So Danielle and I left Sihanoukville empty handed (my card never came) Friday night and have been in Siem Reap since. As a second time visitor to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat I have been super surprised by how much has changed in seven years. The town of Siem Reap is huge and super busy! When we were here I remember there not being a ton of restaurants or shops and now there are giant restaurants and clubs! The temples were also much more crowded than I remember. Even though nothing can take away from how amazing all the temples are I am really glad that I was able to visit them when they were not that crowded or controlled. Now there are tons of package Asian tourists, I kinda felt like I was back in Korea and lots of the stairs are either roped off or they have built wooden stairs over them. When we came last time I remember climbing to the top of one of the big tower things at Angkor Wat and then being completely terrified at the prospect of coming down. Now the route that I took is roped off and you can only get up by a nice set of not terrifying wooden stairs. Our first morning we watched the sun rise behind Angkor Wat and it was extremely beautiful despite the old Korean man snoring next to us. I swear Koreans can and do sleep anywhere. We had a great tuk tuk driver for the temples who took us to some that were much further away and much less crowded on our second day. It was really wonderful to get to see some of the temples in the quiet that I remember from my last visit.
Tonight we get the bus to Bangkok around 1 am and then tomorrow night we get another bus and then boat to take us to Ko Pha- Ngan for the full moon party on Saturday. I recall pete being very sick following the same itinerary so hopefully I will make it through ok. I
It has officially been over two months of travel so far and it seems like it has gone by super fast...I can see how people get stuck in this life style, though you never get a good nights rest.
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