Siem Reap: Angkor What?

I grabbed a morning bus from PP to Siem Reap thinking it would be a pretty boring 8 hour bus ride. I've been wrong a lot lately. haha.  For starters, after watching Kung Fu Panda from my assigned very front seat on the bus, our driver put in a dvd that had 4 movies on it that were basically an ode to Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. All of the movies had one or both of them. Obviously he picked Titanic for us to watch. Not my first choice, but fine--at least it's 3 hours long and will make the time go by faster. He mentioned how much he loved the movie during one of our stops. haha. When he wasn't telling me about how much he liked the movie, he was in control of the movie, while driving. So when our dvd started getting stuck, he didn't leave it to his helper guy to fix it, nope. He just started looking at the screen (straight above him) instead of looking at the road while he fumbled with the remote. Awesome. We played chicken with plenty of cars on a road that was only meant to fit one car.  When he wasn't trying to fix the movie, and he got bored of driving, the driver killed flies btwn his hands by clapping them to death above, below, and to the side of the steering wheel. Really?? Most ridiculous part of the ride?? [Yes, even more ridiculous than that]  Two women and small child about 6 yo getting on the bus with about 2.5 hrs left of our ride. The little girl had an IV bag attached to her wrist that was hanging off of a STICK. What the heck!? Omg it was terrible. And there were no seats bc in Cambodia even though a bus is full, we still pick up locals along the way to wherever it is that we're going, and they sit in the aisles or on the front stairs of the bus, which is to say, they sat by me. It was not sitting well with me watching these 3 squatting and sitting in the front of bus at my feet, esp. this poor little girl who was obviously ill.  So I ended up giving up my seat to them so she could sit on someone's lap who was at least comfortable on a seat. I figured it was only about 1.5 hrs left to Siem Reap anyway and my butt was hurting. The lady would not let me stand though, so she made me sit with her and the little girl, plus the other guy in the seat next to mine the rest of the way. It was way more uncomfortable than standing, but whatever. I'm glad I did something about it--I was shocked when NO ONE else on the bus stood up for them.  Not nice at all. And I would have thought about it for way too long afterward if I didn't give my seat up.

The hostel I went to was great, but I was put into a "mixed" dorm with 5 extremely stinky guys. OMG. The entire room just had this sweaty boy smell to it, so as soon as I walked in, I knew I was going to be the only girl staying in there. Besides the foul odor coming from the pile of things next to my bed that belonged to my bunk mate, the boys were so much fun and so nice! The welcomed me into room 302 with welcome arms and we had a great time together while I was there.

I went to see the sunrise at Ankgor Wat the next morning at 4:30am with two Canadians I met at the hostel the night before. It was a tiring morning, but the sunrise was really pretty when it finally happened at 6:10am.  We spent the next 8 hours walking through 10 different temples at the site which were all so amazing! It's so crazy to think that people could build things so large and magnificent without electricity and machinery!! And it was sweet that Angkor Wat, which is the biggest and most bad ass of all the temples, is the only Hindu temple! It was massive and unfortunately, I got too camera happy with the sunrise and pics of the temple and my camera died as we were leaving to see our 2nd temple of the day. Ugh! Of all the rotten luck!! I tried having my friends take pics of me at each temple I went to by just turning the camera on and off really quickly, but only one or two pics came out. Boo. I'll have to grab the pics off my friend's fb I guess. I did get to go see the temple that was featured in Tomb Raider.  The trees there are SO COOL!!! They just grow out of the temples it seems like!! Man I really wish I had my camera!! Ugh. I spent the rest of the day just hanging out at the hostel and just relaxing after a super hot and sweaty day walking through the temples.

I'm making my way back to Thailand via land to head south to an island called Koh Phangan to celebrate my birthday next! Seems a little ridiculous to rearrange my entire trip for this place, but to be on that island for my 25th birthday will be epic! :)