CAMBODIA!!!

So after 28 hours I finally made it to Cambodia!!!! Yeay

I was picked up at the airport by a tuk tuk driver a since then it's been a crazy 36 hour marathon!

As the good planner that I am I had previously booked a quad bike tour to pick me up just 2 hours after I landed ( I don't like to waste time!) 

The ride was amazing, it took me to the rural area of Siem Reap and gave me a better idea of how Cambodians truly live. The tour reminded me a lot of the township bike tours I took in Africa. 

Since I requested a special pick up time for my 2 hour ride they gave me a private tour and I was able to stop where I wanted and take pictures or ask questions. We rode through very muddy dirt roads, it had rained earlier so I got splashed with mud and even manure! They gave me a mask to cover my mouth but decided to take it off since people couldn't see me smiling at them and it felt just weird so I bet I ate a couple of bugs! Yummm

We rode through rice fields, saw people working the fields, walking their cows, bulls, and even buffaloes!!! 

The cutest thing about the tour were all the happy little children waving at me and saying bye with a big smile (one kid gave me a high five that left my hand stinging for a good 3 mins.)

It was fascinating to see how people live here, they all have raised houses to keep dry during the wet season. Most of the houses are made of pieces of wood, bamboo sticks, or aluminum; they are all one big room where the family sleeps, cooks, and hangs out! Most of the kids I saw were playing outside their house, and when they heard the bike noise they would come out and waive. My tour guide says that some of the money from the tour goes to the villages in order to help them get wells, as well as education for the kids so everybody is excited when tourist show up.

While riding we saw a big street celebration and one of the ladies even stopped us to join them but we couldn't since we would have missed the sunset! The sunset was very pretty but since it was very cloudy it wasn't as impressive as the trip advisor reviews said!!

After 2+ hours of biking I finally returned to the hostel to find Sherry, a girl who shared a tuk tuk with me at the airport, and we went out to the night market and walked around town.

Our first stop was at one of the hundreds of shops that sell pants and souvenirs, all the tourist wear Asian inspired loose pants with elephants or patterns and they can be found pretty much in every single shop! The original price for the pants was $10 (some others start as high as $15) and they came down to $4 for a pair... Compare that to the $29.99 I paid at urban outfitters for the same pants!!! The more we looked the more we saw people bargaining things for next to nothing! We found it funny that guys were also buying them, a guy in particular was not buying the pants from a lady because her lowest price was $3 and he kept saying "I'm not going to pay $3 for something that I know cost $2 at the most." I kind of got upset because we are tourist that we can definitely afford one dollar more for a pair of pants! It felt like taking advantages of the poor sellers! I always remember what one of my friends says "the cheaper the stuff, the cheaper we get!" And I find it totally true... Maybe it has to do with the excitement of bargaining and see how much of a deal we can get but there is also a line of self awareness that we tend to overlook. At the end I bought two pants, one for $5 and one for $6 just because I felt it was right to give sellers what they deserve (kind of, because I did bring it down to half the price.) I felt like paying a couple more dollars doesn't hurt me; I make the $6 in a shorter amount of time that it took the lady to sell me the pants!!!!!! and putting it into perspective those extra $2-4 that I paid might feed her family, might help her get her kids to school, or even have a better lifestyle... Those $2-4 might buy me a pack of gum at whole foods!

Anyway, after Sherry got her pants we headed to a restaurant to have some food! The prices were beyond cheap ( and I hear that Cambodia is expensive compared to Vietnam) I had a full meal for less than $5! I ordered a Mango salad and Amok fish in a coconut! Both were pretty yummy, and it was a lot of food! For $3 there was a massive amount of fish stew and I felt bad because I couldn't even finish it! After we stuffed ourselves we kept walking around the night market, window shopping, and seeing what Siem Reap had to offer.

A block or so away from the restaurant we found Pub Street with a bunch of bars and restaurants and a whole lot of street food such "pancakes" (crepes), fruit, smoothies, noodles, and even animals! Sherri decided to buy a snake on a stick just to try it! Well, I had to try it too! Haha I have never had beef jerky but I believe it might be kind of the same. The snake was super rough and we had to peel off pieces in order to eat it since it was impossible to just take a bite! Eating it reminded me of when I was a little girl and my grandma would get me rotisserie chicken, the snaked tasted like the crunchy skin of chicken... It was actually not bad!

I was impressed at the high number of massages places and fish tanks (with fish that eat feet skin) they had and how cheap the massages were! The only bad thing is how massage workers harass you in order to get a massage with them! Sherri and I decided to get an hour foot massage for $3/hr! (We went with the one with the better deal jajaja) It was soooo good and I was so tired that I even felt asleep! I really felt relaxed!

After our massages we kept [window] shopping and walking around until I couldn't anymore...