Week 19 - Siem Reap + Phnom Penh

Each country is like a fresh start to a little journey. Next stop: Cambodia. The flight to Siem Reap was quick and painless, the journeys to and from the airport were almost more strenuous. After 5 years I'm finally sitting in a tuktuk again and the ride into the city takes forever. Gone with the wind I arrive at my hostel, which is a hit. Just the way I like it and there is a pool too. I have to acclimatize again first because it's a constant 35 degrees with high humidity and the cold north of Vietnam has made me a bitch again. That's why I treated myself to an adjustment day in the hostel. Get a SIM card, withdraw money and so on. Payments are made here in US dollars and mixed riels🙄 The prices are mostly displayed in dollars and everything feels like it only costs one dollar:

The conversion is relatively easy: $1=4000 khr but if you get change for $55, for example, it's $50 and 20,000 riel... and beware the dollar bills are old, have a small tear or something scribbled on them, then you're stuck with them sit in Cambodia for now. That's why you have to turn the money over five times every time you buy something to be on the safe side🥲

The food is inexpensive, but the transport and activities are very expensive compared to Vietnam and Indonesia. Nevertheless, I of course booked a tour with a guide for Angkor Wat in addition to the day pass. The right decision, because the guide was super funny, spoke good English and had lots of fun facts in store...perfect for me as a history nut. Furthermore, there were only 6 of us in the group and I immediately met an Irish woman who I arranged to meet in the next town. Since it was a sunrise tour, it started at 4:20 and our guide Sak was busy rushing around. So at 5 a.m. we were in the front row at the lake in front of Angkor Wat. But the sun just didn't rise until 6:30🙄🙄 I don't know if standing around for a picture was worth it...

Afterwards we first went through Angkor Wat and then to three other temples on the huge complex. It was first a Hindu temple to the god Vishnu and later became a Buddhist temple. During the war almost all of the Buddha statues were beheaded. The Angkor Wa is very well preserved, while the second temple was deliberately left untouched. After almost 1000 years you can see how nature grows around it and extremely old trees grow around it. A very cool sight. The trees are now so big and heavy that this temple will soon collapse under the weight and they are now considering whether they should intervene or not. Sak also said that as a child he used all of these temples as a playground because until about 20 years ago the country was full of landmines and the holy institution was the only safe place for children. And the forest around it also holds childhood memories for him, just like Lietzensee Park does for me. Kind of gross. Sak is also an enthusiastic photographer, as you can easily see from this picture:

The next day I went to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. There is actually hardly anything touristy to visit there. That's why one day is enough for your stay. You can visit the museum and the associated Khmer Rouge killing fields there. Super interesting, but also extremely terrible things you can see there. I did the whole thing with the Irish woman from Siem Reap and then in the evening we went to the night market, where we actually wanted to shop. But unfortunately there was only fake stuff there and was more geared towards shopping for the locals. The food was really good and was eaten on the floor: