Seam Reap, Cambodia

Thursday night we boarded the night sleeper bus which departed at 1230am, now without any idea what the "night sleeper bus" was, we soon found out it was a normal grey hound bus with bunk beds in it. Trying to be as optimistic as possible we said to ourselves and each other this won't be that bad by the time we wake up we will be in Siem Reap. Walking onto the bus though the quarters and the isles were extremely tiny! Walking all the way to the back of the bus to find out our bed are on the top with no bars on the side to help prevent us from falling off the bed during the ride! Needless to say we all made it safe to Siem Reap with only about 2 hours sleep. Not wanting to waste our first day sleeping Kendal came up with a great idea to rent bikes for $1 to use as transportation around the small city. So while riding our bikes we came across a small shop filled with lotions, oils and different sorts of tea all made from a small backyard! It was called senteurs d'angkor. It was an arts and crafts shop which only used the resources produced from Cambodia to manufacture their products. We watched the whole assembly line for these products palm leaf weaved baskets and fresh ground up coffee mixed with herbs and spices such as lemongrass and cinnamon. After leaving the little factory we decided to grab some lunch at a local pub, the sign listed "WE DO NOT SERVE cat, rat, dog, monkey or worm!" so we figured it was a good place to go! Later we took a Tuktuk out to the floating villages where we caught a boat and were taken around to see how the people of these villages live completely on the water.. Their house, schools, markets, everything built on boats or floating bamboo bundles. It was really interesting to see but also so touristy that it made for a very uncomfortable time because it seemed like everyone was trying to scam you. Women in boats were coming around with their children who had snakes wrapped around their necks and tried to get you to pay for pictures with them. Our tour guide tried to take us to the market to buy food, books and pencils for the children at the floating orphanage, however boats and boats of tourist were docking at the orphanage doing the exact same thing. It really put a bad taste in our mouths and we just wanted to get out of there ASAP. That wasn't an issue though when we turned down our boat driver and guide when they told us to tip them (who just smoked and drank beer the entire time) as they drove like maniacs taking us back to shore and didn't say one word to us or help us off their boat! Haha! We did however enjoy a beautiful sunset in the tuktuk on our way back to town.
They next day we got up at 4am to make it to the temples before sunrise. It was amazing watching the sun come up over the Angkor Wat temples (also the 8th wonder of the world!) We spent the rest of the day seeing the ancient city of temples and even the temples where the movie tomb raider was filmed. For sunset, we hiked to the top of a valley hill and watch the sun set over the lush forest. That night was we went out for an amazing dinner and watched traditional Khmer dance. Afterwards we strolled the night markets and had a beer while we kicked back and stuck our feet into a tank of dead-skin-eating fish who cleaned our feet up for us perfectly! we retired to our nasty lime green hostel for $3.50 a night and slept like babies.
In the morning we shared a nice breakfast, hit the markets again and then got on the most ghetto supposed to 4 hour bus ride which turned into a 7 hour bus ride back to phnom penh.
Jeremy & Kendal