner.

As regal and imposing as Angkor Wat was, my absolute favorite was Ta Prohm. The temples here have these huge silk cottonwood and strangler fig trees seemingly growing from within the ruins. Their long roots crawl spread across stones like a rash and it's hard to tell which was there first, the temple or the trees. Their symbiotic relationship seems to imply they both established their territories at the same time as at some points it seems that the temple might crumble were it not for the trees, and vice versa. For you Lara Croft fans, you may recognize this shot. It was when Angelina first started seeing the ghostly children scampering into the tombs.

If you can't picture it, maybe this pic will help. If you squint a little bit, tilt your head to the left and imagine my "finger gun" is a real gun, you can see Lara Croft, waiting to pounce on some bad guys.

OK, so maybe not *all* of our pictures are award-winning photographs.

To give you a better perspective, check out this picture. Those roots are massive!

In some places, you had to look really hard to see some of the apsaras, or celestial nymphs, peeking out from between the roots.

Next up was The Bayon, or as I liked to call it for absolutely no reason other than I couldn't remember the name, The Banyan. The Bayon was the King's state temple and it is known for its towers with four divine faces smiling in meditation on each side. Remarkably, they all look like King Jayavarman VII who was in power at the time. Narcissistic much? There are 54 towers in total with a staggering 216 faces. Can you imagine people back 1,000 years ago making these things???!?!?

Here is a shot from afar, showing many of the still intact towers. Even though it is a national treasure and over a thousand years old, we got to walk all over this place, climbing steep steps without any guard rails whatsoever and popping in and out of the maze-like hallways that looked like they would collapse on us at any second.

Equally unprotected are the apsara carvings (left picture) and bas reliefs (right picture) which miraculously have survived inclement weather conditions and throngs of tourists' grimy hands.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures from our first day in Siem Reap. I will leave you with a video for you to watch while I slip away to the Philippines for a long weekend of diving. The video was taken on our trek up to the top of Phnom Bakheng (yet another temple) to watch the sunset. We were pretty tired from traipsing all day in the heat through the temples so we got a friend to take us up. Life lesson #481: Always ride on the first elephant in the line. Make sure to turn the sound up for optimal viewing. Enjoy!