Vacation Days 8-16: Cambodia

Day 8: Saturday, February 21 - Ho Chi Minh to Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville
On this day we took a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It was a very tiny plane, reaffirming Bob's phobia of flying, and actually scaring me a little too. The plane had very few seats, and the wings actually had propellers. We felt pretty nervous flying around in this plane.
When we landed we were bombarded with touts for taxi drivers and tuk tuk drivers. We quickly got frustrated with bargaining and being harassed, so we decided to sit down and have a Flurry in the Dairy Queen at the airport, where a rather industrious tuk tuk driver approached us, and with whom we ended up buying his service.
The deal was he'd drive us in his tuk tuk for $5 into town, where we would then meet his "friend" who would drive us to Sihanoukville (our destination for the day, involving an 6 hour drive). For some reason, this sounded like a good idea.
So the tuk tuk driver leaves the airport, and we enter into the most sketchy area ever. Phnom Penh is a very poor and non-industrialized city. He ended up driving us down an desolate, run down alley, which was completely deserted, save for the 2 scary looking characters on motos. Here we would wait for "5 minutes" for his "friend" to arrive. I was scared for my life. They were actually very friendly and made all sorts of chit chat, but I was too nervous to talk much back to him.
Turns out his friend arrived not too long after this, and it was a legit operation. Only 1 company is allowed to offer taxi services at the airport, so we can to leave the airport to meet his friend in the taxi with the different company. I doubt I'd ever do that again though.
The drive to Sihanoukville was incredible. There were palm trees and naked children running around everywhere. We had to slam on the breaks on no less than 2 occasions to swerve around giant lanky white cows, that were wandering all over the place, with no keepers and no restraints.
We arrived at Mick and Craig's just as the sun was setting in Sihanoukville. Sihanoukville is a party town located on the beach on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand. It was hot, and there were all sorts of restaurants, selling incredibly cheap drink, right on the beach. We drink like drunkards for under $5. We slept well that night, and the hostel only cost us $5 each.

Day 9: Sunday February 22 - Lazy Beach
The next weekend we woke up early, and headed to the beach in our bathing suits carrying all our stuff. We had to meet at the Seahorse Guesthouse to catch the boat to Koh Rong Saloem Island, home of Lazy Beach.
Our bags floated to the boat in a dry box, where the 4 passengers had to swim. It was only Bob and myself, and a Swedish couple going to the island.
The boat was supposed to leave at 12 pm, but the crew were loading new grass sections of roof on the boat, which took about 1.5 hours, the entire time we were waiting on the boat.
The water was incredibly choppy, and the boat continually rocked. Bob and I started to feel a tiny bit sick, so he jumped off, and swam back to shore to rest on dry land, while I toughed it out on the boat, getting very very sunburnt, little did I know.
Soon we were on our way, and the water was rough. We were sitting on the deck of this small boat, fighting through the waves. The driver and his helper kept giving us a knowing smile as we clung to the sides of the boat, riding the waves. I got feeling really sick.
After about 2 hours on the open ocean, we arrived on our private island, Lazy Beach.

Day 10 & 11: Monday, February 23-Tuesday, February 24 - Koh Rong Saloem, Lazy Beach
Lazy Beach was incredible. The weather was beautiful, and the food was great.
There were ten grass huts on the island, each holding a maximum of 4 people, and then staff quarters and a grass hut restaurant. There were about 25 people total on the island. We had our own private grass hut, right on the beach.
We relaxed and read our book in the hammocks, and enjoyed great food, and their signature drink the Lazy Sunset (2 shots of Malibu rum, pineapple juice and a splash of grenadine). We went swimming and lazed on the beach throughout the day. This was the most relaxing time of my life.
In the mornings we went snorkeling, and saw thousands of beautiful and friendly fish, as well as sea urchins, sea slugs, and a cuttlefish which could change colours. We swam through something called sea lice, which felt like tiny little electric shocks, as well as black squid ink.
One of the days we went on a 20 minute hike through the Cambodian jungle (complete with monkeys) to another beach, with not a living soul on it, or any signs of habitation. The sand was pristine white, and the water was clear and blue. The tide was going out, and we had to save a star fish from drying out, which was quite the episode.
Our first night in the grass hut was crazy. There is no power on the island, so they must run a generator for lights, which they turn on at sunset and keep running until 11 pm, and after that, the only light you have was from a flash light, if you were smart enough to bring one (yay Bob!).
So it started when we saw the gecko on the wooden wall of the hut. He was huge and beautiful. He was orange and covered in little blue spots, and big! The gecko in the Geiko commercial was tiny compared to this guy. He became a regular visitor in our hut.
Next, I went into the little concrete bathroom attached to the back of our hut. I walked in, and looked down. The floor was covered in ants. Millions of teeming ants covered the floor. I almost threw up. I hate ants, especially in numbers such as these. I'd never seen so many in my life. We washed them down the drain, which was a long process, considering their numbers. Well, Bob washed them down the drain, while I hid in the bed covered in the mosquito netting. The island operator seemed to think that a recent rain must have ruined their nest (yuk!) and they were looking for a new home.
So after the ant problem was solved, and the gecko had gone to bed, we thought we would too, and we did. But not for long. We woke up in the darkness, with only our little flash light, to a fluttering noise. We had no idea what it was, until we saw it, from behind our protective covering and our personal Savior, the mosquito netting. It was a bat. A giant, Cambodian jungle bat, about the size of my forearm. I somehow managed to open the window next to the bed, through the mosquito netting, and the bat left us alone in peace.
The peace didn't last long though. After we'd (somehow)fallen back to sleep, we were awoken once again, but this time to a rustling. A close by, terrifying rustling. Turns out a rat, a giant Cambodian jungle rat, had climbed into my bag, (my zippered-closed bag), and was munching on my Lays potato chips, which I had with me even though we were instructed not to have any food in our rooms. But come on, the bag was zippered, and I can't buy those chips in Korea! We scared the rat away and went to sleep, for good this time.
The next night I was afraid to go back to sleep, understandably, but our friends never showed back up. But of course, I got sick. Very very very sick. I had to keep leaving the protection of the mosquito netting, and stumble through the dark, into the previously ant-infested bathroom (aka my greatest nightmare) to use a toilet that you had to flush by pouring water into it from a garbage can full in the dark corner. Worst night ever. Which leads to the next morning.

Day 12: Wednesday, February 25 - Taxi from Sihanoukville to Siem Reap
The next morning, I was still sick, and we were nearing the end of our Imodium and gravol. I had to get back on the rickety boat, and take another 2 hour trip to the mainland, whilst feeling very sick.
From there, we took another taxi, for $110, from Sihanoukville to Siem Reap, which took all day. I won't go into detail, but the first half of the taxi ride wasn't pleasant, and we had to make several bathroom stops. Bob was slightly sick as well, so we had to ration what was left of the Imodium.
The drive itself was beautiful. There is no industry in Cambodia, and people seem to live in shacks that are raised above the ground. We swerved around more cows as we sped along, and drove through some dirty and poor looking towns. Cambodia is a beautiful country, and the dirt is red, just like in PEI.
We found our hotel quickly, and checked in and went promptly to bed.


Day 13: Thursday, February 26 - Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia.
We woke up early, and felt much better. Our hotel room was beautiful, and exceptionally cheap. It was huge, and marble, and had beautiful wood finishings, and a pool, and the lights worked past 11 pm!
We hired a tuk tuk driver for the entire day, for the low price of $17, and headed to Angkor Wat national park. We were so excited, and riding around in a tuk tuk is really fun.
Angkor Wat was amazing, and we found it hard to believe we were actually there. We first headed to the main Angkor Wat temple, and looked around for about an hour. You're allowed to pretty much walk on anything you want, and go anywhere you want. We took thousands of pictures.
There are children at each temple that follow you around trying to sell you stuff. When you tell them they should be in school, they say such things as "School in the morning, please buy a bracelet", which I had to prevent Bob several times from doing such. They were adorable, and its hard not to cave, but they (or better yet their parents) must realize that selling knick knacks is not a good career choice, and they should be in school anyways. Everything you read says you shouldn't encourage them by buying stuff from them, but its hard.
After Ankor Wat, our tuk tuk driver took us to the Bayon, which was my favourite temple by far. Its the temple you may have seen on National Geographic programs, which all the faces covering it. It was incredible, and I have no idea how it was built. To get into these temples, you had to climb the most steep stairs you could imagine, most of which are falling apart.
After this temple, heat stroke hit me, and I felt horrible. My sickness from the day before came back, the >35 degree weather had been taking its toll, and I hadn't been drinking enough water. My face went a weird mixture of deathly white and tomato red patches, and Bob decided to find the tuk tuk driver and take me home. We spent the evening watching Animal Planet in our hotel room, with the A/C cranked. After a while, I stared feeling better, and we went to the mall next to the hotel for some Cambodian fast food before calling it a night.

Day 14: Friday, February 27 - Angkor Wat Continued
We slept in a little, and left for the parks again with the same tuk tuk driver, who was so friendly, and very inquisitive about our lives.
Today we were feeling better, and explored many more temples. We saw the Terrace of the Elephants, the Terrace of the Lepar King, Preah Khan, Bob explored Neak Peah temple while I waiting with the tuk tuk driver and drank water, Pre Rup, and then finally, Ta Prohm. These temples took us all day to explore. Ta Prohm was my favourite. Its the temple you may have seen in the movie Tomb Raider. It was famously left to the jungle to take over. It is falling down, and has giant tress growing throughout it, basically into the temple itself. Amazing.

Day 15: Saturday, February 28 - Siem Reap Hotel
This morning we took advantage of the pool, and went swimming all morning. We then had to go back and shower, and check out of our hotel room. We then spent the afternoon reading in the hotel lobby, before our favourite tuk tuk driver took us to the Siem Reap airport. This time the plane was bigger, and it wasn't AS stressful for us, although Bob still didn't have the time of his life.
We flew from Siem Reap, back to Hanoi, where we had a brief stop over, before boarding another plane to Incheon, South Korea. We were home in Yeonhui-dong by 7:30 in the morning on Sunday, where we slept into the afternoon, and then did laundry for the rest of the day.

Overall, we had a fantastic trip, and would do it all again in a heartbeat, except we'd pack more Imodium.