in which googleman is lazy to update the travel log
So finally the trip ended, and school has started. Internet wasn't available during my stay in Phu Quoc (VT) and Sihanouk Ville (KH), and even though internet was available in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, I was too tired from exploring and having fun that I went straight to bed by the time I got back to the hotel. During this trip I may say that I had lived a life as an ultimate procrastinator. I lacked connection to most people I knew/at home, I never actually knew what day, time, and date it was at the moment (anyway, there was no point of it), I ate nice food, sweated a lot, and at some point of the stay I felt like life was all good.
Phu Quoc, as my siblings said, was an underdeveloped island. Pristine, untouched, everything. It was nice staying there at first couple hours, but everything was far away from the hotel we were staying. But the hotel was gorgeous. It was five star, so cheap my siblings would cry a river, still very new, but gorgeous. Just gorgeous. Trees were everywhere, ponds, beaches were at walking distance; this was the ideal place of where you wanted to spend a week alone and become a chronic antisocial or you were on your honeymoonzzz. The thing that we couldn't expect was the service from the staff; the hotel was very new, that's why. But I didn't mind because all I wanted to do was enjoy the bathroom for myself. The bathroom was my favorite part of the hotel; they got a wooden bathtub, a shower with a glass door, and toiletries with cute packaging. That bathroom's gonna be in my house someday omnomnom.
I tried snorkeling/swimming in the sea for the first time. My skin felt burned on where it was blistering and inhaling/swallowing seawater definitely wasn't the best feeling ever. And because the beach was so quiet and there weren't many people in the island, just before the sun set I rolled on the beach and let the water swept me away. Certainly one of many things you have to do before you die.
Me burying my sister's leg!
I became more of the procrastinator I had become in Sihanouk Ville, Cambodia. My brother went on a snorkeling + trekking trip once again the next day after we arrived but I decided to take things slowly and joined my sister's wagon to laze on the beach and eat more food in this bar owned supposedly by a Swede. The next day, the three of us shamelessly hijacked an English bar from breakfast time until late afternoon, eating so much food, using their free wifi, and writing postcards. Sihanouk Ville was packed with foreigners who opened restaurants along the beach; Swedes, Italians, Germans, Australians. Foreign flags were everywhere, hoisted next to the flag of Cambodia. This was probably why I favored places in Vietnam more than in Sihanouk Ville; it was too packed by foreigners who had became locals that I could hardly see what was so Cambodian about Sihanouk Ville, while in Vietnam, everyone was Vietnamese except the tourists. One more silly thing that I didn't like about Cambodia was that the food tasted and reminded me of home. I came here to forget all the reality, yanno.
One of many Western dishes I ate because I couldn't stand Cambodian food.
Our stay in Sihanouk Ville was short - as a matter of fact, we never actually stayed that long and there wasn't much to see there except beaches - and we were bound to Siem Reap later by a night bus. So that was the end of my beach vacation! Shortly after we arrived in the morning, we rented bicycles and dared ourselves to bike from the inn to Angkor. But apparently Siem Reap had the most misleading pocket map ever; we kept getting lost on our way to a particular temple and ended up in Angkor Wat (the monkeys were so cute and scary at the same time fkajshghaf I don't even <3), and we went lost in the middle of nowhere when we were supposed to find refreshment stalls. I assured myself I had biked 25+ kilometers back and forth and my body was aching all over in the next morning.
Angkor was really beautiful, nevertheless. I'd love to come back if I had to.
Anyway, we spent the New Year's Eve in Siem Reap. we took a Khmer cooking class in the afternoon which was supposed to be two hours long but we spent (or wasted) another two hours with more cooking because the instructors were tardy or what. I wanted to say I would never, ever cook again, but I kind of believed in karma, so--
The class was irritating. We couldn't even finished our meal we cooked, but I was glad to be able to cook something edible.
My siblings booked a table for an Apsara dance show. Even though I could barely eat again, the dance was beautiful. The gala ended at 9 and we went back to hotel to sleep until 11 before we hit the Pub Street for a count down. Pub Street was packed with people, fireworks, and all the techno/dance music blasting from the gigantic speakers on the street. Apparently we were the only ones who were sober there IDK. Happy New Year, everyone!
We were bound to Phnom Penh to catch our plane back to Indonesia the next day. Such a shame that we only stayed for a night there, that Phnom Penh was as beautiful as Ho Chi Minh city. We managed to visit probably the sickest museum I've ever been to a.k.a Tuol Sleng Museum, where a school building was turned into a genocide site with disturbing photographs/illustrations and bloodstains on the old ceramic floor. War museums were always interesting, but I could hardly bear the horror when I walked past the classrooms. Dude, corpses lied inside 30 years ago. I couldn't even imagine if my school suddenly closed down and each of the rooms was turned into prison cells. It gave me a shiver.
Whether the place was haunted or not, it probably went without saying.
A view from FCC, the bar where we had our last dinner before flying back home.
I suddenly regretted this trip and everything, because the trip finally had to end and I didn't want that to happen. I regretted why I had to wake up the next morning, skip a shower, take a tuktuk and catch the plane. All the places I had been were amazing, and I went there with my siblings, but it would be lovely if we could just spend another week. Maybe we could explore more, or continue to Laos, or Thailand, I don't know. At least I had had a great journey before my turned-out-to-be bad academic report. Vietnam and Cambodia were awesome. I hope I'll be able to conquer the Indochina trio in the future.