Week in Cambodia

A great thing about teaching in SE Asia is that travel is relatively easy and cheap. I decided to take my week vacation and spend it in Cambodia.

We stayed in Siem Reap the first two days and saw the amazing Angkor Wat. Out hotel was The Golden Banana which was great. They helped us plan all of our day trips and our bus to Sihanoukville.

The day after Angkor Wat, we visited the Tonle Sap. This is the largest river/lake in SE Asia. We went to see the floating village, which is just that. Land is more expensive than living on the water, so extremely poor families will live in the floating village. There were dogs, pigs, and chickens on these homes, too.  There was even a school on the water with over 100 students.

After Siem Reap, the next stop was Sihanoukville. We took the overnight (10 hour!) bus ride from hell. I actually slept the majority of the time, but I heard the bus driver was driving like he was having the worst LSD trip. Awesome. A few miles before our bus stop, our bus broke down, and the driver informed us we had to get off the bus. Upon exiting, all of the passengers were accosted by tuk tuk drivers and motor bike taxis. We got a tuk tuk, which is now my favorite mode of transportation, which took us to a booking place. It worked out in the end, and we booked our boat to the island of Koh Rong, which is a 2 hour boat ride from Sihanoukville.

The island was beautiful! There were only a few places with bungalows, and we stayed at the farthest accommodation from the "village". The Treehouse Bungalows were amazing...I am not used to things like no running water, sweating endlessly (really, I didn't stop once), and one matted, unbrushable dread on my head, but it ended up being totally worth it.

After a few days of snorkeling, playing with puppies, watching sunrises, laughing at roosters, and lazing around, it was time to go to Phnom Penh. It is the capital of Cambodia and there were so many things to see---the National Museum, Central Market, the Palace, tons of restaurants and street food, and pigeons?

Some of my favorite things about this trip was the food variety. Fish Amok is one of my new favorite foods. Also, how unbelievably cheap everything was was a huge plus (dinner and drinks for less than $5). The people were very kind and everyone seemed willing to help. I look forward to going back someday.