Just thinking about this day makes me feel exhausted. At the time though, the excitement just beat the tiredness. The overnight bus from Siem Reap dropped us off around 5:30am in Phnom Pen. Check in wasn’t until 3pm, and I really needed to sleep. Or eat. Or poop. I wasn’t quite sure at this point what was going on with my body.

Earlier during the trip, I had gotten some advice to hire an all-day tuk-tuk driver if you’re going for a tour around the city. It’s cheaper and seems more personal in a way. You get a chance to build a report with your driver and learn something about the culture. They might even take you to some off the tourist path places to eat. All this being said, I met and hired Pgeap. First stop was to drop off my luggage at the Billabong hostel. I asked them if there was anywhere I could take a quick nap. Maybe in their lobby? The staff said there were tons of lounge chairs at the pool and that I could rest there. The lounge chair was much more comfortable than the overnight bus. Until I remembered mosquitos. I decided just to start the day right away.

I ended up visiting Wat Phnom, Independence Monument, Tuol Seng Genocide Museum aka S-21, Choeung Ek Genocide Center aka The Killing Fields, National Museum of Cambodia, Russian Market, the Royal Palace, and Central Market all before 3pm. I had breakfast at Nuron, lunched at Divine Cafe, and actually had dinner plans with an English couple I met on the Angkor Wat tour. Met with Jaspal and Naha at Romdeng. They had taken some time off from work and were traveling as well. It was nice to have a long conversation with someone other than myself during dinner.

Dinner ended around 10pm. I couldn’t stay out for drinks though since I had to get home to pack. Had to catch a flight to Bangkok in the morning, so early night for me.

Posts get harder to write as this trip goes on. My process to write these is to search through my photos for this specific day and see what I’ve done. As I’m doing more activities, I’ve taken way more pictures and seeing the amount of pictures lately makes me feel overwhelmed. I think “wow, I took a lot of pictures! I have to write so much today.” But in reality, I don’t have to write anything at all! Why do I make myself anxious thinking about posting a blog that is for me? Who knows. Who cares. Let’s get to it.

This day, I booked a trip to visit the Floating Village of Kampong Pluk outside of Siem Reap. This village sits near the Tahas River, which floods annually. The village has had to adapt to the flooding, so their homes are built either on stilts or on a platform with empty barrels that would float on the rising tides.

What a wonderful adaptation to make this area habitable. What amazed me immediately was that so many people here were carrying around mobile phones. I wouldn’t have expected a floating village to have cell phone service. I mention it briefly in my instagram post. And because I like my caption from this day, I’ll copy it below.

“Cambodia’s floating village during the dry season and it’s cell phone towers. I have amazing reception here. The villagers keep an eye on ants and snails. The moment snails start making noises and ants start to crawl up the stilts, the flood is coming. They also rely on bees to know how deep the waters will be. The higher the bee hive, the deeper the water. Lately though, the flood waters have been shallower and weaker due to a dam built upstream. This has shortened the flood season and disrupted this village’s way of life.”

Isn’t it awesome that the villagers use nature as a sign to let them know when it’ll flood? Isn’t it sad that a dam was built without considering the downstream impact?

The rest of the trip took us through a flooded forest and to watch the sunset on Tonlé Sap Lake. Both were interesting; flooded forest more so, since a sunset on the lake isn’t something that special. But, we did get to sit on top of the roofs on the boat to watch. That was kinda fun because the more people that climbed on, the less stable the boat was. I secretly hoped a boat, or even ours, would flip over. Most importantly, is that I actually met a fellow solo traveler, MinKyung, during the floating forest tour. We happened to get paired up and found that we had similar plans for the rest of our trip. We actually got to meet up in a couple other cities and are still friends today.

After the sunset, we headed back up the river to head back to Siem Reap. Later that evening, I hopped onto an overnight bus to head to Phnom Penh. It was not as nice as my first overnight bus trip. I actually think this is wear I had my Detroit Tigers hat stolen while I was sleeping. I can’t remember if it was this bus ride, or one of the several others I took. Either way, I lost my hat.

Let me tell you something. Not that I haven’t been already. And by “you”, I’m mostly talking to myself since this is private blog. This day was TIRING. It actually starts the night before when I booked the Angkor Wat sunrise tour. I woke up at 4am and was only out for about 12 hours. But when I got back to the hostel around 4:30pm, I was exhausted.

There were 6 of us in the bike tour, including the tour guide. He took us on a 45 kilometer tour that visited 5 different temples. The reason we went so early was to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. I had heard that you must visit Angkor Wat at sunrise, cause it’s beautiful. I had no idea that every person and their mom in Siem Reap would be there at 5 in the morning as well. It was packed, and unfortunately, the crowd made it less magical. I know that I’m part of that crowd, but can you imagine visiting this temple by yourself? It’d be incredible. I don’t have any great pictures to do this place justice, but here’s one anyways. I bet Google has much better ones.

As I mentioned above, the tour took us through 5 temples. To be honest, these temples were really cool to see and walk through. But to be really honest, after about 3 back to back, they all kind of blend together. Below are some shots that I liked out of 100’s that I took. The temple with all the trees was actually one of my favorites. It was used to shoot some movie, maybe Tomb Raider, can’t quite remember.

Writing these posts 2 years after the actual event is somewhat tough. I can’t really remember if I wanted to say anything in particular about these temples. My two cents, is that overall, seeing the sunrise at Angkor Wat was definitely the highlight. I’d stick to 3 or 4 temples at max though in one day.

After the ride, I ended getting a haircut, ate, and then passed out for about an hour in the hotel. When I woke up, I went out to eat again, and then went hunting for a toothbrush. I got the toothbrush and some other snacks. I went back to the hotel to rest before heading out again, but instead fell asleep for the rest of the night. And did not brush my teeth. Toothbrush insta post link here.

This day actually marked the beginning of my solo travels. Up until now, I had the luxury of Charming Charlie as my Vietnam tour guide and Well-Traveled Will as my traveling consultant aka he just hung out with me.

I flew out to Siem Reap, Cambodia sometime in the morning, landing early evening. Took my first tuk-tuk ride to a hotel and left my phone in the tuk-tuk. Luckily for me, the hotel owner knew the cab driver and called him right away. He dropped off the phone a few hours later, I tipped him, and we were both happy customers.

Before I got my phone, I went out to explore the hotel neighborhood. I got lost. How pathetic. I got lost because I couldn’t whip out Google Maps and follow a blue line back to my hotel. I eventually found my way back but it took over an hour. What’s funny is that after retracing my steps with my phone, I was less than 5 blocks away from the hotel. Apparently I am horrible with directions.

In the evening, I checked out Pub Street, which is exactly what it sounds like, a street with bars, and the Night Market, which is exactly what it sounds like, a market at night. I swear, I enjoyed it! I had a couple beers at some random bars, ate, walked around mesmerized by all the lights, ate more, and called it an early night. I had an extremely early morning the next day.