Cambodia: Phnom Penh and Siem Reap

We only spent a week in Cambodia- but it definitely made an imprint. Its a country that so recently witnessed horrendous events, suffered terribly under a gruesome regime, yet its a beautiful place, with rice paddies that have palms trees and cattle sporadically placed throughout them, and people that have know how to laugh.

We spent our first couple of nights in Phnom Penh, where we went to the war museum, killing fields and the palace. It was strange to see those all in the same day, to combine the splendor of palaces with the terrors of genocide.
This is the monument at the killing fields,where they are still finding and excavating mass graves.

Below is the palace in the city: At the end of this trip I am going to count how many pics I have of me, my water bottle, and some noteworthy site - Behind me is the silver pagoda- its neither looks silver nor like a pagoda to me :)
After Phnom Penh we headed north to Siem Reap via bus. At the rest stop along the way we had the chance to purchase some tarantulas from this lady for a snack- we declined.All the kids selling snacks had tarantulas too, not to eat though- they were pets- one girl had fun shoving the spider in my face while I very quickly moved away and held in squeals.

Our first night in Siem Reap and Angkor Wat we went to one of the many temples to watch the sunset- along with half the tourists in the area :)
The following day we hopped on bikes a began to tour around- it was cool, yet kind of strange, because we were able to climb all over the ruins which date back 1000 years.
amy navigatingme and my water bottle again :) This time posing with a cool tree.


The second day we took a tuk tuk- which is something like a rickshaw pulled by a motorbike- to explore some of the temple further away, and to catch the sunrise. Unfortunately our driver ran out of gas in the morn so we missed the first part- oops.yummy cambodian food- this had banana leaf blossom in it- I didn't even know that was edible- it was tasty.These kids were great- half of them came up to me while I was biking around- then the other half decided I was safe and joined their friends. We played the standard high five game of "up high, to the side, to the other side, down low, too slow" :)