by Katherine

Banteay Kdei

So begins the real fun - a jungle temple! Jungle temples are temples that have let the jungle and all its trees and roots take over. There is still some restoration involved, though. Out first stop after Angkor Wat was Banteay Kdei. It was far less crowded and a lot more up my alley. This temple was fairly deep and you walked to the back of the temple and then retraced the same path back out to the front. The piles of rocks and crazy trees are so cool to see. There were also local artisans making and selling their goods along the path to the temple start.

by Katherine

         Angkor Wat is THE reason why I wanted to come to Cambodia. Its pictures looked frickin sweet and I love exploring old ruinous structures.  It was so alluring and unique looking, it would be completely unlike anything we've seen in Europe. One of Rosie's friends had said it was more breathtaking than Machu Picchu (another must see on my list)! I was excited and I had high expectations! We decided that we would try and see the sunrise, something that everyone does, on our first day. The sun rises behind the temple and a reflection can be seen in the little pond that everyone gathers at. We had to buy our ticket to the Angkor park and try to beat the crowds, so we left the hotel at 5:00 am. Yeah, we didn't get much sleep; I was battling a cold or something and spent the entire night coughing, so I got like no sleep. The hotel was nice enough to pack us a breakfast before we left, which consisted of some fresh fruit and toast, so at least we didn't have to worry about getting some food after seeing the sunrise.

by Katherine

         So goodbye Vietnam and hello Cambodia! I was torn about how I would like Cambodia; it is hot as balls, but Siem Reap seemed like a really fun town from my research. And hotels seemed really great too, a lot of bang for your buck. Of all the places we could have splurged and stayed in true luxury, Siem Reap would have been the place, as they had resort-like hotels for pretty cheap. But why spend extra if you can stay at the Golden Mango Inn! I had found this place pretty early on in my research, as the Trip Advisor reviews had almost nothing bad to say about the place. Then it turned out, it was the place my cousin had stayed at when she was in Siem Reap, and she said it was really nice. The biggest downside was that it was not in town, but my cousin said it was better to be away from that craziness, and reviews said it was super easy to take a tuk tuk into town. So we booked at the Golden Mango Inn.

by Katherine

by Bradley

          Let me start by saying that we would never have eaten at this restaurant for lunch if it weren't included on our tour. It looked dirty and there were lots of bugs flying around and just didn't seem like a place we'd like to eat. That being said, it was included so we ate here. They served us the local specialty of the province, goat!

          We got 4-5 different goat dishes and several other dishes as well. Most of the goat was very overcooked, it even scratched and irritated Katherine's throat. We were not a fan of the goat. The best things we ate were the dipping sauce for the meat and the burnt rice. The burnt rice is kinda like a rice krispy treat but not sweet. If there was one positive about this place it was that you got soooooooo much food!

by Katherine

          If we had had more time in Vietnam, I would have loved to spend days traveling the countryside in the northern part of the country. But since we only had one day more, from my research, it sounded like going down to Ninh Binh would be a perfect day filler. The town of Ninh Binh is nothing at all exciting, but the nearby areas of Tam Coc and Trang An were described as "the inland Halong Bay"; you take a row boat through a river winding through more limestone formations. They were also described as being far less crowded, so with my love of the limestone mountains, I eagerly wanted to go, but we had to decide which spot to go to. Tam Coc has bright green rice paddies between the river and the mountains, which I thought would have really set it apart from Halong Bay. But Trang An had more caves to row through.

          If we had hired a private car for the day, I probably would have done both, and I also really wanted to go to this little pagoda on top of one of the mountains with an awesome view of Tam Coc. Unfortunately, when we were organizing things at our hotel in Hanoi, we were persuaded to do an organized tour, which included one of Tam Coc and Trang An, lunch, and a temple (if it had been up to just me, I still would have hired the driver for the flexibility to do what I wanted- really not a fan of organized tours). We asked Kathy, the manager, and she said that Trang An was far more beautiful than Tam Coc, but a longer boat ride, so we took her suggestion. Longer boat ride was definitely a plus for me, though I was sad to miss the rice fields. The tour was $40 per person.

by Katherine