Day 1

December 8: Day 1 Emily Today was literally a full day of travel. Joey slept over last night because we had to leave so early. When I woke up at 5:15, though, my stomach felt really cramped. I proceeded to break out in a cold sweat, be really sick, and lie on the ground in front of my concerned host mom who tried to feed me medicine. At 6:05 I felt better and our cab was waiting, so we got in and went to the airport. After a 4570,000 VND ride, we got there. I was still sick. I felt better soon, though. We decided to spend the last of our Dong on cookies, candy, gum, a book, and a pair of chopsticks. Hooray, we made it to our plane to Phnom Penh! Literally, the rest of the trip was a breeze. We applied for, paid for, and received our visas smoothly. Customs was like, show me your card, give me your fingerprints, okay welcome to Cambodia. We exited the airport and immediately changed money, got a SIM card, minivan tickets, and a tuk tuk (motorized tricycle) to the bus station. Cambodia sure knows how to be efficient! We even had time to get Joey some food before we went for the 6-hour long van ride. Bumpy bus. We were actually flying out of our chairs at one point. It was really cool to see Cambodia from the ground instead of just flying over it. We saw lots of people and houses and markets and fields and cows. I also ate an entire packet of Oreos on the way, which was a terrible idea. We stopped a couple of times in between. One guy was retching violently in the stall next to me at a rest stop, which was a little disconcerting. Made me a little wary about the food… Anyway, we made it to Siem Reap and I managed to get on two tuk tuk drivers’ bad sides within the first 20 minutes of being there. Long story. Basically a lot of miscommunication. We checked into our hostel without incident and were about to go get some food when – lo and behold – there was our good friend Zoe! We all hugged and it turns out she had booked a room in our hostel for tomorrow but didn’t have a place to stay tonight. So she and Sophie are staying in our room tonight. We all got curry for dinner. Ok. Also, uhhh Siem Reap is tourist central!! So many tourists are here and it seems everyone speaks perfect English. There is so much to buy buy buy and I want all of the pants here. All. Of. Them. But I shall resist. People keep coming up to us and being like, “Hello, fish massage?” or, “Hey lady, are you alone? Where’s your husband?” A fish massage is when little fish eat the dead skin off your feet. Mmm, delicious. And for now, Joey is my husband. Makes things a little easier. Also, is it bad if I am very attracted to all the foreigners here? Hm. Waking up early to see Angkor Wat. Goodbye. Emily PS: Joey is actually the cutest. He just turned to me and said, "Why aren't we snuggling? Go to sleepsies. These beds are almost squishy. But not quite. *Yawn*"

Dec 8 Day 1 Joey             Wow. What a day. Woke up at 5:30, left Emily’s house at 6 AM, plane to Phnom Penh at 9:35 AM, landed and bus to Siem Reap at 1, arrived to our hostel around 7:30, randomly ran into our study abroad buddies Zoe and Sophie in the hostel who are now crashing in our room, got dinner, walked around the markets, and set my alarm for 4:30 so we can do a sunrise tour of Angkor Wat. 13 hours of travel total.             The best part was probably all the wild giraffes we saw on our bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. They didn’t really look like giraffes though. They looked more like the animals that I see every time I drive down I-35 to San Antonio. Emily was insisting that they weren’t giraffes, and that they were cows or something, but I’m pretty sure they were giraffes. I wish I could have snagged a picture of one, but I unfortunately was camera-less until about twenty minutes ago when I bought a film camera in Siem Reap.             Siem Reap is like a little Western enclave in Cambodia. Driving into the city from the capital, you could see how undeveloped Cambodia is. Lots of rice fields (I read on the airplane that 70% of the population works in rice fields), lots of giraffes and chickens on the sides of the roads, when it was dark lots of fires burning under stilted houses. The landscape was flat and lots of water. Not to overdue it with Texas road trip references, but it kind of reminded me of driving on Mustang Island to Port Aransas. Really flat, sort of tropical, and lots of water, though in Texas it was ocean and bay and here it is river and swamp. But lots of water nonetheless.              Highlights of the day include- bomb Thai food in the main market square thing of Siem Reap, running into Sophie and Zoe, buying Love Stories of Vietnamese Politicians (the only English book in the airport not about Ho Chi Minh), and spending lots and lots of quality time with Emily.