Photos from First Two Days!

Here are the photos from the night I arrived and the picnic the next day. The temple was beautiful where we picniced, but just wait for the Angkor Wat photos.

At the airport in Bangkok, reading Siddhartha for the upteenth time, with my Thai snacks which I spent way too much money on, but enjoyed nonetheless.

Our tiny plan to Siem Reap- we took a bus out on the tarmac to it.

My first photo of Siem Reap, along the river close to my lodge.

First sighting of our picnic spot. (Not in the pond, obviously)





You can't really see, but there are huge pink and white lotuses blooming. Mental note to get a new camera. I think Bina took a good photo of them, I'll get it from her later.

Walking to the picnic spot.

Active minefield next to where we were hiking.

First sight of an ancient temple in Cambodia!

No tourist know about this temple, its about 1 1/2 hrs from town.

Bina!

Tree growing over the old stones.

Part of the temple complex, and one of the guys sitting on the pile of stones.

Part of the temple.

View from this ant infested ruin that I climbed and perched on.


Me right before I had the brilliant (or stupid) idea to climb the ruin.

View from the ledge I climbd. Is much further down than it looks here.

View of the pagoda from the ruin.

Inside the pagoda. There were little monk boys too.


Children at the picnic.

Another view from that ruin I climbed.

Some more of the temple complex.

The drive home was miraculous and shining.

Red sand road- this was the ONLY place it was smooth and not full of huge water-filled ruts.

A typical Khmer household.

Driving home.

The kittens that live outside my window.
I took a bazillion photos of them.

Cambodia ahoy!

I have arrived in Cambodia! What an adventure, already! I've been here a day and a half now, and life never fails to look out for me and send me amazing signs. Here's the lowdown so far:
I got to Narita airport saturday morning, to which I traveled in style, with my own seat and window on the train (I missed the cheap train), and when I arrived in Narita I realised that I didn't have my eticket- only my invoice for the purchase. So, after about 30 minutes of panicking and asking the help desk what to do (they were freaked out because i didnt have my eticket and sent me in circles) and calling Rio asking her to check my email, I just went to the JAL boarding pass machine, slapped my passport on it, and got my boarding pass to Bangkok, no problem. Doh. So I got the flight to Thailand, and was SO excited, because JAL is such a nice airline and there was a free meal and wine and yuzu juice and a selection of 10 or so movies to choose from, so I had a really nice flight to Bangkok. Then as we got close to Bangkok I couldn't stop staring out the window- what a beautiful country, I've never seen the ocean so grey and brilliant! So the after getting off the plane, I started to worry because I didn't have my boarding pass for my flight to Siem Reap, so I walked to the gate (Bangkok airport is HUGE, I walked in a straight line for about 20 minutes to reach my gate).. But, turns out, this is totally normal, not having a boarding pass when transferring, and just went and had one printed no problem. Then, the flight to Siem Reap left an hour late, and I was s'posed to meet this girl Bina at a bar in Siem Reap an hour and a half after landing, so I was worried I'd be late and not able to meet her. But, it turns out, the flight that it says on the ticket is 1 hour and 20 minutes, is actually only a THIRTY minute flight, so we landed on time and I got through immigration and the non existant customs(literally, I still have my declaration form, don't know what to do with it). By this time, it was a a bit after 7 and totally dark, and I went out and caught, for the first time in my life, a moto (motorcycle/dirt bike thing) into town. I spent 20 minutes hanging on to the back of the bike for dear life, drinking it the sights and the people and the chaos, and praying we wouldn't be killed (we had a few close calls, almost ran over a bicycle!) and putting up with the guy trying to heckle me into letting him be my driver for the next few days. He was really put off when I finally gave him 2 extra dollars and told him I absolutely did not need a driver, but he was nice in the end.

Part 2: The beginning of the Cambodia experience
So I dropped my stuff off in my room at the guesthouse, which has a really beautiful outdoor bar/restaurant area, and whose staff are really nice, and then took another moto to the old market area to meet Bina. I eventually found the bar where we were supposed to meet, and she appeared a few minutes later with her friend Brian. We bar hopped for about 4 hours and ate fish tacos and had a great time, and met up with her boyfriend Stu, and then Stu gave me a ride back to my guesthouse. They are the kindest people! Brian offered to take me with him tuesday to the floating village, because he works for an NPO dealing with water filtration, and is going out to do some filter work tuesday morning. So not only do I get to see the village for free (normally you have to hire a boat), but I also get to see some of what the volunteers and NPOs are doing here for the public health!
Today, I went walked down to the old market by myself, and did a little shopping- bought a beautiful green scarf and a few little odds and ends. Its so cheap here but I have to be careful and not whittle away all of my money! They do have some beautiful fabric and bags and stuff though, along with all the normal cheesy stuff. Apparently there's a silk factory up the road, which I might take a tour of in a few days, and actually get to see them weave the silk. So there are a lot of beautiful silks here. And, I'm learning how to haggle, a skill which I'm sure will be useful in India! I'm still a bit shy about it, but I'm getting a backbone- slowly but surely.
Then I went back to the guesthouse for some breakfast, and had a pineapple shake and a huge bowl of fruit- mangos, dragonfruit, pineapple, bananas, apples, watermelon, and yoghurt and honey! I couldn't believe my eyes and ate the whole thing, which made my stomach a little unhappy. Then Bina picked me up, and we met up with a bunch of other ex-pats living here and went on this hour journey over the worst washed out dirt road I've ever seen (we had to use the four wheel drive in the jeep), and I road in a jeep and Bina and a bunch of others took their motos, and went out to this temple in the jungle that not many tourists know about, and had this huge lovely picnic and explored the temple (I climbed some ruins and almost got stuck in terror at being so high on a rock ledge). There were land mine fields that hadn't been finished being de-mined yet and were roped off, a bit scary. We gave the rest of the food leftovers to the poor local kids, and came back to town just before dark.
Tomorrow I have plans to start at like 6am and hire a moto and spend the entire day exploring Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples!
I have tons of photos already, but I can't upload them here so I'll try to post some in the next few days.
This is the most strange, exciting, trying experience I've had traveling yet, and I'm tired and sweaty and hot and so so dirty and covered in dust, and it is absolutely wonderful.