Day 4 and 5

Day 4 found us up at 6:00am which may sound early but most of us were up by at least 4:00am every morning anyway... the joys of jetlag.

We caught a plane to fly up to a northern city in Cambodia called Siem Reap where they have these old rock temples called Angkor Wat. It was soo cool to walk through these ruins that were hundreds of years old and be able to touch everything. We decided that in the next couple of years they probably won't let people climb all over these things.

There was evidence of the Khmer Rouge war all over the temples. This picture you can see that most of these statues have new heads put on them. The Khmer Rouge came through and destroyed these statues, they knocked the heads off and there are gun shot holes all throughtout the temples.

This is a picture of the actual Angor Wat temple. It was so amazing to see. There were monks inside praying. It reminded me of a movie set for an old Roman movie. Well, minus the monks. Oh yeah, it was pouring rain on us here... so enjoyable to be wet from the rain and still sweating from the humidity and heat.

Here is a picture of a couple of faces that they made out of the rocks.

This is something we saw a lot of at Angkor Wat. These trees that are hundreds of years old had roots that had grown over the rock ruins. It was so amazing to see, but as I look back at the pictures now, I am so creeped out... I don't know!

This is our prop plane that we took to fly from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. I am such a dork to pose out in the front of it like that. I think the guy in the tie was telling me to get away from the luggage...

Here is our hotel in Siem Reap. So when I told you I had been in Cambodia, did anyone ever think I would be staying in something like this... me either. I thought we would be in cots with mosquito nets around us. This was the nicest hotel we stayed in on our entire trip. Every room had these dark wood floors. It was beautiful.


Day 4 was also known as the down fall... this was the night I got sick. During the day at Angkor Wat we stopped at this tent and ate lunch in the middle of nowhere... should that not have been my first clue. So by about 1:00 in the morning I was not well and it lasted all the next day... But I hung tough. Really you have no choice.

Day 5 started with us touring around Siem Reap waiting for our plane to leave to take us back to Phnom Penh. We went to a place called Angkor Artisans where you can watch people make these handmade crafts that are for sale. I got the coolest painting of an elephant. There were these 16 women who were handpainting these pictures and they were all deaf.

Well one of the guys in my class whose wife knows sign language started to talk to them and they were so happy to have someone to talk to. They just kept laughing and telling her how embarressed they were to talk in front of all of us. I guess to have 34 people staring at you can be a little intimidating.

A couple of us found a pizza place and it tasted so good.... I thought I might live after eating normal food. Then we found the convenience store. Notice the name... I thought it was funny.

I also managed to slice my finger open on Day 5 (day 4 and 5 were not good to me). I was in the bathroom at Angkor Artisans and the latch got stuck and I had that panickly feeling that I was going to be left to die in a bathroom in Siem Reap Cambodia, never to be heard from again... Anyway I ripped open the latch and my finger was sliced open. I seriously thought I was going to have to get stitches in Cambodia. Not a fun thought. Luckily one of the guys from school was an EMT up at Alta Ski Resort and he had his first aid kit and he cleaned it up and bandaged it. It was touch and go, but I made it.

Actually I will be honest with you, I missed John and Morgan so much and I was sick and I cut my finger.... I wanted to go home!!!!