8/11/2013 - Day 2 - Taking the Plunge in Cambodia

The sun came up, the rooster thankfully stayed silent, everyone slept surprisingly well and we were off to the Botanic Gardens for an al fresco breakfast before heading back to the airport.  The little outdoor cafeteria in the Botanic Gardens is one of our favorite weekend finds.  You can get coffee, juice, eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes and toast for breakfast for a little less than $12.  Once again, in Singapore, thats a steal.  You just have to get there at the right time because the tables fill up and they stop serving around 10:30.  Not a problem for most people, but when you are lazy like us and we now know Hatched in Holland Village serves breakfast all day, we may not get there as often.

On the walk back to our place we stopped by to see the hundreds of turtles in the pond and then a large monitor lizard crossed the path in front of us.  Unfortunately, we didn't get any photos of him because my brother and I had already slipped into 'bro code' for speaking purposes and not everyone realized what was going on.  At least everyone got to hear 'Murray' stalking through the woods (we named the lizard that lives by our house Murray for those of you not following along).  As long as I live, I will never forget what that sounds like or what the smell of the Ion Orchard mall is when you get off the MRT at that stop.  Singapore sensory memories if you will.

Back at Changi airport about 36 hours after everyone had arrived, we hopped on a Jetstar flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia.  This was the first of multiple, budget flights over the next two weeks.  Our mother is not the best of fliers and combined with the stories she keeps hearing about me from living here, it was reasonable that these could get interesting.  All in all, she handled the flights pretty well.  Her eyes did get wide when we exited on the tarmac in Siem Reap and a Vietnam airlines flight with propellers was next to our plane.  "Are we on that next?" she asked.  I gulped a little bit, it was our next airline, but I thought we were on a jet.  Luckily we had to keep moving, so I somewhat dodged the question.  Tim cackling in the background hopefully went unnoticed, at least he refrained from making propeller noises and yelling 'Dr. Jones, Dr. Jones.'  We would find out quickly enough in 48 hours, no need to dwell on it at the moment, we had places to go and a new city to explore.

Most of our forms were already filled out and the cash was ready, so the assembly line that is Cambodia Immigration (I swear 15 people touch your passport before you get it back, Henry Ford would be proud) got our Kingdom of Cambodia Visas inserted fairly quickly. Once outside, Vandy, our invaluable guide for the next few days, was smiling and waiting for us to arrive.  As you'll see, the whole family would highly recommend him for anyone heading this way in the future.  We stopped at the temple ticket office to pick up our passes so we would not wait have to in the morning, a must for anyone going to the Angkor Temple Complex, and checked into our home for the next few days, the Royal Crown Hotel.  We had some skeptics when we said it was $50 a night, but we were all won over quickly.  Great location, walkable to to restaurants and shops, not too big and even had two pools on site.  Even better, once we were settled, we took the stairs up to the rooftop for a few pre-dinner drinks and panoramas of the city. The $2 large bottles of Angkor beer was a good sign we weren't in Singapore anymore, the parade of motorbikes and pick-ups with large megaphones touting the candidates in the upcoming election was another one.  Somehow I have now seen political rallies in Thailand and Cambodia and been in Malaysia when the election was going on, a little different than yard signs we see for candidates back-home.

That evening we had our first of multiple meals in Cambodia.  Even if everyone's heads were spinning from this new locale (no one was really showing it) the food is a little more on the 'normal' side for an American.  Its obviously not the same, but close to 'American' Chinese food.  Everyone serves cashew chicken, sweet and sour chicken or pork, fried rice, etc. and unlike Singapore or Thailand, it is not spicy.  Cambodia also seems to have spring rolls readily available, so I was clearly sold.  We had a date with Angkor Wat at 5:30 AM for what we hoped would be sunrise photos, so it was off to bed after dinner.  OK, fine, we stopped for ice cream and bought some trinkets in the night market.  Who doesn't need elephant placemats, coasters and a wine holder that says 'I heart Cambodia' on it.  After that, everyone safely navigated the walk back on the dusty streets, even with the lack of stop signs and stop lights, motor bikes everywhere and miniature sidewalks.  We had all cannonballed into Cambodia, but for now, all signs pointed towards heads above water.  Hopefully everyone felt the same way when we joined the line of cars, vans and tuk-tuks heading towards the temples in the morning.  We had a solid 10 hours of temple viewing and tomb raidering on the itinerary next.