Cambodia with the Parents

So the rents arrived two Wednesdays ago. They ended up staying at Evergreen, right across the hall from where Rachelle and I moved out of that same day.

We miss you Sebastian!

After a fun but bittersweet going away party for a fellow exchange student Wednesday night, Thursday me and the parents went to Dusit park and saw the Vimanek Palace, King Chulalongkorn's royal palace, all made out of teak. There are no nails in the whole palace, just pegs. It was really cool.

Dad and I with some of the guards

The Vinmanek Palace

Throne Hall

After a day of exploring we took a few of the exchange students to the barbeque buffet on the river. There was live music again, ladyboys to be exact, and all Thai people. I think my parents enjoyed it. I know I did.

Then on Friday we flew to Phnom Pehn, the capital city of Cambodia, and checked into the Europe hotel. We walked around the city a little bit, had some great homemade ice cream at Tata's, and then ate dinner near the river that runs through downtown. The local food is called Khmer food. It's not very different from Thai food, a little less spice and flavor than Thai food, but it was still delicious.

Welcome to Cambodia!

Tuk tuk ride from the airport

Dad being a tourist

National Monument

'My country, my beer' the Angkor beer logo

First dinner in Cambodia!

 The next morning we woke up early to see the Royal Palace before it got too hot out. It was quite impressive. Turns out the King is still single and looking for a wife, our guide said he was quite picky. He lives right there on the grounds though which was pretty cool.

Dad buying a kilo of tangerines

Front of the Royal Palace, this is where the King addresses the people

Lotus tree, very sacred in Buddhism because Buddha was born next to one

Where the King actually lives, the blue flag means he's currently at the Palace

Royal clothes for when the King gets married, he is currently available I was told if anyone is looking to be a queen. Our guide said he was quite picky though

Depiction of monkeys fighting the demons (famous story in Buddhism). This is the same picture depicted on the well of the Grand Palace in Bangkok as well as the one carved on the wall at Angkor Wat

Silver Wat

Tomb for one of the old Kings, called a Stuppa

Statue of the current King in the same clothes Napoleon wore, it was actually a statue of Napoleon but they replaced the head with that of the current King

Some local music

Lotus flower

After the Royal Palace we quickly changed into shorts (since you could only wear long pants or capris in the palace) and took a tuk tuk to the Killing Fields and afterwards the Tu... Prison Museum. The Killing Fields are where the Khmer Regime in 1975 took the prisoners and executed them about 15 km outside the city. The mass graves were discovered only about 20 years ago. The Khmer Regime managed to commit genocide agaisnt their own people, killing about 1/3 of the entire population of Cambodia. And this only happened about 40 years ago, in my parents lifetime. To see the mass graves and the prison where these people were tortured was devastating, it really was hard to handle, to know that something like that happened and not that long ago. Kinda makes you wonder what the rest of the world was doing when it all happened and could it happen again? It's pretty terrifying.

On the way to the Killing Fields

These signs were all over Cambodia

Monument at the Killing Fields

Mass grave

Called the Magic Tree- from here they hung a noise maker so that the nearby houses and village couldn't hear the screams of the prisoners being executed

Pictures of the prisoners who died here

The Khmer Regime turned an old school into a prison

The barbed wire was to prevent desperate prisoners from jumping off the higher floors in attempts to commit suicide

Prisoner cells

After our morning in Phnom Penh we caught our bus to Siem Reap. The road to Siem Reap was far from smooth but the bus service was nice, our bus "attendant" knew about 5 languages and gave his schpeel in all of them, pretty impressive.

Our first bus ride, get ready Mom

All the houses were on stilts so that they wouldn't get flooded during rainy season

The bus stopped at a market and these school kids would literally attack you and try to get you to buy fruit. However, their English was amazing. It was really impressive these kids were only about 12 years old and could hold a conversation with you in English

Angkor cigarettes. Angkor Wat is pretty much the pride of Cambodia and is the logo for just about everything

 After about 6 hours we made it to Siem Reap and checked into our hotel there and then went for dinner and had another great traditional Khmer meal. We headed to bed quite early though because the next morning we woke up around 4:30 am to go see the sunrise at Angkor Wat.

Our delcious traditional Khmer meal

 Angkor Wat at sunrise was quite spectacular. The temple in general was just amazing, and like all the temples, they let you just climb all over it. The temple is massive and all made out of sandstone. It was originally made as a Hindu temple but when Buddhism was introduced to Cambodia "Wat", meaning Buddhist temple, was added to the end of  the name. "Angkor" actually just means Capital, because the site of the old capital was once Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat at sunrise

The same painting at the Royal Palace in Phnom Pehn carved in stone on the wall of Angkor Wat

Mom you look quite small

The 100 m wide moat around the temple

 After Angkor Wat I forced myself to drink a Mocha coffee, my first ever cup of coffee, because for some reason I could not stay awake. But the caffine worked, and next we saw Angkor Thom, which was a 3km by 3km piece of land encircled by a 100m wide moat and an 8m tall wall. The capital was once ransacked by a neighboring kingdom, and after that the King at the time decided that would never happen again, so he built Angkor Thom to be almost impossible to take over.

Outside Angkor Thom

Bayon

All the stone pillars had huge faces on them

Mom chattin up the children

Dad you look great

Such the adventurer

That's the life... a hammock in your tuk tuk. Maddy would enjoy this

After Angkor Thom we climbed Ta Keo and saw the power of the jungle at Ta Prohm. We also explored a few more stops before it got unbearably hot out and we headed back to Siem Reap to eat lunch.

Mom- "I feel like im climbing ancient ruins" ... Hm that's weird

Dad and his book

Dad with the tour group he wish he could be in. He tried on that hat the night before, it didn't quite fit

Cute little boy

Climbing Ta Keo, it was pretty much straight up

That's dad in the front just so you can guage the size of these things

Ta Prohm tucked away in the jungle

The ficus trees were literally taking over the stone temple

Dad found a friend to teach him the history of the ruin, typical

 After lunch we stopped by the National Museum and learned more about the history and religion of Cambodia, however, I was still quite tired and managed to fall asleep during one of the educational movies. After the museum we headed back to the hotel to clean up and rest a little before heading to the market to do some serious shopping (everything was so cheap!) and to dinner. For dinner I had my first taste of sweet potatoes since I've been in Southeast Asia. It was a sweet potato casserole, it was so delicious. Also the spring rolls (fried and fresh) were some of the best I've had in Southeast Asia. We ordered them almost every meal.
The next morning we took the early bus back to Phnom Pehn to have lunch and then headed to the airport to catch our flight back to Bangkok.
Overall, Cambodia was an amazing experience. The people there were so accommodating and friendly. They seemed overall very content and happy which was something very refreshing I think. People are like that as well in Thailand, but comparing it to people in the same jobs in the US, people don't appreciate the jobs they have in the US like the people do in Cambodia. The people were also very friendly. You don't get the feeling like you are getting ripped off; people seemed to genuinely want to help you. The tuk tuk driver that drove us around Siem Reap and the temples, he took us from our bus to the hotel for free if we would hire him to take us to the temples, then he met us at 5:00 am at the hotel and took us around the temples until 12:00, then left for an hour to get food and met us again at 1:00, took us to the National Museum, waited for us for 2 and a half hours then took us to the bus station to get our bus tickets and then back to the hotel. He only asked for $15 and he was great company all day. Stuff like that just completely blows my mind sometimes.

So we made it safely back to Bangkok and had a great meal at a local Thai place for Dad's birthday.

Happy Birthday Dad!

The next day I had school so my parents saw the sights of Bangkok while I went to school. Tuesday night we attempted to go to the Skybar (a restaurant and bar on the top floor of a hotel overlooking the city) but there was a large storm and our tuk tuk driver didn't quite understand where we wanted to go. So then we met another tuk tuk driver who said he would take us to a good restaurant for only 10 baht (about 30 cents), so we got in. We ended up at this great seafood restaurant and had a delicious Thai seafood feast, complete with a bottle of sauvignon blanc.

Going to school... with my parents

Dad's real Birthday Dinner

Lobster and Prawns

Dad picking out the wine

Our Feast!

Wednesday I went to class in the morning and then we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Krabi for a nice relaxing weekend on the island of Koh Phi Phi!