Playing La(u)ra Croft

3/29

Amazingly, I actually managed to wake up around 6 a.m., get up by 6:20 a.m. and arrived at Chris' hotel at 7 a.m. on the dot.  Since she's usually very punctual, I was surprised she wasn't waiting for me with a scowl, but the people at the front desk told me she was still in her room.  I told them not to call her and I'd just wait.  I sat down to wait, but got up again almost immediately when I noticed the breakfast buffet Chris had told me came with their hotel.  It looked so good so I went over, hoping they wouldn't charge me since I was a guest of a guest, but thinking that even if they did, it would be worth it.  It's very rare for me to eat breakfast, but for whatever reason, I was really hungry and it just looked so scrumptious.  So I ate a lot.  Three glasses of orange juice, two croissants, an omelette with onions, tomatoes, sausage and carrots (sadly, since I hate them, Southeast Asians seem obsessed with carrots and throw them in everything for no reason,) probably 3/4ths of a dragon fruit, a bit of pineapple and a few slices of a baguette with different jams or butter.  I also took an apple and a piece of their brownie-like chocolate bread with me for later.  Unsurprisingly, they did charge me, but it still only came out to $5.50 and I was so satisfied with it, that seemed like a bargain.

Chris came out eventually and joined me for breakfast.
"Oh good, you're here early," she said.
"I thought you said to meet at 7," I replied.
"Yes, we're meeting the driver here at 7."
"But it's 7:21 already."
"No sweetie, it's 6:20."
"Oh."

Crap.  That's when I realized that I hadn't ever changed my phone or computer or pedometer clock to Cambodian time, which is one hour behind Malaysian time.  I think this is due to Daylight Savings Time because otherwise it makes absolutely no sense since time gets earlier as you go West, and Malaysia is West of Cambodia.  I had to think about this for a while, so for comparison's sake, I'll tell you that it's currently 11:10 p.m. in Sydney, 8:10 p.m. in Cambodia, and 9:10 p.m. in Malaysia (in East to West order).

Anyway, that meant I'd really gotten up at 5 a.m.  As soon as I realized this and thought about the long day ahead, I immediately felt exhausted.  We did leave at around 7 a.m. after all and headed off in a blessedly air-conditioned van to Angkor Wat.

Even with less than ideal lighting conditions, since we were there just an hour after sunrise and Angkor Wat is West facing, an oddity among the temples in that sense, creating a block of darkness and shadows against a bright sky, it was still brilliant.  The huge complex looked both ancient and yet had an bit of regality in it's finely chiseled sandstone bricks and rectangular columns.  It also reminded me of Versailles; the detailing, architecture and large garden spaces.

Afterwards, Chris and Amarita said they wanted a coffee break, which turned into a lunch break, at 10:40 a.m.  I was still full from breakfast, but since I had no idea how long we'd be gone, I ordered a plate of plain rice and a coconut milkshake.  Coconut milkshakes are both completely obvious, completely ignored in the Western world, and freaking amazing.  The coconut milk is thrown in a blender with some of the coconut meat and a bunch of ice.  Some places seem to use simple sugar to make it sweeter, others use a thickener, but that's the basic recipe.

Chris ordered frogs legs in a green pepper sauce and since I couldn't remember if I'd ever tried them or not, I asked her for a bite just to be sure.  The sauce was pretty good but the meat was bland and a bit stringy.

After lunch, we headed off to our next temple, Ta Prohm.  You may know this as the Tomb Raider temple; it was here that they filmed part of the movie.  Very cool.

My Aunt Chris, Me and Amarita

 

Yes, that is possibly a Stegosaurus on the temple wall.

Even though we'd only seen two temples, they were some of the most important ones, so we called it a day and they went back to their hotel and I rode my bike home.  At 5:20 we met at the Old Market and walked around.  Markets may all be nearly the same, with just slight variations, but I still love them and this one was rather interesting to see as it didn't seem particularly tourist oriented.  I found two pairs of very thin cotton/linen pants, which were just what I was looking for, though pockets would've been nice.  I got one long pair in dark green and one capri length pair in black.  For both, I paid $11, which was too much, especially for what they were, but I am enjoying them.

Next we went to Koulen for a Cambodian buffet and to watch apsara (traditional Khmer) dancers.  It was overpriced, the food was subpar, the atmosphere touristy, and the dancers obviously were not very good; horribly unsynchronized, but we probably wouldn't have gotten to see them otherwise so it was worth it.  I also forgot my camera for this, so I have a few crappy cell phone pics, but nothing good.  Sorry.

I had another few Angkor beers for 50 cents at my hostel's rooftop bar, talked to a couple of German guys who were actually getting the government to pay for their trip by taking advantage of a program to help unemployed people start their own businesses, so their business was building a blog about having sex and traveling the world, and trying to make money off of it, and then, after listening to one of them tell me that sex was the only thing he cared about in the world, I went to bed (ALONE- just to clarify).