Siem Reap

So my time in Siem Reap went by extremely fast. I felt as if I was there for only one day rather then 4. We arrived Thursday afternoon and went straight to Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is Cambodia's most famous monument and is even on their flag (the only country to have a monument on their flag I believe). Being there was surreal but it was hard to really appreciate the moment with a billion tourists everywhere. Asian people from Korea, China and Japan take these bus tours throughout the country and they just drop them off everywhere. All the Asian tourist insist on carrying around umbrellas to block the sun and wear white make up so their faces are white and the rest of them is brown. After Angkor Wat we went to dinner then to the hotel. Our hotel was interesting, we had beautiful porches off of each room, however lacked a real tub. There was a drain in the floor and a shower head and you kinda just stood there and got the bathroom full of water. I am sure this is popular, but it is the first time I ever saw such a thing. I did not feel very clean. On Friday we set off to this mountain which i cannot spell the name of. There, we saw a river which had carved lingas and yonnis on the river bed. Lingas and yonis represent fertility, by carving them onto the river bed the water would be blessed. After the water was blessed it would go down to the fields and result in fertile and plentiful harvest. After the river we went to the waterfall Lara Croft jumped off in Tomb Raider. It was beautiful. While there were a few other tourist we largely had the place to ourselves. We didn't get to jump off the waterfall but there was a rope to swing off of, which I failed at. On Saturday we went to Angkor Thom temple complex and saw more temples then I can remember. We also went on a elephant ride around the temple, but it was pretty lame. It only went around one temple and we didn't even get to sit on the elephant but a chair thing and it only lasted for like 10 minutes. It was a long and exhausting time spent in Siem Reap. As for the town, it made me miss Phnom Penh a bunch. The whole town was completely geared towards tourism and depended on tourism. This has its good and bad issues but I wont get into that on here. As for now I am back in Phnom Penh with Ack. All of my group mates are gone and we are here until Thursday then off to Bangkok. I will try to get some pictures up. I was able to upload a bunch to facebook the other day so check those out too.