Angkor Whaaat
Siem Reap, Cambodia: the second time I go and basically do nothing.
We are staying at The Luxury Concept Hostel, which has the perfect distance to pub street, night markets and whatnot. Unfortunately, we don’t have a WiFi signal for most of our stay, which is only an inconvenience because of some practical things that has to be taken care of. We receive a YouTube link to a video of our shooting in Phnom Penh, and it’s awesome! Here’s the video for those who are interested:
It’s actually a super long and embarrassing video
When we arrive on a Tuesday evening, we are a bit too tired to go out. We eat some food, go check out the Mad Monkey rooftop bar, but end up looking like those boring couples who are just observing the fun people, so we just relax for the rest of the night. The following day, we get up to see Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm. I’ve already seen these wonders last time I was in Siem Reap (read about it here), but I can’t pass up the opportunity to go back, especially if that means I get to force Pete to do something slightly cultural!
We pay Clem 15 dollars for a ride in his pink tuk tuk around the temples. We unconsciously go the opposite way of everyone else in the temples and therefore get a unique (and really short) experience, but it’s fine by me. I am sweating like an eskimo in Africa, and let out exhausted sighs every few minutes. Pete takes a gulp from his massive water bottle and spits it at my neck, making the ice cold water drip down my back. Right there in front of Angkor Wat. The man has no shame.
We get something to drink before moving on to the Bayon temple and then walking the whole way around it to find Chum. We barely spend 10 minutes at Ta Prohm, which is not nearly enough time for me to pretend I’m Lara Croft minus the everything. At this point, we’re ready to go get some lunch and then AC.
Come nighttime we need food again. Pete has been eating snacks at the rooftop café of our hostel, and I drag him to Little Italy, which was a favorite place of mine last summer. I get a carafe of wine and a whole pizza, while Pete is picking at his pasta. I get drunk and loud and order dessert, and we spot Linda and Anna from The Mad Monkey in Phnom Penh at the same restaurant. Along with two of their new friends, we walk back to their hostel which is – surprise, surprise! – The Mad Monkey. We also run into our MM roommate Pascal (you know, the one who called me a fake Viking). We are drinking and having a good time, bonding over our double chins and writing country songs. Linda and I started a band back in Phnom Penh called Two Ladies, One Cowboy Hat, or The Diarrhea Dames, I don’t even know at this point. Back in Phnom Penh we wrote a song called The Ballad of The Man With Two Penises, which was inspired by yes, the man with two penises. There were front porches, whiskey bottles, pickup trucks and of course, a man with two penises that finds love when he meets Carly, who has two vaginas. Linda wanted us to split up for a while, but tonight we’ve decided to do a comeback tour.
We all head to Pub Street when I get a serious craving for chicken on a stick. I make an Irish exit to find some street food, but it seems to be an impossible task. I end up with a bag of chips and go to bed, while Pete apparently finds Pho without me. Jerkface.
On our final day in Siem Reap it is Chinese New Year, and we decide to go shopping. All day, we go to a market, come back to the hostel, eat food, go to a new market and so on. We do manage to squeeze in an awesome foot and leg massage at Pura Vida, but other than that, our day is pretty much in a loop. We are on a hunt for flag patches for our backpacks, and we have found some cool mini ones at one of the shops by the bazar, but they’re $1.50 each and we’re sure we’ll be able to find them much cheaper everywhere else. Turns out only two shops in all of the ones we’ve been to have them, and at a ridiculous price. So begins an entire day of finding flags, and in the end, we manage to find most of them, some slightly larger than others, though. While Pete goes for flags that represent the nationalities of his former conquests, I am only looking for flags for all the countries I’ve been backpacking in, which is mostly South East Asia and a little bit of Europe.
Apparently I am a bit too keen to shop today, so I buy some India pants (I know, I know, they’re actually called Ali Baba pants) and a long skirt. I was having a bit of a clothing crisis when we went to Angkor Wat, since most of my clothes was too “slutty” for temples, so I figured buying some comfortable cover-up clothing would be a good idea.
We head back to the hostel, probably for the 8th time today, and I put on my India pants and step back outside. We discover the night market that is right behind our hostel, and immediately we see a horde of American girls all wearing similar pants. Of course this is normal, just not to see 20 of them wearing the same as you at once. They run towards the fish spa and scream loudly everytime the fish pinch their toes.
The amount of people on pub street tonight is overwhelming. We find a pop-up bar and order a drink, originally meant to be to-go, called Welcome to Cambodia. It’s basically a Long Island Ice Tea with orange and lemon juice. We sit at a table while we wait and start talking to an old Scottish guy, Kenneth, who’s kind of funny, but kind of weird, and completely impossible to understand. After I finish my drink, since I’m being a bit slow, we escape Kenneth and after walking around aimlessly for a while, we go to bed.
Now it’s time to go to Bali, which I am really excited for. These past days, I’ve woken up with countless mosquito bites and bruises and I am still so white I could hide by standing by a white wall, completely naked. To be honest, the mosquito bites and my bleeding bruise with black and blue around it on my butt would give me away. Seriously, how do I get these injuries? Also, my nose is getting really red again. Yeah Bali, you better get me a tan, I think that would solve most of my problems right now.