Siem Riep – Angkor Wat and Other Temples
The bus ride to Siem Riep although short compared to all the journeys i've taken in Thailand and Malaysia was absolutely the WORST and LONGEST bus ride i've ever taken in my life. The bus itself was pretty basic. Rock hard seats typical in a school bus, if not a bit more comfortable. The air conditioning did work but wasn't very cold; nor did I expect it to be for a 4 dollar bus ticket. These were actually none of the reasons why the journey was so bad. All the way from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep the bus driver found it necessary to beep the horn at EVERY SINGLE fucking bicycle, car, motorcycle, person, bird, object or piece of shit in the road. It bordered on insanity. Sometimes I think he was just doing it to taunt everyone on the bus. It was probably the loudest horn i've ever heard. No amount of loud music or airplugs would have been able to mute the sound therefore it was impossible to sleep or concentrate. Nevertheless, the reason why the bus driver beeped so often was simple but still annoying. The "National Highway" to Siem Riep is nothing more than a barely-paved scarely-thin road in most parts meaning that he had to beep to make sure everyone coming the opposite direction got out of the way, as well as the traffic in front. You would have thought this would have been perfectly clear with a massive bus coming in the other direction but nobody really seemed to move, hence the beeping was required. Personally I found it to be a bit excessive, as did everyone else on the bus. It was non-stop all the way to Siem Riep. My nerves were wrecked by the time we arrived.
Anyway, I play to stay in Siem Riep for about 3-4 days to see Angkor Wat. That means I have about 1 or 2 days left here. Once I finish I am sort of backtracking my way down to coast for about a week on the beaches to regain my lost tan and then I am headed to Vietnam. Staying at a really nice place called Village Garden, the room I got is a bit more expensive at 6USD/night but it's also one of the nicest rooms I've stayed in thus far. They have cheaper rooms that you can bargain down to 2USD but I figured I would treat myself. The other good thing here is the Internet is free albeit painfully slow. Since I managed to spent at least 2-4USD/night on the Internet at the previous place, the price of free Internet outweighs the cost of spending 4 dollars extra on a room.
Cambodia, like I said before is extremely cheap and probably the poorest country I've been so far. The amount of beggars is disheartening and scams are pretty rampant if you don't pay attention to the cost of things. Always ask for clarification on the prices otherwise, you may find the prices suddenly double. Cambodians themselves seem friendly enough but it's hard to tell whether it's a genuine sort of friendly or the fact that they think you're a walking bank machine with an open wallet. I guess what it all comes down to...you're probably carrying more money in your wallet than most make in a year. No exaggeration. Even inside the temples there are little 8 year old kids who speak almost perfect English and will happily tell you all there is know about the temples for 1 or 2 USD. This service is of course pushed upon you. As you walk around, kids will point out places to take pictures, cool carving, better temples. Finally, at the end of your viewing, the advice that you might have thought was free ends up finally costing you money. It's seeming benign in nature but it does get a little annoying after a while since every time you enter one temple there is always a little kid trying to pretend to be your tour guide.
As I approach August, I am beginning to realize that I may be running too short on time to visit all the countries I wanted to. I expected to be in New Zealand by the 1st or 2nd of September but that leaves me little time to visit Laos or Philippines. I may need to extend my SE Asia trip another month and go to New Zealand mid-September or October. Either that or skip Laos and Philippines altogether.
For the last two days i've been visiting Angkor Wat which so far has been the highlight of my Cambodian trip and possibly my entire trip to Southeast Asia sans drinking, girls, and beaches 
It's considered in some circles to be one of the forgotten wonders of the ancient world. It's absolutely massive in scale and my words really can't describe it. My pictures don't even do it justice. Angkor Wat is just one of the many hundreds of temples around Siem Riep all in close proximity to each other by bike or tuk-tuk. Angkor Wat may be the largest one but there are also numerous smaller yet still impressive temples with elaborate carvings and designs. Some of them have enough hallways and passage ways to get you lost inside for a moment.
On my first day of trekking I woke up at 5am eager to explore and see the sunrise. That was easily the earliest i've woken up on this entire trip if you dont count the times I didn't actually go to sleep. I was able to rent a motor-taxi for about 9USD a day (18USD for two days) at my guesthouse. This is definitely needed if you want to see all the major sights. Walking is not really do-able unless you plan to spend all day walking to one temple. You could in theory rent a bicycle for 1USD a day but it would still take you an enormous amount of time. Hiring a moto-taxi to drive you around to all the temples is probably the best way to explore everything unless you're with a group then it might be better to take a tuk-tuk.
Highlights included Angkor Wat itself and actually visiting the same temples where Tomb Raider was filmed, Angelina Jolie-style. I have posted about a 110 pictures that unfortunately didn't really come out as well as I expected. Once I get to a better computer, I can edit and crop them a bit more.
Oh yeah, one other thing. For the past two nights i've actually been sort of teaching/tutoring in English. One of the cute 20 year-old Cambodian girls that works at the guesthouse was doing some sort of English homework for one of her classes and she asked me to help her with a few questions. A few questions turned into about 2 hours of tutoring because I was basically bored and didn't feel like watching television. Anyway, my classroom has somehow grown to 3 students for tonight. Basically, i'm just helping them go over homework questions and pronunciation. Pretty fun and it's better than sitting in my room all night. Trying to explain "They're/There are/Has/Have/Their/It's/Its" is infinitely complex and interesting but I think I handled it well. It would be extremely easy to get a teaching job here. The qualifications are virtually nothing with the exception that you're a native/fluent English speaker. From what I gathered, most schools here prefer American/Canadian English speakers rather than U.K. accents or non-native English speakers because our accents on T.V. are the same as most movies. Sort of funny. 
