Cambodia was our last and shortest leg of our Southeast Asia trip. We stayed in Siem Reap for I believe 3 days and 2 nights. It was a cute town with a nice area to walk around and shop and see some Cambodian culture.
Cambodia was more like Laos than Vietnam in that it was less industrial and built up. As a result of this, there were less motorcycles and it was walkable. Some people also got around on Tuk Tuks, which are fun little buggies pulled by bikes, but I’m pretty sure these were more for the tourists than the locals (similar to the people in Times Square who like to ride you around on their bike buggies and charge a ton of money, except these were like 2USD and in times square you can go 4 blocks for like $40 plus tip).
It was also more similar to Laos in that it was 3 days of temple hopping. We actually bought a three day temple pass which allows you to see all of them for like 20 USD. These temples were different though – more like outdoor ruins than the indoor shrines we saw in Laos. This was more interesting to me. I don’t know why, it just was, ok?
Of course we went to Angkor Wat, the most famous of the Cambodian temples. I’m not going to give you a history lesson on this, or any of these temples, because I don’t remember, I’m bad at history, and Google exists for a reason.
These guys were hanging out outside. They were cute I guess. 
And also Angkor Thom, which I guess is maybe the second most famous? Google it.
And we also saw this temple called Ta Prohm (according to Google, my friend with all the answers) where Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was filmed. I don’t know anything about this movie, but our guide was very proud, so we took pictures.
And here’s some of the rest of the temples.
I really like this picture because it sort of shows how steep these steps were. This was a little bit of a scary climb if I remember correctly. 
We also went to a butterfly farm and got to see all of the phases of the lifecycle.
And we went to another silk making village so as promised in my Laos post, here are some not so good pictures of the process from worm to scarf.
And also this place that I think was an art/ceramic making shop. I’m just pretty fascinated by how much is done by hand and how talented these people are.
We got the dead skin chewed off of our feet by tiny fishies. I don’t know if this is sanitary or anything, we just handed some people who barely spoke English some money and then their fish ate our feet after eating lots of other people’s feet too. Sounds sanitary to me.
Finally, we went to another floating village. It was surprisingly different from the one we saw in Vietnam. Land was definitely more easily accessible in this village, and they also had a school and a little shop here. The people also had boats, so it seemed like they had access to more necessities. Also, since they were so much closer to the land, the water was not as deep. Therefore, unlike the village in Vietnam that was solely made up of homes built on little docks, this village also had some homes simply held up by sticks.
This is the school. 
This is the little shop. 
This is the house on sticks. 
We also saw some homes on land that were built on high sticks, and we were told that this is because of how high the waters can get during the rainy season.
And then we got ready to head home, and my experience in the Cambodian airport was perhaps one of the scariest moments I have ever experienced, and I will never forget it.
So, everything started out fine. We had our tickets, we were all checked in, and about to head through security. Before we could check our bags though, we had to send them through an x-ray machine similar to one you might see at customs and immigration at JFK if you’ve ever flown there from abroad. Someone pulled my suitcase aside and asked to see me in a separate room where they would take my suitcase and go through it because they saw something suspicious inside. No one in the entire airport spoke any English, so this was confusing to begin with, but I obediently followed. They brought me into a small room with no windows and began to open up my suitcase, and they pulled out my ankle weights (I used to use them for hip flexor physical therapy and brought them everywhere, especially when I knew I’d be walking a lot because my hips hurt. I should probably do that more often now but I didn’t have any children back then and I wasn’t stuck home with them in a pandemic.) These old ankle weights had a bunch of sections that you could insert or remove long round metal weights to change the weight of them. The two people searching my bag kept looking at them and me as if looking for some type of explanation even though we really did not speak each other’s languages. And then I heard the word “bullet”. Guys they thought my ankle weights were bullets. I am not kidding, at that moment I thought I was about to be arrested and put in a Cambodian jail. I was seriously sweating, maybe having heart palpitations, and I did not know how I was going to explain to these people that I was not traveling internationally with gigantic bullets in my bag. I just kept saying “exercise” and “physical therapy” over and and over again, and they just kept saying “bullets”. So then, naturally, I did the only thing I could do to avoid arrest. I climbed up onto the table that my bag was being searched on, wrapped the weights around my ankle, and started doing leg lifts. Then the lightbulb went on and they started laughing and saying “exercise! exercise!”. I cannot explain the relief I felt in this moment. I think this whole thing only lasted a few minutes, but it felt like hours. Finally, I was free to go and I could not wait to get home where people spoke my language and my food choices were available (don’t get me wrong – I LOVE traveling especially for different food, but after three weeks I am ready for my own comforts). I never traveled with these weights again.
And that was it. That was our journey through three countries in Southeast Asia. It was different, fascinating, and so much fun, and I can’t wait to plan a trip to Thailand. I’ll leave you with a few more motorcycle pictures because 1. I got hit by one and 2. I was BLOWN away by the lack of traffic laws in these countries but also the lack of safety precautions. Helmets are clearly optional, and it seems many of the people chose to helmet themselves but not their children? I don’t even know.
TRAVELING WITH ARDEN 