Siem Reap & Phnom Penh

My last blog left off at Sisophon, the city we drove to after crossing the Thai/Cambodian border. After I wrote it there was a massive thunderstorm in the area and our hotel flooded in the middle of the night. Each floor had a section open to the outdoors and soon there were a bunch of hotel workers in their pajamas running up and down the floor to wipe it up. The lightning was incredible to watch and the thunder rocked our hotel throughout the night.

The next day we left by bus to Siem Reap, the city near all the Angkor temples. The bus ride was only a few hours and the driver was booking it too. We got pulled over on the highway for speeding and our ticket was 10,000 riel. That sounds like a lot, but in US dollars that's only $2.50. The riel is weak by itself and Cambodia uses it with the Thai baht and US dollar. It is confusing to use three different currencies because you pay with American and Thai bills and get back change in riel. They do not accept or use any coins and the riel bills start at 100, which is less than three cents. These quickly fill up the wallet but I found they can be lifesavers as emergency toilet paper.

The Angkor temples were probably my favorite part of the trip. They are the remains of the Khmer Empire that lasted between the 9th and 14th centuries. A lot of them are in the same area, which was the largest pre-industrial city in the world. I can't even describe how beautiful everything was. Our group visited Angkor Wat, the Bayon Temple, and Ta Phrom. Afterward, I stuck around with a couple guys and we visited Ta Keo and a few others I don't remember the names of. It was really fun getting off the tourist trail and exploring these lesser known places. We hiked, crawled through broken rocks, and climbed steps that were over a foot high and only a few inches long. We even had our pictures taken with monks we met on the trail. We found a tuk tuk driver to drive us around and bring us back to our hotel for $10.

In Siam Reap we also visited a giant culture center which Lauren lovingly referred to as the "Disneyland of Cambodia." There weren't any rides, but there was amazing scenery and interactive exhibits that included housing complexes and an underground museum of horrors. There were also a lot of dramas that took audience participation to a new level. One guy on our trip was married in a traditional Cambodian wedding, another guy went courting and danced around in his underwear, and another pulled a bow out of stone and became king. These were really amusing to watch.

The food in Cambodia is slightly different. It is like a combination between Thai and Vietnamese food and it is a lot less spicy. There are still a lot of soups, rice, and noodle dishes, but there are also plenty of weird options as well. One interesting delicacy is the fried tarantula. I was skeptical to try one at first but they aren't bad. They have a nice crispy and chewy texture that is really juicy. I ate three of them for a snack, but Lauren wouldn't let me sit next to her afterward. My "spider breath" made her gag so it took a piece of gum and some convincing to get my seat back. Insects are popular here too. I tried grasshoppers, crickets, and silkworms, but none were as good as the tarantula. The silkworm is chewy and gross tasting.

Another thing I noticed in Cambodia is how intense the street vendors were. They all know English and follow tourists around like zombies. They wait by buses and will hound people to purchase anything from handicrafts to fruit. In the most touristy of places there are a lot of kids that beg you to buy from them in repeated, broken English. The vendors in the markets were less intense and the prices were cheaper than in Thailand. I knew pirated movies and music were commonly sold, but I never knew you could pirate books. Guidebooks and other types of reading are sold on the street for cheap, wrapped in plastic to disguise their poor quality. Another thing common in Cambodia are bands of land mine victims that sell music CDs.

The last city we visited in Cambodia was the capital, Phnom Penh. Here we did some last minute market shopping and visited two genocide areas. Cambodia experienced a period of genocide between 1975 and 1979 under the regime of Pol Pot, and two million people died in the killing fields. We started at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Known as S-21, this was a high school that was turned into an interrogation center and prison. Next we visited Choeng Ek, a killing field just outside of the city. There are lots of mass graves and the rain is constantly washing up more bones and fragments of clothing. This was by far the most impacting part of the trip.

Update: Friday, May 27

We got back to Oregon this week after three flights and layovers in Taiwan and Seattle. The weather seems freezing cold here, but it is welcomed after weeks of uncomfortably hot and humid weather. I also got back to my island last night. It's hard to believe our trip is over. Three weeks is plenty of time to travel and experience new cultures but I wanted to keep going. Nevertheless, going to Southeast Asia was a great way to start the summer! I will upload pictures from the trip soon.

Weekend in Otavalo

Left: Lake Cuicocha. Right: Horseback riding through the country.

This weekend we had a group trip to Otavalo, the largest outdoor market in Ecuador and one of the oldest and most famous in South America. Most of our weekends here are free, but we have some scheduled trips to see things that we shouldn’t miss. And I am so glad we didn’t miss out on this area.

Friday afternoon we got out of class early and made the trip north, with a few stops along the way. The drive through the country was beautiful and the bathroom we stopped at even had stalls built for viewing the scenery. First we went to Lake Cuicocha, a volcano crater lake at 10,000’ elevation. There we had a motorboat tour and the guys went swimming. It wasn’t super cold (for the gringos at least) and it was really refreshing. Afterward we explored Cotacachi, the nearby town that specializes in leather goods. We walked through the stores on the main road and saw a crazy amount of leather merchandise (no underwear though, I asked). They even had cow’s feet that were hollowed out and molded into water bottles. After leather town we went to the wood town in nearby Ibarra. Later that evening we made it to the hostel, and the guys’ room turned out to be the love nest: all pinked out with bright pink walls and bedding.

With the suggestion of the hostel manager, a few of us woke up at 5:30 on Saturday and hit the animal market on the other side of town. We were bracing ourselves for a lot of killing and slaughtering, but there wasn’t any to be seen. Instead we saw lots of animals being paraded around a large field for all the locals to see. Most were under control with the exception of the occasional pig chased around by its frustrated owners. After this market, we wandered through the food market and clothing market, and eventually made it to the main market, which dates back to Spanish colonization in the 1600s. Here the indigenous were taught to make textiles for export to Europe, and the tradition has continued ever since.

This is where we learned to bargain, which I found to be really fun. As another hostel resident put it, bargaining is a competition between the local trying to rip you off and you trying to get a good deal. My first purchase was a $25 leather hat (Indiana Jones style) that I whittled down to $11. I also bought a lot of gifts and a couple of paintings for $13 and $19 (originally $17 and $25). The local artwork was amazing and I loved scoring on the deals. One thing we realized was that anytime we commented about something in Spanish, the vendors targeted us. We switched to English and everything became so much easier. We also realized that it was bad to ask for a price if we weren’t interested in something because that gave the vendors the right to pester us about it. I frequently had to try on sweaters just to prove to the vendors that they didn’t fit me.

Afterward we had breakfast at the hostel and decided to go horseback riding. The night before we saw a sign that advertised cheap tours through the area: $25 for a 3-4 hour tour and $35 for the full day. The hostel manager told us that they needed two hours to prepare the horses so we decided to hit the streets again and shop some more. For lunch we went to a famous pie shop and had deli sandwiches that were literally the size of our heads for less than three bucks. Ironically two of the people ordered a hot dog because they weren’t too hungry, but they ended up getting several wieners sandwiched between enormous pieces of bread. The pie afterward was incredible and I had a huge piece of papaya pie for just over a dollar.


Left: My horse, Negro. Middle: Josué and Thad. Right: Our guide.

The horseback tour was an awesome experience, and it was good to get out of the city. We went up through the mountains where we visited a small park on a hill and a waterfall. My horse, Negro, was good to me for the most part and never complained. But at one point we were going down a steep hill and he ran up to another horse and testosterone started to flare. Luckily I didn’t get thrown off, but I got pulled through a nice sticker bush. I had never ridden a horse before and after a rough four-hour introduction to saddle life, I was sore for the next few days.

Sunday morning was mostly spent traveling, but we went to an indigenous church before we left the area. That was an interesting experience, because the service was mainly in Quechua, a common indigenous language of Ecuador and Peru. The other half was in Spanish, but it was still the most lost I’ve ever been in a church service. It was really cool to see their style of worship and speaking though, and it really reminded me of Native American culture back in the states. Afterward the ladies invited us next door and gave us all homemade sweaters.

Well that’s the gist of the weekend, but I’ll add another blog post in the next few days to fill up some holes. I also started a new Facebook album too. Hasta luego!