My Trip to Cambodia, Part 1

Hey y'all!

Since I came back to Vietnam, I've been traveling extensively. One trip after another but I did not feel so tired. In fact, I've come to a realization that I love traveling, as long as it does not involve full body scans and waiting for hours at the airport. Traveling here in Vietnam is quite easy and inexpensive. When an opportunity arose for me to travel to Cambodia, I took it. And boy oh boy! It was fun!

It had been my dream to travel to Cambodia for such a long time and now that I got a chance to fulfill it, I felt very fortunate. Here is a recap of my 4-day, 3-night trip. I took a total of 766 photos and I decide to break it into a series of entries. Otherwise, I would be an intense (and long) entry!

Here it is. I hope you'll enjoy!

Day 1

Breakfast at Trang Bang, a province at the border of Vietnam and Cambodia
The soup was not all that, I guess they took us to the wrong restaurant :(

The herb smells like five-spice powder. I ate it with the soup and it was very yummy!

About to cross the Vietnam-Cambodia border
Same area but has different names: Moc Bai (Vietnam) and Bavet (Cambodia)

More pictures of my journey in Cambodia after the jump. So jump!

Somewhere in Cambodia. I took a picture of an ad about Angkor

Ate dinner at Pho Ha Noi/ Golden Cow restaurant
They sell Vietnamese food here with decent price and quality. I had a rice dish for dinner and I was FULL!

Angkor is a brand of Cambodian beer. This ad was everywhere.

The hotel. The room was big and very clean.
My roommate was an 81 year-old lady. We didn't know each other prior to the trip and she is the coolest 81 year-old lady I've ever known!

Day 2: Visiting Angkor, baby!

Map of Angkor

Angkor is a part of Siem Reap that consists of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and many other smaller temples, including Ta Prohm (where Angelina Jolie filmed Tomb Raider.) We spent the whole day there and it was divine!

Various trees and shrubs

We arrived at the Southern face of Angkor Thom. This was the entrance when the king came back victoriously from a battle. This side of the entrance had statues of gods...

while the other side has statues of the devils.
These statues depicted the battle between the Gods and the Devils for the Elixir of Youth. According to the tour guides, the Gods and the Devils had a truce: the Gods would hold the Elixir of Youth for a couple of years and then passed it on to the Devils. However, the Gods drank the elixir and once the Devils found out, they raised war.

Southern entrance.
Buses were not allowed inside. We had to rent a smaller car to get into Angkor Thom, which was 3 km away from the entrance.

Engraving statue of an apsara, who is believed to be half-woman, half-goddess.

Rock everywhere!
Arrived at the Bayon, Angkor Thom's state temple. Built during the pre-industrial period, the whole site was made of rocks stacking on top of each other.