05-03-2009

Monday morning we took a train from Bangkok to the Cambodian border. We were up late Sunday night and we had to leave for the train at 4:30 am so I didn't bother going to sleep. It was an old-school train which was stellar; it had big open windows and I could have hopped off the back if I wanted to. The whole ride was quite enjoyable; it was about six hours which I slept most of, but while I was awake it was great to see the Thailand countryside as we rolled past. We played some card games which I was later told is illegal in Thailand. Here are my fellows boarding the train:

We had some trouble at the border: we had to take tuk tuks to get from the train station to the border, but they dropped us off at a little sketchy outpost where they wanted us to buy our visas. Some people had started to fill out the applications when someone else pointed out that this was likely a scam, so we had to persuade the drivers to take us to the actual border. Then we had to wait a long time and fill out forms for the visa and give them our passports and money; the whole thing WAS A HASSLE. Finally we had a three hour taxi ride through Cambodia to get to the guest house; I SLEPT through most of the ride. By the time we worked out our accommodations it was late so we just ate some dinner and went to sleep. On Tuesday and Wednesday we indulged in the Angkor Wat temple complex.

Tuesday I woke up at 4:15 am and ate the continental breakfast so we could leave by five. The owner of the house, Eric, has a detailed route/plan for visiting Angkor Wat that looked very thorough and enjoyable. The idea is to bike to the complex and hike up to one of the less visited temples in time to watch the sunrise, but due to delays ( the girls in the group kept going back to their room for only God knows what) we didn't leave until almost 5:30. We ended up missing the sunrise but it was incredibly overcast anyway so I'm not sure if we really missed out.

We spent the rest of the day biking around, generally following Eric's guide to Angkor Wat: one of the eighth wonders of the world.

Tuesday morning we woke again at 4:15 in an effort to see the legendary Angkor Wat sunrise; this time we took tuk tuks so we made it in time. We hired a tour guide who followed us around for the whole day, speaking with a strong accent that prevented me from benefiting too much from his wisdom. He mostly just narrated the Hindu stories that accompanied the temples which is not so much what I am interested in. I would rather hear about THE STRUCTURES THEMSELVES, which were very impressive. It was on this excursion that we witnessed Angkor Wat itself, the feature temple of the complex.

We spent a lot of time in tuk tuks, travelling from one temple to another and to a small mountain. I found the tuk tuks very conducive to sleeping so I indulged in this behavior. We hiked up a 1.4 km trail to a temple on what must have been the only mountain in Cambodia; Cambodia is VERY FLAT. The hike was fine and there were some very nice views. We past a tour group of senior citizens; I was astonished at the ease with which they ascended this treacherous height. One old Chinese man had a foot long clump of hair, one centimeter in diameter, coming off the left hand side of his chin.