Let me start my Cambodia recap by advising you to check out Hillary’s previous post on Cambodia, if you have not done so already. She did a great job (in my opinion) of capturing some of the more emotional and impactful information and experiences we came across there. I don’t thinK I could give a perspective any better than she did, so instead I’ll focus on briefly recapping the more light hearted aspects of our time.
 
Our visit to Cambodia definitely started in an interesting manner, as we crossed the Thai border by foot. Upon exiting our bus, we were immediately swarmed by men offering to help speed us through the visa/border process in exchange for payment. Thankfully, yours truly had read about this scam ahead of time and applied for visas electronically before our trip. As soon as they tried to talk to us, all I said was “E-visa”, and they scurried off to try to trick other people getting off the bus, as Hillary and I strolled directly to the customs officer. Other travelers did not seem to be as fortunate or aware, as we came across multiple people who ended up paying much more than was necessary.

Crossing the border by foot allowed us to see some interesting things as well. Between the Thai and Cambodian customs offices (I’m still not sure what this area is considered – does it belong to either county?, is it ‘international waters’?, do the casinos strategically placed there even need to pay taxes?…) there were street vendors and other people that had seemingly normal jobs just roaming around and walking from one country to the next. How the countries actually keep track of who comes and goes on a daily basis is baffling.
 
After that experience, we continued onto Siem Reap. Putting it simply, Siem Reap is incredible and definitely my favorite place we visited thus far in our journey. The Angkor site is beyond description, and watching the sunrise over Angkor Wat was will forever be engrained in my memory.

The food was great everywhere we went, from the few nicer restaurants (all of which provided training services to local homeless young adults aimed at helping them escape poverty and unemployment) to the hole in the wall local place across the street from our hotel that we ended up eating at repeatedly because of how good everything there tasted. And then there is Pub Street…
 
We had heard that there was a fun little area to go out to bars in Siem Reap, so on our last night there, we decided we wanted to check it out and have a little fun. Initially we planned to grab a happy hour drink somewhere before heading off to dinner, but that quickly changed after we wandered into Picasso Bar. Pub Street itself runs through the middle of the city, with little side streets full of cool looking bars and restaurants intersecting it. Picasso Bar was on one of these smaller streets, and upon entering, we could tell it was our kind of place. It was fairly small (probably only ~10-15 stools around a u-shaped bar and a couple of tables outside) and the 2 bartenders were welcoming and friendly. They happened to have a buy-1-get-1 free happy hour (which apparently ran all night) for all cocktails as well as a delicious looking meat and cheese platter (the first being my favorite thing and the second being Hillary’s), so we decided to scrap the dinner idea and plant ourselves for the evening. We are both very thankful we did, because it was an incredibly fun night of good conversation, delicious drinks (the espresso martini was actually unbelievable), and disconnecting from everything serious in life. Looking back on it, nights like this were the reason we took this trip in the first place – it was pure enjoyment (though we paid for it a bit the next morning… buy-1-get-1 drinks when they are already only ~$3 US dollars each is hard to moderate).

The next stop in Cambodia was Phnom Penh, which Hillary discussed in her post, so I won’t get too into it besides mentioning that everything she said about the Killing Fields and prison was entirely accurate. It definitely provided a lot of insight into the darker sides of the human psyche and gave us an appreciation for the lives we have been able to live.
 
Now onto Vietnam!