Ankor Wat is the #1 site in the world currently by almost all travel guides.  Which means it is overrun by tour buses and mobs of people following a guide with a colorful umbrella. We decided to forgo that route and just found a tuk tuk.   This was my first tuk tuk experience and man am I in love.   They put a trailer hitch on the back of a motorcycle, hook on an open air, covered wagon, and take you anywhere you want for half a day for the fixed price of $8.  And while you stumble among the secret gardens of the temples, the tuk tuk driver just strings up his hammock between the benches and takes a nap.  What a life. [Ed. note: magical country it is]

Okay, rewind…last we left you, we were freezing in Moscow before hightailing it to Thailand…so how in the world am I now in Cambodia?  For that, I blame (or thank rather) our friends in Hong Kong.   When we were plotting our adventure and had only the major flights lined up, we connected with our most adventurous friends (we met in Antarctica, enough said…) to see if they wanted to meet up at any point on their half of the globe. They told us under no uncertain terms that we had to go to Cambodia, and so we booked a flight right away because these are the kind of people you listen to on once in a lifetime trip suggestions!  Unfortunately, with our flights in and out of Thailand locked in place and still wanting to see a lot of the country, we could devote exactly 23 hours to the lovely Siem Reap.   Not a lot of time, but enough for a crash course and a promise to be back.

To make life simple, I pre-booked us in a hotel with included airport pick up, dinner, breakfast, and a sunrise tuk tuk tour of Ankor Wat.  With this being my first time in Asia, I didn’t realize that those tuk tuks were a general way of life and not just a tourist draw, but when the driver from the hotel stood holding my name on a sign, I followed him to what I expected to be a lovely air conditioned SUV to rest in my (still ripped) jeans and long sleeve shirt… but instead of the joy of AC, we had the wonders of open air and the hope that a motorbike could tug along our overstuffed backpacks to some unknown hotel location between the airport and the temples…

When we arrived quickly and surprisingly not melting with the heat yet, we decided to drop our stuff and go find the temples at sunset to make the most of our 23 hour detour. The same tuk tuk driver (who became our personal tour guide this trip) was on board to take us back out and he loaded our more appropriated attired selves back into the trailer to find the ancient ruins. [Ed. note: temples close at sunset, so I wasn’t about to waste a couple hours sleeping when we could go catch sunset at Angkor Wat!] This place was slammed.  I thought I understood tour buses and crowds around the Colosseum, the Louvre, Buckingham Palace…but Europe had nothing on this.  Every inch of sidewalk was crowded and we were pushed and pulled as people filed in and out of the tiny, old doorways.   Thank goodness my husband is so tall, it is honestly the only reason we haven’t been lost yet on this trip–he knows that I can always find him in a crowd so he just stays put if I get separated!

Ankor Wat is stunning.  At sunrise it was a hundred times better, but even in the sticky, crowded evening it caused us to pause and wonder how and what and why.   There are walls and walls carved with intricate details and rooms upon rooms that have withstood the test of times.   This structure looked almost like burned wood, but it was just some intricate aging on stone in the rainforest.  We did a quick look and knew we were coming back tomorrow to explore more, so we started to find our way out…and then my husband made a terrible error in judgement…he let me look at the shops.   I have 2 sisters and grew up super girly…shopping is part of my DNA basically.   And shopping in Cambodia where 4,000 riel is $1 makes things seem expensive but really be a bargain… So I browsed and I touched and I pondered…and then I remembered how heavy that damn backpack was already and said “maybe tomorrow” as a way to put those overly pushy vendors at bay…forgetting I would in fact be back at this temple tomorrow!

Five am came quickly and we picked up our breakfast boxes and loaded up into our favorite tuk tuk for another attempt at the greatest destination on Earth.  The sun rose slowly which should have allowed ample time to capture that perfect shot of the temples reflecting over the pond…except for the flashes.   Why do people insist on shooting everything with a flash on?  It doesn’t improve pictures, it doesn’t help the natural light, it only messes up the light for everyone around who knows how to set a camera and get a shot!  (Rant over….for now…)  After the light came into the sky, the temple cleared.   It was crazy–tour buses of people had flooded the lawn 20 minutes before and now we were almost alone inside the walls wandering the halls.  As we worked our way inside, my husband kept looking up…yes, he had found something he wanted to climb.   In the middle of the temple was a tower…which did not open until 7:40 am according to the amusement park style signs and “average wait time” entrance signs to go up.  Well it was only 5:45 now, so that simply would not do.   After a few glances around to check the (lack of a) crowd, the guard offered to allow us up right now but we’d pay extra…40,000 extra in fact.  $10?  Sold.   Lead the way.   And so we jumped a fence, climbed the steep stairs, and took a private tour of the Buddhist holy grounds around the entire top of Angkor Wat….and about halfway around we realized that he probably didn’t work for the temples and the guy he gave our money to probably was getting half as look out and not to hold the donation as we suspected…Oops? [Ed. note: you could tell that place gets slammed all day long. Gates to corral people around the top, steep stairs, waiting signs, a legit extra cost to go in…and we bribed our way in for a private sunrise tour.]

With Ankor Wat mastered (including a stop back to the shops to look at a cute dress that I decided was too short) and still most of the day left before our flight, we roused our tuk tuk driver from his hammock and requested a few more stops.   Siem Reap is littered with amazing temples and the tour buses only seem to care about the main event.   Sad for those people, but oh so lucky for us.   We spent the rest of the morning wandering around even more stunning (but smaller) temple ruins–including both of our favorite which was literally overgrown by trees (they filmed Tomb Raider here…) [Ed. note: I loved the forest temple. Temple ruins, overrun by the rain forest. Badass beyond belief.] Most of the day it was us and a handful of monks climbing the crumbled stones and bowing to the Buddha statues.  I could have easily spent a week here and before we left the 2nd temple we were already planning when to return to see the rest because we knew that we could only touch on the magnificent beauty of this area.  What an excellent detour to take!

So it was still before noon…and I was still thinking about shopping.   So our beloved tuk tuk driver took me back to Ankor Wat for a 3rd time (is it becoming like Vatican City??) and man did those vendors swarm.   Everyone of them whom I promised to come back to tomorrow remembered us (I blame my tall husband…) and started pulling my arms into their shops!  It was like a tug of war littered by scarves and post cards.   Luckily, the owner of the short dress shop found her way into the hoard and led me back to the stall where I played dress up that morning.   After much thought all day, I decided it would make a nice tunic and ended up with my first souvenir of the trip!   Next, I’m going to try to buy some Asian jeans…