Day 2

'What? You don't know how to go there?'

'How now?'

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Today my friend and I woke up early because we were going to the Angkor Archaeological Park! I was so excited that I woke up earlier than my friend. I was so ready to see the beautiful Angkor. While waiting for my friend to get ready, I messaged this guy which I friend with him from the Couchsurfing app. I was quite nervous to meet him because it was my first time meetup with a Couchsurfer abroad. Normally I had meetup with couchsurfer at my country. So I texted him and asked him to get ready too. I asked his hotel address because we promised to share tuk tuk to tour Angkor together. He gave me his address and when I google it, it was not that far from my hostel. 

*My mobile phone is buzzing~*  I answered a call. I was so shocked. My Cambodian friend's tuk tuk driver could not make it today. He called me to inform me that his brother was going to replace him as our driver for 3 days. At first I was like hmm...okay..as long as he could speak English. Unfortunately, the new driver couldn't speak proper English at all. When I showed the driver my CS friend's address, he didn't know how to go there. I was like huh...'How now?' Luckily the hostel staff was there so I rushed inside to ask help from him. It was still early and the staff was actually sleeping near the reception counter. I felt bad to wake him up lol but it was urgent. The staff also didn't really know where the hotel was located. My CS friend started to get annoyed a little bit because I was not on time. I told him that I had some problems to go to fetch him and blah blah blah.

Anyway...we met and we greeted each other. He was a DJ from America. At first it was kinda awkward for the three of us. Beside that, it was also my friend's first time to meet up with a CS friend. She felt nervous too because she never talk with a foreigner before. So most of the time I was the one who talked the most. Maybe he felt a little bit strange because my friend didn't speak much. He thought that she was unhappy because he just joined us for this trip. It was a sudden plan for him to join us. He told me that he was robbed at Bali so it would be a great idea for us to share the tuk tuk ride for three days. Since, I was a budget traveler I always welcome people to join me to cut my travel cost. I was glad that we got along quite well after visiting the first temple which was Preah Khan. I just realised that he loveeeeed to take photos so much! And selfies...so we could be good friends.Lol. This was because I love taking photos too. We went for the Grand Circuit Tour. Every thing was so great!

When I first entering Preah Khan, I was in awe. This place was so beautiful!! *click* *click* *click* My camera battery drained so fast because I took lots of photos there. It was just the first temple and I already took thousands of photos at this place. *Just kidding..20+ shots maybe?*  Then we went to Neak Pean. I loved this temple too!!! So freaking beautiful! You have to go to to see it with your naked eyes.  We bought a guide book here because we couldn't afford to hire a tour guide. Then one question just came to my mind. 'If we share the book, who's going to keep it later?' So he's being the gentleman,he gave me the book. 

After touring some of the temples, we went to had our lunch at a restaurant named Krousar Khmer Restaurant. It was located near to Srah Srang. All the dishes that we ordered were so delicious. It was my first time trying the well-known Fish Amok too! So tasty! The toilets in this restaurant were very clean. Thank God for that. I was holding my pee since this early morning. Then we continued our journey to other temples. After that, we went to Banteay Srei-The Pink Sandstone Temple of Angkor. It was located quite a distance from the other temples. So it took us almost half an hour to go there. The road was so dusty and bumpy. However, we enjoyed the ride to our destination. My friend dozed off and she almost fell down from the tuk tuk. It was so dangerous because our seats didn't have any handles. I was shocked too! Luckily I was still awake and I managed to grab hold of her.

The weather was really scorching hot in the afternoon. I love this place so much! So beautiful! Then we went to watch sunset at Phnom Bakheng. We went there at 4p.m. We walked up the mountain for almost 15 minutes. Then we lined up to climb up to the temple. When I was standing at Phnom Bakheng, I was in awe. Magnificent view! I could even spot Angkor Wat from here. I was so happy. I felt so alive. I couldn't believe that I was here. All these time I just read about this country from blogs and books. Now, I was here watching the sunset at Cambodia!!!!!!!! I couldn't describe how happy I was at this time. I was surrounded with nice views and nice companies. This was my first time watching sunset. It was not as great as I thought how it should be yet I felt satisfied with everything.

Then we went back to our hostel to rest. We planned to watch Apsara dance in the evening. However, we felt so tired and lazy to go out. Our legs were numb after walking and climbing so many steep stairs today. So, we just had dinner in our hostel's rooftop bar. We felt so knackered but I really enjoyed today's temple hopping. It was kinda rushing but I was happy that I could see so many temples in a day. I really wished I could spend at least one week in Siem Reap. I felt so bad that I had limited budget and I had to rush back to Phnom Penh to meet my friend. 

Aww. I feel so excited now!! This is because I'm going to watch sunrise at Angkor Wat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

'What? You mean you can't follow us to Siem Reap?'  I was so shocked and I didn't know what to do at that moment. I didn't plan anything for the trip. This was because I thought that he would arrange everything for us. However, I tried to keep a straight face and replied him calmly. 'So, how?'

I entered my friend's house. Oh. His mother was sitting there and welcome us with a nice smile. Suddenly his father came out too. However, his father's face looked very serious. He told me that his parents couldn't speak English so most of the time my friend and I just laughed awkwardly with them. Lol. His mother mumbled in a language that I couldn't understand and pointed to the sliced fruits. So she wanted us to eat the pamelo. Haha..I shook my head and said no because I had stomach ache this morning. It was kinda rude I know..for not accepting people's offer. I had a 6 hours' journey in a van to Siem Reap later so I had to tell her I couldn't eat that.

After we rested for a while, my Cambodian friend broke a bad news to me. He COULD NOT FOLLOW ME TO　SIEMREAP. I was a little bit disappointed at that moment. This was because we already planned the trip before we came here. I thought that he could be our tour guide so that we didn't have to worry much. It's okay. Thinking that this would be my first adventure in a foreign land kinda made me excited and nervous at the same time. My real first time travelling in a country where the locals speak the language that I couldn't understand.

I had to tell you that the 6 hours journey from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap was really scary. I felt so lost and so scared. Most of the places didn't have signals. So, I could't contact my Cambodian friend until I reached Siem Reap. Luckily I was not alone. I had a friend to travel with me. Hmm. The van was very cramped because everyone brought large luggage and backpacks. The road was so dark that I could see nothing from my window. No street lamps at their national highway. Unlike my country's PLUS highway, the road was not tarred. Sounds of vehicle honking were heard along my journey. The people who were in the same van with us were the locals. The van did stop at several places for toilet breaks and for us to eat. However I didn't understand what they were talkingabout and how long the van would stop at each station, so we didn't dare to buy food to eat. We were really hungry and helpless at the same time. I told my friend that we had to make another itinerary once we reached Siem Reap.

It was really a great relieved after the 6 hours' journey from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. We reached the hostel safely. I will blog about it in my hostel review soon. Everything was fine. After we checked in, we had our dinner at the nearest cafe situated beside our hostel. Then we went to explore Siem Reap night market and pub street. Wow! My jaw dropped when I experienced the atmosphere at the pub street. So this was how the pub street in Cambodia looked like. Fuh! Luckily I was not a party animal. Even though it was our first day here, we already spent a lot on clothing. LOL. We bought lots of pants at the night market. Too hard to resist I tell ya. After that I planned to have a meetup with my Couchsurfing friend at the nightmarket. He told us to meet at a bar which was called temple club. We couldn't find our way to reach there. So I told him to meetup the next day and joined us for temple hopping.

The night market was really close to our hostel. So we walked back to our hostel even though it was pitched dark in the alley. There were some people standing along the dark streets. So my friend and I pretended to look calm and walked back to our hostel. When we reached our room, we were so shocked to see crickets on our bed and some were in the bathroom. We didn't complain because crickets don't bite right? Small matters. It's okay. Lol. Going to sleep with them for three nights. Luckily my friend was not a fussy type and could deal with it. We were too tired to care about small matter like this. We wondered where did the crickets actually came from because our room was 'sealed'. Sealed -What I wanted to say was all the windows were closed and the door was covered with plastic sheet too. The crickets were still there. Then we realised that maybe they came out from the sink. It was really  a tiring day for us even though we slept all the way form Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. Our driver told us that he would pick us up 6 a.m. in the morning. Lol. Yes. Very early.....


Day 2
'What? You don't know how to go there?'
'How now?'

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I guess I have to stop here. It's 3:44 a.m. now. and I have to work tomorrow. Lol. Insomnia. Anyway, I didn't edit this post. I just want it to be spontaneous and want it to be raw. Suddenly I feel like I want to write some narrative stories here. Actually I did document all my travel moments in my travel journal but I can't show you. So I only tell you part of the stories here. I wrote a 10 pages diary for this trip but I think you won't be interested to know anyway. It's very dull. Let's see if this blog post can reach 100 views, I will try to blog about my Day 2's adventure.

Let's hi 5 the world