Cambodia - Siem Reap (Angkor Wat)

After our stay in Phnom Penh we climbed on a bus and headed north up to Siem Reap. Siem Reap is a small town in the north very close to Thailand, and is the jumping off point to visit the ancient Khmer temples, like Angkor Wat. It is a cute little tourist town full of delicious restaurants, guesthouses, and very cheap beer. The tour company that booked our bus gave us a free tuk tuk ride from the bus stop to our hotel, which was pretty much giving our driver the opportunity to have the first crack at getting our business as a driver for the temples. We accepted, and Ra became our tour guide for the next three days carting us from temple to temple and offering small tid bits or history in broken English.
Our guest house was this cozy little place with a garden and hammocks out front. I fell in loooove with hammocks on this trip and even decided to buy one at the market. It is was the very last thing I need to be carting around in my pack, but I couldn't resist the heavenly comfort.
The first night we went to a restaurant called the dead fish cafe. It used to be a crocodile farm, and they still have two of their animals remaining for entertainment. You can pay 50cents and feed them. An interesting thing about Cambodia is that all prices are listed in dollars. Even ATMs feed you dollars. They have their own currency but it is so weak that it is never used. If you bought something that was under a dollar the change would be in Riel, but that was the only time I ever had any cash.
Weed is not technically legal in Cambodia, but there are these 'happy' pizza parlors all over the place.
The first day we went to see Angkor Wat at sunrise. I wasn't a big fan of waking up so early, but it was definitely worth seeing it. I took about 5 million pictures of all the different temples, but here are just a few of my favorite shots. They are so huge and impressive that it would be impossible for me to show in just a few pictures. Unfortunately a lot of the carvings were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge during the war. A lot of the fighters stationed themselves in these temples as a kind of fort. At one point we went up to this river that had carvings along the bank and was a bit far away from town. Ra told us that until a few years ago it was closed to tourists because there were still a few Khmer strongholds in this area.

Some of the stairs up to the top of the temples were VERY steep. There was one set that Ra warned us was a little rocky. The steps were about 2 feet tall and maybe 6 inches deep and were not in the best condition. Going up was fine, but I was terrified to peer down. When you walked up to them from the top it just looked like a sheer drop until you were right next to it.

A few of the temples were kind of taken over by the jungle around them. There were a lot of giant trees growing up from the middle of the rocks.
At every temple there was a group of really cute kids trying to sell you bracelets, scarves, drinks, postcards, weird musical instruments, or really anything they could find. Both me and Pam were suckers for them and I ended up with way too many bracelets.
In both Cambodia and Vietnam I was really impressed with the things that people managed to carry on their bikes and motor bikes. In Vietnam we watched a guy load 3 full arm chairs and drive away. I don't know how this guy balanced or made turns.Our absolute favorite food was banana pancakes. I could eat them for every single meal.
This is amok, a kind of curry that often comes in banana leaves.
For our night out on the town we went to a bar called Angkor What? where you can sign the walls. We ended up making some friends and returned for a sequel.
Fish massage came with a free beer!

Cambodia - Phnom Penh

After our boat trip over the border, we settled into Phnom Penh for 2 days.
The first day of the trip we went to see the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in the city. It is an old high school that was turned into a prison by the Khmer Rouge from 1975-1979. It was a very open building with a pretty green courtyard, so at first I could imagine it as a normal high school. But the rooms held remnants and pictures of life in the prison, including photos of many of the prisoners. They think up to 20,000 people passed through the prison, and the Khmer Rouge did a thorough job of documenting them all. They also had many of the rooms split up into tiny solitary cells and had examples of the devices used for torture.

After the prisoners were tortured and interrogated in the prison, they were taken to the nearby Killing Fields, where as the name suggests they were killed and buried in mass graves. The Khmer Rouge were communists who wanted this perfect agrarian society. They abolished money, sent people out of the cities to the country and into forced labor camps. They targeted anyone suspected of having a connection with the old government and intellectuals. It is thought that they executed over 200,000 people, but that over 2million died from disease and starvation. It's a very tragic and VERY recent past, so it's a hard thing to see.

This is a stupa that was built to memorialize those killed here. Inside are many of the bone remains and clothing from the prisoners.
After seeing the sad sites of Phnom Penh, we went for a more cheerful trip to the Grand Palace. It was a lot like the Grand Palace in Thailand, but also had some interesting French influences.
The river front was very pretty. We ate along here and had some drinks at night.
I found out just before leaving for my trip that I have a cousin who lives in Phnom Penh. My dad and her dad are cousins so I have no idea what that technically makes us...second cousins? They took me and Pam to this great restaurant that trains street kids how to work in restaurants. It was a really cool place with delicious food. It's amazing how small the world is sometimes!

Crossing the Border on the Mekong River

After spending our time in Ho Chi Minh, it was time to head west to Cambodia. I had heard bad things about buses in Veitnam, and was advised to instead take boats as much as possible. We also wanted to explore the Mekong Delta, so we signed up for a 2 day trip ending in Phnom Penh. The backpacker areas in these big cities come equipped with all things a traveler needs, including about a billion travel agents. It took about 10 minutes and 40 dollars to book our entire 2 day trip, and we were on our way! The whole trip was a strange combination of buses and boats where we were shuffled from one tour guide to the next. We had to be very trusting in these people because we had no idea where we were going or what was going on most of the time, but it turned out very well and was a relaxing trip. When we had to cross the border we simply had to get off the boat, wait about 30 minutes for our passports to be processed and sailed happily into Cambodia.

Pam on the very first boat.

One of our first stops was the floating markets. I was afraid it was going to be over touristy, but I think it was actually pretty legit. This is a place where farmers come to sell their produce in bulk. They pack up their boats, come to the market, and stay until they have nothing left. To show people what each boat has for sale, they hang a sample of their produce from a pole, and shoppers go from boat to boat checking prices. It's a really cool system!

A woman selling lychees in the market.

We were also taken to a market where people were making very traditional Vietnamese foods like coconut candy and rice paper. This guy is making popped rice (just like pop corn!).

We went to a fish farm. It was like a house boat floating on the water with a giant fish tank underneath and a VERY strong smell. The fish were pretty packed inside, and when the guide put this food in the water they flopped around like crazy.

Both me and Pam celebrated our birthdays on these boats. Not a horrible way to celebrate.

Our lunch - elephant ear fish

Old woman making coconut cakes on the street

We visited a Muslim minority village on the river. We walked past this really cute school where they were practicing for some sort of show. The kids just stood there and waved at us looking adorable.

Vietnam - Cu Chi Tunnels and Cao Dai Temple

I took a day trip from Saigon (or should I say Ho Chi Minh? I never know and people there call it both) to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Cao Dai Temple. The Cu Chi Tunnels are a series of underground tunnels that were used by the Viet Minh to fight against the French during the push for independence, and then were expanded and used by the Viet Cong to fight the US during the Vietnam war. There are a few series of tunnels farther north that were used as living quarters, but the ones I visited were used mostly for fighting. There were several layers of tiny little tunnels, and they were definitely built for people much smaller than I am.

There were some big entrances and went slowly into the ground, but there were also hidden entrances all over so that if they were being attacked they could flee quickly into the ground. They were very clever in all their planning, and thought of all the little things. For example, they used a kind of wood to make the doors to the entrances that would expand when wet. This sealed the entrances in rain and prevented the tunnels from being flooded.
They also obviously needed air holes, but having these directly in the ground would make the tunnels very obvious for enemy soldiers. So smartly they hide the air holes under fake ant hills like this one.
We were able to enter one of the tunnels and crawl for about 100meters. It was pretty claustrophobic and I barely fit. This is only the first layer of tunnels. They let us go down into the second but it would have involved crawling on my belly through the dark and I chickened out. The first one was enough for me.
You could also pay to shoot an AK47, which pretty much just freaked me out.
They also showed us all sorts of morbid traps used by the Viet Cong. This was one example, where it looked like grass but when you stepped on it it would rotate you and flip you down to the metal spikes below.

The same day I also went to see the nearby Cao Dai temple. Cao Dai is a religion founded in 1926 in Vietnam and it brings together a mix of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Catholicism (they even have a pope!). It's a pretty small religion and this colorful temple is the world headquarters and we were able to watch part of a prayer service.

Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh, or Saigon City, is a crazy crazy crazy place. They say there are 11million people in the city, and 4million scooters. I thought that I was used to scooters after living in Taiwan, but I was in for quite a lesson trying to cross the streets of Ho Chi Minh. There are very few traffic lights in the city, so most of the time you have to brave your way across a busy street with no help. Every time I had the initial rush of fear as I stepped of the curb, playing frogger to avoid the massive wave of scooters parting around me. And then I had a rush or relief and satisfaction when I made it safely across. A few times after staring at the street and looking terrified, a stranger would grab my hand and lead my safely across the street. I think they could sense my fear and took pity on me.
Along with the hoards of scooters there are people approaching you every second to try to sell drinks, food, sunglasses, and rides. I was impressed with both the entrepreneurship and persistence of these people, along with how well many of them spoke English.

I bought dried bananas and waffle cookies from this woman. She had a grill and was cooking them right on the street.

This guy drove me around and gave me a tour of the city. I met him because I was staring at a super scary street and attempting to cross. He made his way out in front and blocked traffic for me, so I felt obliged to take a ride. In Vietnam I was a little nervous to tell people I was American because I thought there may be some resentment, but I found everyone to be insanely friendly. Most of the drivers would tell me they fought for the US in the war, and a few even had pictures of themselves with American soldiers.

Guys were all around offering rides, and would sometimes just take naps on their scooters.

I loved these contraptions they had to carry drinks and food.You could also buy knock offs of any brand you can dream of. By accident I even got this water thinking it was Aquafina. Clever...

There is a lot of old French architecture left in the city. Here are some examples:

The Opera House

The Old Post Office

Notre Dame Cathedral

This is the old palace. When the French ruled Vietnam this was the governers palace. When Vietnam was liberated from the french, it became the home for the president of South Vietnam. In 1975 a northern Vietnam tank crashed into the front gate of the palace forcing the South to officially surrender.

There was a childrens' day thing going on and there was a dragon dance. This little kid was part of the show and was the cutest thing ever.

Just north of the palace was a war museum. It used to be called the "US Army Crime Exhibition house", and was definitely very anti-America. It was a pretty intense museum and was hard to take, especially the section of the consequences of agent orange.