Sweating the Small Stuff

Cambodia was . . . interesting. We started off on the wrong foot. The airport was pretty ghetto too. After we arrived at the Siem Reap airport, we had to get off on the tarmac and walk a bit to immigration. One thing many of you probably don’t know about Cambodia is that they mostly use American dollars because their currency is very unstable. Their currency (the Riel) is used as change instead of coins. To my knowledge, the fee for a visa into the country is $25 (which is paid and processed at the airport). However, it is very normal for them to state a higher price (otherwise known as a bribe) of $30. No problem, we had $63. And then the problems started. We needed 2 passport photos (which we accidentally packed in our luggage instead of our carry-ons). Also, for some reason, they were charging $32 per visa which left us a dollar short. I was freaking out at this point and quite nervous, when they counted our cash and said, “One more dollar.” (Hannah says that she saw an ATM before the immigration line, but I didn’t see any.) Luckily, I was able to bribe him with some Malaysian money that we had left over which he grudgingly accepted. We were told to go to a different spot where, vuala, our passports were with visas inside. Crisis averted.

After taking a tuk tuk (small carriage pulled by a small motorcycle) to our hotel, we decided to relax a bit. I’m really kicking myself for forgetting to take pictures though. Our hotel was AMAZING! I was a bit skeptical about the 4-star rating it had, but it didn’t disappoint. (If you want to, you can look up pictures of Moon

The next day, we set out to see the temples. By the end of the day, I had taken over 500 pictures. These temples were really cool. What made it even cooler was how the jungle was slowly overtaking them. Nearly every stone and rock used to make them was intricately carved with designs and figures. I can’t even imagine the amount of work that went into them. Another thing that impressed us was their size which was definitely much taller than I imagined. We learned that first day that Richard Simmons would have no bright career in Cambodia. “Sweating to the 80’s” kind of loses its appeal when you’re sweating all of the time. It wasn’t so bad in the shade, but the sun was a killer.

We spent the next day in the town looking around at the different tourist traps. I was shocked by how cheap everything was: a large fruit smoothie for a dollar, a 30 minute foot massage for a dollar. A meal for 2-3 dollars, it was a miser’s paradise. After walking around for some time though, I began to feel something different. I noticed how impoverished a lot of these people were, and I think it affected both of us in a way.

Hannah was feeling a little bit sick before we left for Bangkok on the bus. Now that we are here, she still isn’t feeling much better, so you can pray that she will be back to her usual self in no time. She was a trooper on the 7-hour bus ride. We’re just at the hotel now taking it easy. In 2 days, we’ll be on a plane to Krabi, Thailand.