Angkorwat with Pharell

yo kids. after a long day (completed before noon) at Angkorwat, we all all wiped and pumped to get some sleep. quick update on the last two days.

Monday morning we caught the 7 30 bus to Siem Riep (after staying up to watch the heart braking US loss to Brazil in the Confed Cup final). After a painfully bumpy bus ride (which Kyle somehow enjoyed), we arrived at our guesthouse, Rosy's, in Siem Riep. Turned out to be a legit place with a pool hall and extremely friendly staff including the manager, Smiley. After some grub, we caught the sunset (aka cloudy horizon) from atop the Ba Keng, temple/hill. Although underwheming because of the weather, it was still worth the attempt.

Next was dinner at the Red Piano (nice place, decent food) and walking around the surprisingly nice and fun nightlife area in Siem Riep. We saw some of a Apsara dance show and played some pool (trying to become pool sharks before the trip is over) and then turned in for the night.

Today, we got up at 4 30 am to catch the sunrise over Angkorwat, which was definitely worth it and quite beautiful. Then, on to exploring Angkorwat, which was amazing simply for its enormous scale and a number of other temple ruins within the Angkor complex including Bayon (legit architecture with faces carved into the pillars), Baphuon (under renovation), Terrance of Elephants, Ta Keo (tallest wat in the complex with sweet views), Ta Prohm (jungle temple aka the Tomb Raider temple where some of the movie was shot, including some awesome giant tree/root/temple combinations), and Banteay Kdei and Sras Srang (the last wat ruin we saw and the adjacent lake/pool).

Another note from today was that the children and adults selling everything from water to large paintings were overwhemingly persistant and difficult to say no to. At almost every stop, we would encounter numerous locals, typically young children, attempting to sell them products with a variety of methods. The children were quite difficult to resist whether they tried to be happy and cute or very sad and pleading. We certainly empathasized with them, leading to a number of purhases, although we were never able to satisfy the abundance of sellers. The most effective selling method of the day was delivered by a young girl who said her name was 'Crazy Girl'. Crazy Girl was able to answer the capital of almost every state in the US and after naming Raleigh as the capital of NC, I couldn't resist buying from her, although I didnt need/want anything at the time.

Overall, the temple complex was really impressive and incredible to see first-hand. Also impressive was that we were able to complete all of this touring before 11am, along with the help and transport of our tuk tuk driver, 'Pharell', (everyone has American-esque nicknames for the tourists sake). Effectively watted out, we had lunch a Thai-Western restaurant, gotta please the whole fam, and are about to pass out of exhaustion and get ready for a night out on the town.

PS - the blog has covered everything so far but some of my highlights from the past week or so were: waterfall rapelling (my favorite day of the trip so far), getting a new nickname, 'Lucky', from one of the monks we chatted with, trying bamboo shoot soup in the Karen village where we stayed, our rafting guide named 'Jack Sparrow', and Mr. Sun's 'blue' steak (rarest yet cooked with love)