Two Weeks!!!

In two weeks Tim will be really desperate for a piece of shade! 

Daily Life

I was told on a number of occasions that I should take some pictures of around the area I live in.  Well here they are!  Some pictures of places we frequent.  Click to make them bigger:

Mom and Pop, as we like to call it.  A small store across from our apartment, great for picking up small items.

Where we do our laundry and buy our water, right outside of our apartment building.

The street our apartment building is on.

The street we turn down to walk to 7-11/school.

"Our Place", where we eat so many of our (cheap and tasty) meals.  Here a dish typically costs 30 baht, which is $1.

A picture showing that Our Place is right beside 7-11, and a picture of how unsafe the sidewalks are.

Pretty wild flowers, and a man driving a motorized bicycle selling brooms and things.

A picture from the second floor of "The Chicken Place", another one of the cheap soi restaurants we frequent.

Scary floorboards...and tasty soup!

There you have it!  Daily life :)

Love you all!

Kelsey

Fort.

The other day.....we made a fort in my room.

The materials

Assembly process with me, Martine, and Jen

Et voila!

It was awesome.

Lots of love,
Kelsey

Angkor Videos

I made a couple of Angkor Wat videos to show everyone as well.  Sometimes a little video is a nice alternative to a photo:

Cambodia (Last day of Temples)

The last day we had in Cambodia we spent at two temples, Angkor Wat and Preah Khan.  It was another beautiful and busy day!

Angkor Wat

Sketchy toilet sign

Enjoying a refreshing coconut.

Angkor Wat bonus for Brittany - really awful dreadlock mullet!

Preah Khan

Preah Khan was a very neat temple - the most notable feature were the trees and tree roots growing everywhere.  I think I was more fascinated with this aspect of the temple rather than the actual architectural design or ruins themselves.

We had started out pretty early, so by the time 3 rolled around we were exhausted!  We ended up spending a couple of hours next to our hotel's pool, reading, swimming, and napping.  A great end to a great mini-holiday!

We left pretty early for home the next day.  The return trip was a bit more difficult than the first. We had a bit of a run in during the return border crossing.

Someone sort of helped us (mostly he was just following us around and telling us what we already knew), but when we were done getting through the border he took my bag form me and brought it into his mini-van storefront before I had a chance to stop him.  I followed him in, took it from him, and said that we are not interested in a mini bus, as I've told him before.  He followed us out and down the street, yelling at us, saying things like "I helped you all the way across the border and now you leave!!" and "No! You come back!"  He followed us all the way down the street until I turned around and firmly told him that we are really not interested in a mini-bus, at all, and to leave us alone.

Him and a friend of his still watched us as we waited for a tuk tuk, Very annoying!   The people in Cambodia were certainly more aggressive than people in Thailand.  After our border crossing we were so flustered and on the look our for scams that we didn't believe that our tuk tuk driver dropped us off in front of the bus station.  We ended up wandering around needlessly before we made our way back to the place we were first dropped off.  Oopse!

The drive back was really difficult for me.  I was hot, hungry (crackers and bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner will do that to you), and the bus was extremely over-crowded, with people standing up in the alleyway the whole time.  I was just glad to have a seat!

Anyway, after everything was said and done we made it home just fine (well, other than my nasty heat rash ;) ) 

 It really was a great vacation, Angkor was absolutely beautiful!

Love you all!

Kelsey

Cambodia (First day of Temples)

We got to our hotel at around noon after an awfully long, bumpy, and hot mini-bus ride.  Our border crossing helper arranged for his brother to be our tuk tuk driver, and after quickly changing we set out with him to see some temples.

Angkor Thom

The temples we saw the first day were the ones in the Angkor Thom complex, which was the last capitol city of the Khmer Empire.  In the Angkor Thom temple complex we visited Bayon, Bapoon, Terrace of the Elephants, and Thomonun.  Words cannot describe how beautiful the sites were.  I also managed to snag a pretty cool souvenir for my sister here.

As always, click to enlarge.

At the end of the day we climbed to the top of Bakheng mountain to see the sunset.  Once we saw the ridiculous lineup to get inside the temple to see the sunset, we turned right around.

So instead, here is a picture of that sunset that I did not take and was not there for.  Enjoy!

More to come!

Lots of love,

Kelsey