I'm going to back track from my last blog about Angkor Wat and tell you a little about the actual trip that got us there. It was a long drive. A really long drive. We took a taxi, which actually just means that I got to spend 5 hours in the middle of the backseat of a Cambodian guy's old Toyota Camry. Sitting between 2 carseats in that little car for a long time is always an adventure. Especially with the honking he does the whole way. Seriously, not more than a minute or two goes by without honking, and the kids sometimes go through phases of the trip when they mimic the horn so they start yelling "beeep, honk, uuunnnkkk" every time it blares. That's really fun. I love it.
The bathroom break was awesome, too. Below you'll see where we got to stop to let our youngest pee. He could have gone in front of the car, but he wanted to pee by the water buffalo instead. So his dear Dad obliged. I protested but as usual, I'm pretty sure I'm invisible and no one heard anything I said. You can see him below in the bottom left. And our dear buffalo friend on the right. If you look really close you'll see the teeny rope that is keeping him tied up. And if you don't see it, well, that just shows you why I wasn't confident in it's ability to keep this wild animal away from my child.
But he survived. And that's good because it's not like we could do anything medically out in the middle of Cambodia so far from both the major cities - the one we left and the one we were going to. I guess men don't think about that because after he was so fortunate to survive the potty break they then decide to PET the wild animal!!!! Oh. My. Gosh. I was freaking out in the car. Seriously. Just get me over the next 10,546 potholes so we can be at our hotel already and use a real toilet! I can definitely hold it until then. And since we are hitting these potholes at this speed I literally will HOLD IT.
And, as always, we eventually made it. Great hotel! They let us sit at a little welcome table while they checked us in and took the bags to the room. Service is always exceptional in Cambodia! Not sure what this welcome drink was but it tasted like pure sugar. Of course the kids loved it.
And, this is misleading because it was the next night, but hey, gotta put it in somewhere... We climbed up a mountain to see the sunset. It was a nice paved trail that wasn't too steep but our little Hulk man was starting to get sick to Stephen carried him the whole way and might not claim the path was so easy. Our 5 year old did it himself, though. I was proud. Look at this view of Angkor Wat from the top!
And on the top we found this temple. And the line you had to wait in to get to climb it to see the sunset. Oops! We didn't know there'd be a line! I was worried, since I worry about everything, that we wouldn't make it to the top by sunset. The signs said it closed at 5:30 and one thing about being this close to the equator is that when the sun starts setting it finishes fast. It goes down so quickly!
But we made it to the top and saw beautiful views like this...
And the kids were happy to just climb and play on what looked like the top of the world to them!
The water is the Tonle Sap lake, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. I'll tell you more about it later, and I also wrote about it here.
So the sun was setting to our west and we looked to the east and were happy to see a full moon as well! What a great night!
And since it was only like 6pm when it was all finished, we headed to Swensen's after for a treat! Yep, they have Swensen's in Cambodia. That and KFC (which some Cambodians think means Kampuchea Fried Chicken) are the only American fast food chains that have made it here as far as we can tell. Swensen's only has ice cream, no food, but it's pretty yummy! The kids had fun with the fondue dish we ordered to share.
What a day that was! A sunset over a view like that always puts everything back into perspective for me.
He's got the whole world in His hands.
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