Nothing like more travel, free travel, and a whole lot of Karaoke…

 

Sooo, last Friday Betsy, her roommate Sabila (German and I totally butchered her name), myself and a bunch of Sabila’

s Cambodian co-workers from the travel company, Exotisimo rode up in a Camry to Siem Reap, the major city next to the Angkor temples.  On our way up we stopped in a village---don’t ask me where—for one of Sabila's co-worker's wedding!  Now weddings in Cambodia are not just a big deal, they are HUGE and involve a huge production.  Colorful plastic tents are pitched anywhere-- the side of the road, sidewalks in Phnom Penh, the middle of villages, and they shelter the wedding guests, band, food, and wandering animals.  The bride is decked out in bright colors and according to tradition changes multiple times, from my understanding, in order to display that the family can afford the momentous occasion.   Anyways, we arrived at this particular wedding a little late, but just in time for all of the dancing and eating.  Lan and his beautifully adorned wife wearing a bright blue sparkly wedding dress, fake curls, and layers of make-up, immediately greeted us and related how much of an honor it was for them to have three foreigners attend their wedding party.  We were fed plenty of beef, veggies, rice, Angkor beer, and motioned by everyone to join in the circular patterned dancing.  For those of you who really know me, you know I love, love, love to dance so it was fun to try out the small steps and move my wrists and hands in Apsara dancer-ish motions and occasionally do the same dance to Cambodian-rap-R&B (i.e. Kanye, Beyonce or Jay-Z "dubbed" over).  We ate and danced for a few hours until late and when my feet (in heels) grew tired, I sat down and made friends with two little girls.  Johnny Walker eventually made it over to our table and our Cambodian travel buddies (6 guys, 2 girls all in their late 20s) took care of him, as is tradition, to toast until the last drop.  We slept that night in the village in a traditional house (wooden, raised on stilts off the ground), on straw mats laid over the polished floor.  I suppose I would say I slept rather comfortably minus the 4am Karaoke signing interruption. 

The next morning we packed back into two cars and rolled out to Siem Reap, our second destination.   2 pit stops involving breakfast (hot bowl of noodles and iced coffee in plastic bags), and three hours later, we arrived at the Exotisimo Siem Reap office to collect their colleagues and head over to the Tara Hotel (5-Star accommodations) for a free lunch buffet, which took another 3 hours.   Then the girls and I headed over to our second 5 star hotel, Le Mandarin to check in for our free hotel stay.  It’s good to know someone in the tourism business haha.  The hotel was gorgeous and we were given a suite, which came with interesting welcome cocktail concoctions, a chocolate Angkor Wat, two marshmallows, and best of all A BED!!!!

Side-note: Back in Phnom Penh I sleep on a futon and egg-crate mattress, quite comfortably I may add (minus a cockroach visitor or two during the night), BUT it was definitely nice to have a raised bed again.

 

We spent the evening lounging about in the Angkor-architectural design inspired pool and then Betsy and I headed over to Angkor Wat in a tuk-tuk to try and catch the sunset.  That night we met up with Eric, Sabila’s Filipino friend, ate a wonderful Margarita Pizza downtown.  Siem Reap is a very tourist-y, and international little city with shaded trees and bridges, which also provided a nice change from the non-public "parks'' in Phnom Penh.   Interestingly enough, we ran into Daniela and the Pepy Ride people who now have their headquarters in Siem Reap so it was good to run into another Domer.

Even though I was falling asleep by 10pm, that night would have been incomplete without my first real trip to a full-fledged Karaoke Bar called... “The Pyramid.”  The place was just outside of the city, and it could have looked like a pyramid, not sure, but it definitely had strange little pyramids inside and hundreds (may not be an exaggeration) of doors.  Inside each of these doors God only knows what was going, but inside our door we found our Cambodian friends, sitting around a large room staring at a 

screen with… More Karaoke (in Cambodia Karaoke is on ALL the time, as in picture having MTV on all the time, except with people signing in cheesy country settings about wanting a wife).  The good thing is that the microphone and sound system was so loud that I could easily hide my voice when singing to English songs like Phil Collins and besides, the Cambodians were so into it that probably 75% of the songs were in Khmer and I only had to dance in circles most of the time.  

 

We went to bed at 2:00am and at 4:30am Betsy and I got the wake-up call so we could catch sunrise at Angkor Wat and really tour the temples.  Despite the lack of sleep, I absolutely loved and enjoyed exploring three of the temples, Bayon, Ta Phrom, and Angkor Wat.  Each has a distinct beauty and mystery around it and I half-wished I had watched Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raiders before coming. As I explored each little corner, crumbling path, climbed steep steps, and stared at the carved stone faces of Buddhist Gods, Elephants, and half-human half-bird carvings I was constantly reminded of the Mayan pyramids in Tikal and the Yucatan that also share that same mystery and wonder that comes when exploring the chambers and worship centers where civilizations once lived.  The best part was stumbling across a Buddhist nun in Ta Phrom, and receiving a blessing as she tied a little red string around my right wrist.

After a couple hours of exploring, a free buffet breakfast back at the hotel, more exploring, delicious 5 star showers, and one last stop at the Blue Pumpkin ice-cream and bread place (one vanilla cone and one mango danish to go), the girls and I checked out and jumped aboard a bus that would take us 6 rainy hours back to Phnom Penh. As you can probably tell, I've clearly spent more time traveling (this weekend I'm off to Kep!) than I have in Phnom Penh, but this way I feel like I'm getting more of an idea of what the rest of Cambodia is like, which will only help me to better understand the lives of locals and foreigners within the country, the problems that haunt a traumatized society, and maybe help me figure out where I will fit in as I look to volunteer and/or find permanent employment.