Cambodia Day 1
I was kinda appalled when Shawn asked me to go Cambodia abruptly a couple of weeks back. Probably because it was a really sudden invitation to a weird place for vacation. Eventually I found out he won some discounted tickets from Singtel thats why he was so enthusiastic about going Siem Reap... Cheap! =O
Morning flight to Siem Reap at 6am, we had to wake up at 4am and get ready to head for the airport. Thankfully the flight was pretty empty so we got to sleep in series over 3 seats on our own though I must admit its pretty weird with people glaring at you while walking past you for the toilet. You know the trip is off to a beautiful start when you see a really nice sunrise over the horizon.
Landed in Siem Reap airport in one piece! Incidentally the Jetstar plane was the only plane in the whole airport. I love third world countries! x_x
Our mode of transport throughout our whole vacation! Tuk-tuk driven by Mr So"Boom-boom"kha. One point to note is that cambodians are very good at taking photos out of focus with bad composition. Cambodia 1 - Us 0.
Makeshift attap houses for the local villagers on the way to the Great Lake. Ian was telling me he don't mind staying in this house for a few days and asked if I wanted to. I mean, what?! Are you crazy? Do you know how many flies and mosquitoes there are? I have to be really drunk to end up sleeping a house like this. Anyway the villagers move their house up the hill when the monsoon season starts and the water level rises at least 3 metres up.
To both Shawn's and my disappointment, The Great Lake was more like THE Dirty Lake from hell. The water is even brown when we went to the big wide part of the lake. There was a restaurant along the river, but Shawn and I said people have to be really suckers to eat with food cooked with this water. Different story for the locals. Did I mention that our tour sampan was incredibly slow and I was sitting on the wrong side of the boat and I kept getting splashed with the dirty water from the boats that sped past us.
Shawn was singing the song "财神到" (The Fortune God Arrives) when we touched down at Siem Reap. Being the benevolent God that he isn't, he decided to buy a packet of ginger sweets and share it with the local kids.
One of the more memorable meals was the first meat with the Amok Fish and this grilled beef with egg stock. I have no idea why the staff kept looking at us cooking the beef. After lunch we decided to go roam around the market area and try some shopping.
Meet Mickey's twin splashed with acid water. Disney's kingdom of hell fastfood restaurant. Anyway we found out there's nothing to shop at the market area seriously. So we went back to the hotel feeling really disappointed.
Started to rain on the way towards the temples in the evening and Mr Sokha rolled down the blinds to protect us from the rain. Incidentally the windows were in the shape of hearts and we kept laughing. I made Shawn take this photo showing how much he missed his other half. He did call his other half later but his other half refused to pick up the phone. LOL.
Kids playing in mud after the rain. If our moms in Singapore saw us doing this they'll scream at us and then bring us home and slaughter us. This is one of those scenes where you'll wish there was an alligator nearby sneaking up on the kids. =D
The first temple we saw! OMG! Totally don't remember what this temple is about hahaha. I remembered it was built in AD991 because our driver was telling us the dates and I was wondering what if he pointed a gun at me suddenly and said "ARE YOU LISTENING?! TELL ME WHEN WAS THIS BUILT OR I'LL KILL YOU FOR NOT LISTENING TO ME!" Yes, I was really bored.
The entrance of the second temple. The weather cleared up by this point but unfortunately soon after we roamed towards the mid section of the temple, it started to rain really heavily and we were just jumping around the ruins trying to avoid the pools of water in the temple in fear of wetting our shoes.
Gloomy sky as viewed from inside the temple. Of course the pool hopping wasn't very successful and we ended up with our shoes all wet and gross.
Perk of the evening, sunset pack provided by our guesthouse. Consists of cheese, olives, baguette and white wine. Truly a good way to end the evening with. Though it would have been better if we could enjoy the temples changing colour as the sun set, but Mr Sokha said it's not gonna happen that evening since it was raining like nobody's business.
Headed back to the hotel and had a BBQ buffet at the guesthouse. Slept early because we really didn't know where to go after that and wanted to rest up for a long day of temple climbing the following day.
Morning flight to Siem Reap at 6am, we had to wake up at 4am and get ready to head for the airport. Thankfully the flight was pretty empty so we got to sleep in series over 3 seats on our own though I must admit its pretty weird with people glaring at you while walking past you for the toilet. You know the trip is off to a beautiful start when you see a really nice sunrise over the horizon.
Landed in Siem Reap airport in one piece! Incidentally the Jetstar plane was the only plane in the whole airport. I love third world countries! x_x
Our mode of transport throughout our whole vacation! Tuk-tuk driven by Mr So"Boom-boom"kha. One point to note is that cambodians are very good at taking photos out of focus with bad composition. Cambodia 1 - Us 0.
Makeshift attap houses for the local villagers on the way to the Great Lake. Ian was telling me he don't mind staying in this house for a few days and asked if I wanted to. I mean, what?! Are you crazy? Do you know how many flies and mosquitoes there are? I have to be really drunk to end up sleeping a house like this. Anyway the villagers move their house up the hill when the monsoon season starts and the water level rises at least 3 metres up.
To both Shawn's and my disappointment, The Great Lake was more like THE Dirty Lake from hell. The water is even brown when we went to the big wide part of the lake. There was a restaurant along the river, but Shawn and I said people have to be really suckers to eat with food cooked with this water. Different story for the locals. Did I mention that our tour sampan was incredibly slow and I was sitting on the wrong side of the boat and I kept getting splashed with the dirty water from the boats that sped past us.
Shawn was singing the song "财神到" (The Fortune God Arrives) when we touched down at Siem Reap. Being the benevolent God that he isn't, he decided to buy a packet of ginger sweets and share it with the local kids.
One of the more memorable meals was the first meat with the Amok Fish and this grilled beef with egg stock. I have no idea why the staff kept looking at us cooking the beef. After lunch we decided to go roam around the market area and try some shopping.
Meet Mickey's twin splashed with acid water. Disney's kingdom of hell fastfood restaurant. Anyway we found out there's nothing to shop at the market area seriously. So we went back to the hotel feeling really disappointed.
Started to rain on the way towards the temples in the evening and Mr Sokha rolled down the blinds to protect us from the rain. Incidentally the windows were in the shape of hearts and we kept laughing. I made Shawn take this photo showing how much he missed his other half. He did call his other half later but his other half refused to pick up the phone. LOL.
Kids playing in mud after the rain. If our moms in Singapore saw us doing this they'll scream at us and then bring us home and slaughter us. This is one of those scenes where you'll wish there was an alligator nearby sneaking up on the kids. =D
The first temple we saw! OMG! Totally don't remember what this temple is about hahaha. I remembered it was built in AD991 because our driver was telling us the dates and I was wondering what if he pointed a gun at me suddenly and said "ARE YOU LISTENING?! TELL ME WHEN WAS THIS BUILT OR I'LL KILL YOU FOR NOT LISTENING TO ME!" Yes, I was really bored.
The entrance of the second temple. The weather cleared up by this point but unfortunately soon after we roamed towards the mid section of the temple, it started to rain really heavily and we were just jumping around the ruins trying to avoid the pools of water in the temple in fear of wetting our shoes.
Gloomy sky as viewed from inside the temple. Of course the pool hopping wasn't very successful and we ended up with our shoes all wet and gross.
Perk of the evening, sunset pack provided by our guesthouse. Consists of cheese, olives, baguette and white wine. Truly a good way to end the evening with. Though it would have been better if we could enjoy the temples changing colour as the sun set, but Mr Sokha said it's not gonna happen that evening since it was raining like nobody's business.
Headed back to the hotel and had a BBQ buffet at the guesthouse. Slept early because we really didn't know where to go after that and wanted to rest up for a long day of temple climbing the following day.