While watching TV the door rang. It was someone from the front desk with a present for us. Our tour guide, Tri, purchased a beautiful wooden Harley Davidson motorcycle with engravings on the saddlebags and the license plate. The saddlebags said “Happy Honeymoon” and the license plate said “Biters.” It was a very thoughtful gift and something we’ll have forever.
After it was time to go we called to have our luggage brought downstairs. We made our way to the lobby where Tri and our driver were waiting to take us to the airport. The luggage was loaded up and off we went. We arrived at the airport around 9:30 with plenty of time before our 11:40 flight. We said goodbye to Tri and headed in. The airport in Saigon was very nice and super clean. We found the lounge and chilled out until it was time to go. I uploaded the last of the photos from Saigon to the Saigon album.
Our plane was a few minutes late to board but nothing to serious. We got aboard our last Vietnam Airlines flight,,, goodbye Saigon. Besides one other guy we were alone in business class which aboard this 737 was very much what we’re use to in the US. The flight was a quick 40 minutes and,,,,, welcome to Cambodia. This airport reminded us of any of the outer Hawaiian airports. We deplaned, walked across the tarmac and headed in. Our express Visa agent was waiting for us and he quickly got us through the immigration / customs process. We grabbed our bags and met our Cambodian guide, Vibol.
Vibol was super excited to welcome us to his country. Without missing a beat we were off and on our way to the hotel. Vibol wanted to head right to the temples but we needed a little downtime before jumping right in to the tour. Right off the bat we noticed this town has a lot less pavement then what we’ve seen so far. Most of the driveways and store fronts are all just dirt. We arrived at the hotel and it seemed like everyone came out to greet us. It was a bit awkward because everyone was putting their hands to their face and bowing in front of us. We didn’t know if we should bow down back or just smile. We did a little of both.
The hotel’s GM took us around this beautiful property and then escorted us to our room where Richny, our “hotel assistant,” showed us the room and checked us in. Our room is amazing,,, again with our own pool! We got settled in and had lunch at the hotel. It was so nice to order some Italian food off the western menu. The food was great; we cleared our plates. After lunch Richny asked us to join her in the library for 5 minutes. We got there and we were very surprised to see a Monk sitting there along with 3 or 4 other people to greet us. I guess they had setup a surprise blessing ceremony for us,,,, interesting. We sat down and went through the motions. At one point the Monk started throwing flowers on our head as a cleansing ritual,,,, Katie and I kept it together and made it through.
After the blessing we met our guide who took us to the Buddhism Museum. This museum is 60k square feet of religious history. After spending about an hour and half walking around we headed to the park to see the temple of Angkor Thor. Before getting there we stopped by a memorial to the killing fields from Khmer Rouge. It’s disturbing to know that between 1975 and 1979 more than 2 million people were killed by this guy.
Pulling in to the area of the temples, which is near the hotel, was amazing. The temples are huge and wonderful to see but Katie and I got burned out pretty quickly. After about an hour we asked to head back to the downtown area. On the way out of the temple area we asked the driver to pull over so we could a close up of the monkeys. There were wild monkeys running around all over the place. We did get close to them, about 5 feet. A lot of other people were feeding and petting them. We got some great photos and video of the little guys.
Our guide was happy to take us towards downtown where we switched from our van to a Tuk Tuk. A Tuk Tuk is a 2 to 4 person carriage that is pulled by moped around the area. It was nice to have an open air tour, the weather felt great. Vibol escorted us around town showing us, amongst other things, Pub Street, the Night Market and a tree full of bats (check out the picture). After driving around for a while we asked to jump out so that we could be on our own. We said goodbye to Vibol and started walking around the very busy marketplace. People were doing their best to sell us anything and everything. It was fun to negotiate with the ladies (most were ladies) for the few purchases we made. Everything for sale was so cheap. Massages were $3 an hour (we didn’t get one), DVDs for $1.5 to $2, beers for $1 to $1.5, etc etc.
After enough of walking around we stopped at a nice little Mexican place right in the heart of Pub Street. They had .50 cent drafts and a table for two right along the busy street. While enjoying the busyness of the street, we started chatting with the three guys at the table next to us. 2 of the guys were from Spain and one was from Australia. They were all backpackers that had met on the trip due to similar itineraries. There are more backpackers in this town then we’ve noticed in any other town so far.
The Mexican food was awesome and very much welcomed after 10 days of fish oil. We enjoyed a long conversation with the table next to us and then called it a night. We found a Tuk Tuk to take us back to the hotel,,, cost,, $3. Since we planned on waking up at 4:15 the next morning to watch sunrise (a ritual around here) we went to bed pretty early. After a quick swim in our private pool it was lights out about 10:30 pm. With no TV in the room we fell asleep fairly quickly. I started the Cambodia album here below,,,, enjoy!
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| 2010-06-20_Honeymoon in Cambodia |
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