home sweet home :)

We're back from Cambodia! I'll try to be detailed but concise at the same time about our trip...

*Thursday: took a 4 hour bus ride to Surin, a town close to the Thailand/Cambodia border. great town that wasn't too big or too small...

*Friday: left in the morning for the border...made it across fine with no visa problems. definitely a distinct difference between Thailand and Cambodia. we've heard it said that Cambodia is like Thailand 10 years back--i'd say that's true from the looks of the land. it's gorgeous, but dirtier and not as advanced. we took a car taxi on the 4 hour dirt road to Siem Reap.
Had to get adjusted to the right side of the road again, after being in Thailand for the last month where they drive on the opposite side of the road like England :)
Siem Reap--VERY touristy town. kind of freaked us out when we saw white people walking down the streets everywhere...went to the Angkor National Museum, which was great to learn about so much Khmer history and culture. we also visited the night market which was fun, but way too tempting to spend money on so many bargains!

*Saturday: headed to ANGKOR WAT at 5am to see the sunrise at the temple...it's hard to even describe how incredible Angkor Wat is! absolutely huge and makes for great pictures...it was cool to imagine what it was like at the peak of its day with the Khmer people living there. i can't wait to post pictures! we spent pretty much 3/4 the day going to all the temples--besides Angkor Wat there were 4 or 5 others, I can't quite remember right now how many. they all had such distinctly different architecture that was neat to see and i couldn't believe that there were that many temples within such a close range to each other.
at one of the temples called Bayon we enjoyed riding an elephant around the temple grounds. it was like you'd imagine riding one--very slow and steady ;)

Later that afternoon, our tuk-tuk driver drove us out to a lake where you could ride a boat 10km out to a floating village...once we got out there we decided we were burnt out on spending money, so we opted out on the boat ride but we're really glad we got to have the long drive out there to see rural Cambodia. Lots of Khmer people bustling about and stick houses on stilts above the beautiful rice fields...

*Sunday: we hopped on a bus to go to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia...not quite as touristy as Siem Reap, but still a big city nonetheless. after finding our guesthouse, we strolled around the city and enjoyed a watermelon smoothie in the middle of the market :) that night we enjoyed some delicious Khmer food at a street restaurant--loklak beef, fried rice, and grilled frog...like I said-- so delicious! I think this was everyone's favorite meal the whole trip.

*Monday: spent the morning going to see and learn about the Khmer Rouge--extremely eye-opening and interesting...first we went to S-21, which was a high school that PolPot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, converted into a torture prison. within a 3 or 4 year period, about 20,000 people had passed through the prison...we saw pictures of people of all ages who had been prisoners, pictures of torture methods, and prison cells they had kept people in. it's hard to describe in words the terrible destruction this caused to the country and people of Cambodia. I would love to explain more about the event, but for the sake of time and blog space, I'll just keep writing about the trip--but I'd encourage you to read more about the Khmer Rouge for the sake of learning...
After S-21, we headed about 20km out to the killing fields, where Polpot's combatants would take prisoners to be executed...there were many mass graves there and a monument to remember those who lost there lives there.

That afternoon we caught a flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok, where thankfully we got the exact amount of days on our visa to stay in the country until August 4th, the day we come back to the states--God is so good!
we immediately hopped a bus to Nakhon Ratchasima (also known as Khorat), which is in the biggest province in Thailand...we stayed the night there in a nice hotel and got to sleep in after all that traveling :)

*Tuesday: travel back to Mahasarakham!! we are all so happy to be back here. You should have seen us when we got to the Bangkok airport cause we were all so giddy and loved being able to even say Sawadee Ka and have them understand us! I absolutely loved getting to go to Cambodia, but after being ripped off as tourists in big cities, I am really glad to be back in a small familiar town where we know how to get around and live like Thais...

sorry this one ran long, but I hoped you enjoyed getting to learn some about Cambodia... I have so many more stories to tell, but until my next post--Sawadee Ka!