Cambodia

While I spent over a week in Cambodia, I didn't get to spend much time exploring. The day I arrived was the final day of a three day New Year's celebration.

I hopped in my Grab at the airport and the driver handed me a cold water, which was much appreciated since it was nearly 100 degrees and humid. Then he joked, 'do you like beer?'. Yeah.... So he went back to the trunk where his cooler was and pulled out a cold local beer! Best Grab ever!

He said there would be a lot of traffic going into Siem Reap bc of the holiday and would I mind if he went through the villages instead of the (newly constructed) highway. It was afternoon so I felt relatively comfortable with the change of route. It turned out to be a highlight, seeing the villages and the people out celebrating with music, food and spraying water on each other and all the passing cars and motorbikes.

The next two evenings were basically big street parties, with people walking or riding in the back of pick ups or on motorbikes, splashing and spraying each other or smearing their faces with baby powder. (No one could really explain why they did the powder thing but it was fun).

The first full day I was there a lot of sites (museums, etc) were closed for the holiday but the local handicrafts market was open. It was wonderful to talk directly with the makers and know that they were getting the money directly, not through some middle man taking a cut. I'm bringing home a hand carved sandstone Buddha, a silver necklace that says 'love' in Khmer and a pendant made of brass recycled from shell casings.

APOPO is a Belgian company and is another organization that is helping to remove some of the vast amount of UXO that the USA dropped on the country in the 70's. They train African Giant Pouched Rats (much cuter than they sound) which they call HeroRats, to detect landmines and unexploded ordnance. (In other locations they also train them to detect tuberculosis!). https://apopo.org

Demonstration of how they sweep in a grid pattern

Angkor wat was the main purpose of visiting siem reap (before I booked the wellness retreat). I've read about all the temples in the area since my history of architecture classes in college and needed to see it for myself. The temple complex is Huge (402 acres) and there are many temples beyond the ones you see in the sunrise photos. I wanted to what I was looking at so I hired a guide for the day. I went to Angkor wat, Bayon, Ta Keo and Banteay Kdei.

This time of year is just past tourist season and it's starting to get hotter before the monsoon season begins, as early as May. I knew this when I planned it but I don't think I expected it to be quite so hot and humid. Every day that I was in Cambodia the weather forecast said 'extreme heat warning' and it would reach 100 degrees and high humidity by 2 pm. So not the most optimal time to tour temples starting at noon. (Duh). But this was a once in a lifetime opportunity so off you go!

The main temple in impressive, especially viewed along the east / west access (like the sunrise photos), with the five towers. It also has an extensive amount of mural like carvings on the walls along the exterior gallery that are in excellent condition. The guide pointed out interesting portions and gave sometimes funny descriptions which made me question if they were just conjecture for entertaining tourists. The view from the upper floors is impressive. Thankfully they have constructed (very steep) wooden stairs with railings to getup there. Apparently visitors kept falling... (!)

Bayon is the temple that was featured in Tomb Raider and it was swarming with people jockeying for the best photo op. My guide had a great trick using panorama mode to get the height of the tree.

The final week of my trip I spent at wellness retreat. I thought this would be a good transition between traveling and heading home, and it was exactly that. On the fifth day we went to Angkor wat for a sunrise meditation, which was really special.

I'm not going to go into detail about the retreat and my personal insights but I will say that I was surrounded a community of some of the most amazing, supportive and caring people that I could have asked for. I made friendships during those six days that I believe I will have for life. <3

With Gloria and Karen on the final day in front of one of TWO lotus ponds

A few of the 'sneaky coffee's crowd...

I'm am a bit behind on posting, mostly because we were on a digital detox at the retreat, so I didn't have a phone or tablet to post from. Spoiler alert! I'm back home in Boston now. I arrived late last night, after three flights and nearly 24 hours of travel. It's good to be home but I'm still processing all my adventures. I look forward to catching up with all of you that have read along with my adventures! Thank you for joining me!