say wat: thailand to cambodia

(the rain and our unhappy stomachs have us holed up indoors in cambodia, so this post is a bit wordier than the last few. the good thing is you can just look at the pictures.)

we left railay at low tide, which meant josey and i, along with some other travelers and a local fire-throwing troupe, piled into the back of a tractor. it drove us out through sandy mangroves to waist-deep water where we could then pile into a waiting longtail boat. the longtail boat trip took just a few minutes, just enough to take us to even deeper water where the ferry boat to phuket was waiting. slightly dilapidated but totally charming, the ferry boat had a static-y tv playing asian women's volleyball, free tea and cookies (be still my heart), and the coming storm only rained -- poured -- for a few minutes so we could stand on the deck and marvel at the clouds.


longtail boats and storm clouds in railay.

the ferry to phuket. i was hepped up on free cookies at this point and this scene was very exciting.

storms!

the cheapest flight we could find into cambodia left from phuket had an overnight layover in singapore, which is very out of the way, but worth it to save some dough. we got off the boat in phuket and headed straight for the airport, where we hated ourselves a little bit for eating subway in the airport, hated ourselves a little bit more for totally loving it, and landed in singapore, where kelly was kind enough to put us up for the night. singapore is almost eerily clean and very expensive (they wanted $7.25 for a toothbrush! not a chance!) which was a shock, but it also has some of the best couches i've ever slept on. kelly, you and your sofa are heroes in my book.

we landed in phnom penh on sunday morning, then took a 6-hour bus ride to siem reap. the bus was equipped with a (barely) working dvd player, generating great personal excitement that was quickly extinguished when it became clear the only programming was very odd, very loud cambodian vaudeville variety shows. the monsoons have been causing a lot of flooding in cambodia lately and the road was a rather relaxing combination of deep potholes and giant puddles, but we made it to siem reap around 2:30am where a brave and lovely tuk tuk driver took us to a guesthouse for some sleep.

we waded out to dinner in siem reap.


neither rain nor floods nor weird stuff floating down the street stays this flower-seller from the old market.

next up was angkor wat and the other temples in the area, a short drive from siem reap. they're enormous and in various states of repair and disrepair. angkor wat is the largest and the best-preserved, while others have been almost totally overrun by the jungle. they were built in the 12th century and were first used by hindus, then by theravada buddhists. then apparently they filmed tomb raider there. by far the most phenomenal sites are the strangler fig and silk cotton trees growing through the stone.


inside angkor wat.


so much of the temples' surface area is carved with amazing detail. oh the things people did before tv!

the jungle taketh over.

rather than being cleared of the overgrowth, this temple, ta prohm, was left pretty much as it was found in the early 20th century, as a "concession to the general taste for the picturesque." someone french made that call, obvi.

artsy!

tomorrow we explore phnom penh and friday we head to vietnam. for now, we are exploring the world as we recuperate by watching the discovery channel (read: america's next top model) in our hostel and eating lots of pepto bismol. fingers crossed.