My first stop in Cambodia was Phnom Penh. I flew in from Bangkok, and I was super excited because that night I would be reunited with Anna! I rode from the airport to the hotel in literally one of those carriages that takes you around Central Park. Okay not literally, but just imagine that carriage but the horse be replaced by a motor bike.
We stayed at the Fancy Guest House, which in fact was not so fancy. The guesthouse was though right around the corner from the river and where all of the restaurants were at. Of course right when got there, our first thought was we need food! We found a pizza place and yes we each ate a whole pizza to ourselves. Anna if you are reading this... here is to a night of eating a lot, funny/ scary/ embarrassing moments, and a whole lot of tv hahha :)
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| Wine with ice, or maybe the other way around |
We decided to go to Kep next, which was a spot near the water known for their crab! Kep is a French influenced town and it was beautiful. Anna and I ended up spending a good amount of time here due to weather, trouble with buses, and it had good food and wine. Here we were able to rent a motorbike and explore. A few of the places we went were the pepper farm, the crab market, Rabbit Island, and a temple. Rabbit Island was just a 25 ish minute boat ride away from Kep and was supposed to have a beautiful beach to lay at. We thought about staying here overnight, but then we found out there is no electricity... needless to say we changed our minds. I don't like to think I am high maintenance but the though of sleeping without even a fan in the middle of hot season sounded miserable. This was a day when you just couldn't help but laugh. When we arrived at the beach we found "chairs" to lay on which were just wood boards. We decided to get a massage at the beach to treat ourselves, but poor Anna had the most painful, sandy, unenjoyable massage of her life. Soon enough it was time for our boat ride back...it began DUMPING rain... like there was monsooning. 25 minutes that felt like 45 minutes we arrived back at our guest house looking like we swam back from rabbit island. At this point we were exhausted and couldn't go anywhere due to the inability to drive a motorbike in torrential downpours. So this resulted in us watching Harry Potter with dinner, dessert, and wine delivered by room service. We deserved it right?
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| The way home from Rabbit Island |
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| Rabbit Island |
The next day there was nice weather, and we wanted to go up to this temple Anna spotted up on the hill. As we were driving along the road toward the temple, this Cambodian woman begins screaming to us, "TEMPLE?! TEMPLE?!" and pointing at the temple. Hesitantly we say yes, and she pulls over and motions for us to do the same. Thinking that maybe she had some insight or was going to give us directions, we pulled over. She abruptly jumped behind me on the bike and told Anna to "GO, GO!" This woman is laughing and screaming and pretty much insane. Anna and I exchange looks that pretty much are reading what the hell should we do. So what did we decide? Oh to continue driving to the temple with her on the back. When we got to the temple she is giving us a tour, taking pictures for us.. and then begins to tell us how she has no money and has sick kids etc. Then it clicks, we are being scammed but at this point there is nothing we can do because we are stuck on a hill with her. We go back to our bike to find a man waiting there, we are pretty sure he was there to make sure we gave her money. So we got back on our bike, yes with this woman on the back. Before we got on the back Anna had handed me pepper spray to get this lady just in case she started going crazy. As we are on our way back to her bike she begins yelling at us to pull over, we are at her house. Anna stops, the lady jumps off and is telling us to hold her kids and come inside. Anna and I look at each other and in unison yell GO! We were off, free, and still very confused what had just gone down in the previous 30 minutes. But we are alive, got the tour of the temple, and yes mom we learned our lesson :)
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| Anna in one of the hammocks at our guest house! |
Upon leaving Kep to go to Siam Reap we booked bus tickets and caused quite the ordeal. Right before we were loading the bus, our very nice hotel receptionist drove to the bus station to hand deliver my debit counter. Yes, I had left in on the counter. Thank goodness for nice people!
