My days in Khmer Country....

It's been quite a fast, yet amazing month. I'll just get you up to my trip through Cambodia since it's been a while.
From Phuket I took one of the worst bus rides to Bangkok. Ended up getting in like at 8am Friday morning, after being on a bus for 12 hours that apparently had no shocks whatsoever. Dropped off my bags at my friend Jon's apartment and headed to the embassies to try to get my Visas worked out. I took a taxi to the Chinese embassy and realized it was way too expensive for the Visa and the train ticket, so quickly scratched that part of my trip. Then I walked to the Laos embassy, the Australian embassy and all the way back to Jon's apartment. I basically walked around all of Bangkok since I walked for about 8 hours. It was a nice tour of the city, yet very exhausting. I hung out with Jon and his neighbors for the weekend and went to Chiang Mai which is in the Northern part of Thailand the next Tuesday. That trip was amazing. I took the night train which was extremely uncomfortable because I didn't have a bed, just a regular seat. I got in to Chiang Mai around 7am and checked in to my guesthouse before touring the city. The old city is amazing, enclosed within some huge walls surrounded by a moat. The next day I took a day trip to Chiang Rai which is on the border of Laos and Myanmar(Burma). It is near where the Golden Triangle is located, which is where most of the opium trade used to occur back in the day. We also stopped by probably the most amazing temple I have seen in Thailand, The White Temple.
On the way back, we stopped at a local tribal village and hung out with them for a bit.
The next day I left for a 3 day/2 night trek through the northwest area of Chiang Mai. It was one of the most amazing experiences ever. We started off with a Snake show and then rode some elephants through the jungle for about an hour. After lunch we began our 2½ hour trek up the mountains to a remote village of a small Akha tribe. We spent the night there in the village and the next day went off to see another Lahu tribe and continued with another 1½ hour trek down the mountain. Ended up at a cabin on the river where we spent the night. Only down side was getting a leech on my ankle which got a good amount of blood from me. What can I say, leeches and mosquitoes agree that my blood tastes good.
We spent the night and the next day went white-water rafting down the river. It was a nice intro to white-water rafting since I have never done it before. I then proceeded to guide our bamboo raft for a couple of miles downstream. Now that was quite an interesting vehicle since I think we were sinking down the river a little more than we were floating. We had lunch before heading to a longneck tribe village and then back to Chiang Mai.
The next day I rented a motorbike and checked out some of the outskirts of the city, including an amazing elephant show and stopping at a factory where they make paper out of elephant dung. I got a nice oil massage before heading back to the train station to catch my train back to Bangkok.
I got back to Bangkok on Tuesday morning and just hung out for a few days with Jon and his neighbors and friends. I ended up having a great time in Bangkok, a city that I did not enjoy much on my first few days in Thailand, but it's definitely a lot different when you know where to go and where to be. The people on Jon's street were so welcoming that they even invited me to a wedding on the day before I left to Cambodia. It was quite an interesting, very early (7:30am) experience, but also lots of fun. I had to buy a wardrobe since I hadn't planned on going to a wedding, so we spent all day Friday coming up with a $30 wardrobe (shirt, tie, pants, shoes) for me. Not too bad.
The next day, on Sunday, November 1st, I met up with Sara and headed off to Cambodia. We caught the bus at 8am and got to the border around 1pm. The border crossing was a fiasco where they overcharged us for our Visa, and ended up taking 2½ hours. We didn't get to Siem Reap until about 7pm. We stayed at a guesthouse for $3 a night and prepared ourselves for the amazement of the Temples of Angkor. Monday, we woke up around 8 and rented bicycles to ride around the Temples. We went to the Roulous Group which is about 13.5 km from Angkor Wat. After getting there, we found out that you have to buy the ticket at the main entrance first and you couldn't buy a ticket there. Rode the 13.5 km back to Angkor and bought our tickets. We rode around the Grand Tour which is about 35 km and saw 4 temples:Preah Kahn, Preah Neak Pean, Ta Som and Pre Rup. The sunset from the top of Pre Rup Temple was gorgeous. Dead tired from a loooong day of bike riding, I ended the night with a nice 2 hour massage for $10.
The next day we grouped up with a couple of Brazilian guys and rented a tuk-tuk that took us around the Mini Tour where we saw most of the other temples. It was raining off and on all day, so renting a tuk-tuk turned out to be the best choice. We saw Ta Phrom Temple (where they filmed Tomb Raider), and Bayon (the one with over 200 faces staring at you) among others that day.
The third day we woke up at 4am to get to Angkor Wat by 5am and see the sunrise. We got there around 5:20, and it was one of the most breathtaking views that I have ever seen. I walked around some other temples, took a nap and waited around for the sun to set at a temple at the top of Bakheng Hill. Simply amazing. Ended the night with another 2 hour massage before watching the Barcelona game and getting to bed.

On Thursday we left the guesthouse at 7am to catch the bus to Phnom Penh. We arrived at Phnom Penh at around 3pm and ran over to the Laos Embassy to get our Visa. We got a room for $5 a night and went out and got some good dinner. The food in Cambodia was a little more expensive than in Thailand, but there were more options for Western Food all around for a similar price as local food, so it was a nice change of pace. We walked around the city and saw a group of about 50 kids/teens hanging out and dancing "Bollywood" style at the Central Plaza. It was pretty crazy and fun to see them having a grand ol' time just dancing and in a sober frame of mind.

Friday we rented a motorbike and saw the S-21 (Security Prison 21) where they held all of the political prisoners before they sent them to get slaughtered. It was quite a disturbing sight that made my stomach turn numerous times. From there we headed off to go see the Killing Fields which also was a pretty traumatic sight. The history of the events are so recent that it becomes much more intense and makes you question what actually goes on in people's heads to allow such a cruel and tragic event take place. We made it back to the guesthouse before it began to pour. After the 30 minutes of rain, we had dinner and then we went to a bar where they had a Cuban band performing all night. It was pretty fun, since the music was good, but the speakers were horrible, so it wasn't appreciated as much as it could have been. We got back to the room and crashed out since we had to be up at 6 to catch the bus to Stung Treng near the border with Laos. The bus ride to Stung Treng was by far the worst one we have endured to this day. The seats fell through so there was no padding and no support, and it was the longest trip, taking about 10 hours. For about an hour we also had no a/c so that also didn't help much. We got to Stung Treng at around 5:30pm and got a room for $6. The next day we were off to Laos at 8:30am.

More to come....