I got a van to the border of Cambodia and Thailand. To get the van I went to about 4 different tourist companies asking if they had a vans going that afternoon. All four said no. I decided to give it one last go at another shop and the guy at the counter made a phone call to who knows, but he told me they would be there at 2:10pm.

At about 2:50pm the van shows up and I get in. It was just a standard mini van nothing special. I am surveying the other passengers and it’s a weird mix. I’m the only white person, but there is a couple with a kid and then a teenager and two grandparent aged people as well. As we are riding it occurred to me that this wasn’t a tourist company, but that tour salesman had actually just hooked me up on a ride with some local family headed that way.

We made a couple stops a long the way and at one rode side stop everyone in the family bought a bunch of dinner-type food. The grandpa of the family even offered me some food! My best guess was that it was pork blood wrapped in bacon. It was delicious!

At the border I walked acrossed and went into imigration. I had my passport open with the 2 month visa showing. The border agent ignored it and stamped me in for a month anyways. So I guess that visa is still valid. When I do my first border run I’ll make sure to have them use it when I re-enter.

Then got on a bus to Bangkok! Arrived in Bangkok around midnight. I walked probably an hour and a half in a down pour to the cheapest hostel. There I found out I had no money… I hadn’t yet gotten the local currency. Luckily, the lady let me pay her in the morning!

That day was the only day I spent in Bangkok so I made a speed tour of the sights and got on my bus for Krabi so I could do some beach relaxing and island hopping.

Next after my 15 hour bus journey I’ll fill you in on my beach bumming!

This is my last tdsycin Cambodia! I’m spending it in Siem Reap to explore Angkor Wat and all the other surrounding temples. There are actually so many temples that I’ll only be hitting the highlights. To see all of them you need a three day pass at the very least!

There it is! The iconic Angkor Wat. Probably the most famous of them all! I arrived to this view point probably around 5:30am after an early trip over from my hostel. We went to see the sunrise, but due to the weather it was a little disappointing. This picture is taken around midday.

My friends always wonders who take pictures of me. Today, I was exploring with two Americans from Colorado and a German fellow. The two Colorado kids we’re studying abroad at the University in Bangkok and came to Cambodia for a long weekend. So that explains how there are pictures of me. The other people took them. Also you can always ask a Chinese tourist anywhere.

It was a nice thing to be able to explore with the group, not only for the photos, but because we had a tuk tuk driver for the day and it cost $15 for the day whether you were a group of 4 or just by yourself. Luckily, I woke up at 4:30am and was able to ask around and join the group! So that was awfully nice of them to let me join!

These are on the inside of Angkor Wat our first temple of the day.

These next three monkeys were found posing in Bayon temples. Bayon was close to my favorite temple because of it’s awesome architecture. Lots of carved Buddha faces make it interesting as well. The Angkor area is actually made of up several different temples often with quite a distance in between. This is where the tuk tuk driver came in to get us here from the main Angkor Wat!

This is the temple Ta Prohm made famous my the movie Tomb Raider. This was one of my favorites because it was in, probably, my 4th grade social studies book that I first saw a picture of Angkor temples and Ta Prohm was the one featured. So I was able to fulfill traveling dreams inspire from way back.

Lastly, there was this nice lake. I don’t know a ton about it, but this is apparently where monks would bathe.

That’s it for now! Next up is making it into Thailand!

The two pictures here of tall ceremonial looking monuments are there to celebrate the countries Independence from France in 1953. The one taken at night is to celebrate the King who lead them to Independence, King Sihanouk.

The other picture at night is of some random temple in the city. There are so many temples everywhere so it really wasn’t that interesting to me. The last picture is on me at the end of a nice sunset cruise coming back to the city banks.

This is a picture of the Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh. It has never been used for an Olympics, but I do believe they have played world cup qualifying matches here. I went to visit and noticed they had a weight set inside the stadium. It was a simple set up. Just two bars a squat rack and a bench. So the next day I got out there and got in my first lift since leaving for Asia! It was great! I didn’t know how much I was lifting because of the kilogram to pounds conversion, but the local sure liked to watch.

These pictures were from the S21 prison. It was a high school turned into top secret torchering compound. Members of the military would be brought here to be torchered by Pol Pot’s evil regime. Most of them, if not killed here, were sent by truck to the killing fields.


These photos show the actually killing fields. There were mass graves where as many as 450 bodies were found. It one grave over a 100 bodies were found without heads. The picture of the tree was a particularly horrifying thing to see as you can tell by the sign next to it. After beating the babies to death they were thrown into the graves with there naked mothers and other children.


On a more relaxed note here are some creepy crawls and bugs I ate at a night market. Also pictured is me enjoying a local brew.

Next to come I venture, tomb raider style, into Siem Reap to explore Angkor Wat!