Monday, April 8, 2013

The Angkor Wat Special

Really sorry for not posting last night but I was very tired and more than a bit sick. It was a rough night. The last two days have been fun but exhausting. Boiling is a great way to describe how hot it was. I think we were all cooked sunny side up on those stones.

  • Saturday - Day One
    • Donna and I were relocated to the other hotel in the morning. This one has a pool and the room does not resemble a prison cell. Plus, we have a balcony. That overlooks piles of dirt. 
    • Got attacked by some monkeys. One jumped up on my shoulder only to be punched off by Drexler. Apparently monkeys are jerks. That one got banana goop on my back. No more monkeys.
    • Our first site was... a temple!! It had two stories but only Karen and I made it up to the the second one. We were accosted by some Thai tourists who just grabbed us and took pictures with us.
    • That was all we had in us for the morning. One quick lunch break and a quick conversion to worship the air conditioning machine later we went to the elephant terrace. Aptly named because of all the elephant statues. We walked along it and then came back. Well, 6/7 of us. Niko went off by himself on an adventure and left us waiting for him. In the heat. For thirty plus minutes. Most of us wanted to strangle him when he said he was looking for a place to nap. 
    • Last stop for the day was one of Papa Duck's favorite spots. Unfortunately the whole area is under construction and was fenced off to us. With an actual fence. The nice thing was that it was cooler. The bad part was all the sellers, especially this little girl that followed Donna for a half a mile and waited for her to come back. All she said was "two bracelets, one dollar; five bracelets, two dollars. You buy now??" It's was like an overplayed song, at first you like it and then it gets old. 
    • Karen and I scared Drexler by climbing out on this log that was over the lake and posing for pictures. Alessa thought it was a 'bad idea' (her catchphrase) so we had to do it. 
    • Upon arrival back at the hotel Karen, Deanna and I jumped in the pool. It was glorious. 
    • I lost the rest of the group and wandered around Pub Street by myself cursing them to hell and back. They noticed me randomly and started yelling my name and running like crazy. I had been in the ATM booth when they went into the mini-mart but didn't know where they were so I began walking and looking for them. After grabbing some food I went back to the hotel for some alone time. 
    • I passed out early and woke up at some point in the middle of the night in tremendous pain. Having left all my pills back in Panom Penh I woke up Donna to ask for some. She didn't have any so I asked her to go up to Karen, Deanna, and Alessa's room to ask for some. I was in the bathroom when I heard her come back. She went right back to bed and didn't bring any pills with her. 
  • Sunday
    • Found out the next morning that Donna was asleep the whole time and doesn't remember a thing. Except she had a dream about stairs and bed. We have no idea where she went last night. 
    • Headed out to Angkor proper this morning. It wasn't as impressive as I was hoping it would be. We couldn't go up to the top because we weren't dressed moderately enough (a new thing according to Drexler) and there were so many stairs everywhere it was a rather short visit. Of two hours. So many stairs. And tourists, so many tourists.
    • The first temple after lunch was the best one yet. Niko and I climbed and explored most of that temple. It's not kept up so there is rubble everywhere and places to explore. We spent at least two hours there just running around. I left first and had to walk about half a mile where I was constantly harassed by sellers who actually followed me for a bit trying to sell. This was nothing compared to Karen and Donna who had kids following them for half a mile before Drexler told them to leave. 
    • Our final Angkor Wat temple was the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider temple. I gave a short oral presentation on it and then we saw the stegosaurus. This was the most crowded place yet so we didn't stay long. It was also the smallest but held a population of 12,000 during it's golden years. 
    • We had dinner and a show tonight. Papa Duck took us to a buffet where dancers performed traditional dances during the meal. It was very well done. The costumes were amazing and the girls were very pretty. 
    • Drexler met Donna and I at the mini-mart and took us out for ice cream afterwords. It was a good ending. 
Picture Count: 55

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