Hello Steemit community! I'm Gaby, a 26 year old flight attendant and SeneGence distributor with a passion for travel, a thirst for adventure, and a wholehearted love for people, food, and the beautiful world that we live in.
I'm excited to share my life and travel journey with you all! I want to start by sharing a recent adventure that is very close to my heart - the day I married the love of my life. After being guests at several weddings all spring and summer, we both realized that a traditional wedding wasn't for us. So, one random summer night after a few glasses of wine, as we were planning our vacation to Siem Reap, Cambodia, we jokingly mentioned getting married on our vacation. We started googling pictures which lead to research, and all of a sudden, we weren't joking anymore. Within minutes we were sure that getting married, just the two of us, in Cambodia was exactly what we wanted. The very next day we told our parents (who were only slightly hesitant), and we began planning right away. I bought a wedding dress within the week, and we booked our beautiful hotel.
Our goal was to take our wedding photos at the Angkor Wat Temples. There isn't much info about Siem Reap out there, at least not info that I could easily find here in the U.S., so I began to send emails to anyone I could find that had taken wedding photos at Angkor Wat before. Keep in mind that there is a 13 hour time difference between the US East Coast and Siem Reap, Cambodia, so it took a full day for each correspondence. After a few emails, I found out that we would need special permission from the government to be allowed to take photos in our American wedding attire in the sacred complex of the Angkor Wat Temples. I hunted down the email of the person in charge of giving permission, and sent him an email right away. I then found a photographer (a Siem Reap native), sent about 10 emails back and forth, and despite the language barrier, we set our plans for our wedding day and hoped for the best.
Before we knew it, it was October, and time for us to start our long journey to the other side of the world. This is where my incredible job comes into play. This idea would never have even been fathomed without having the benefits of being a flight attendant. Not everyone gets to just decide to hop on a few planes across the world, and I am so grateful that my job allows me to do so. Not only were we lucky enough to get seats on our first flight from Seattle to Narita, Japan, but we were spoiled by getting upgraded to first class seats. This was the first time I had ever sat up front on an international flight, and I was in awe of how amazing it was!
After a couple more flights, we arrived in Siem Reap. We spent the days leading up to our wedding exploring the beautiful city and getting to know the kind and welcoming people of Cambodia. On one morning, we got up early to make our way to the Apsara Authority complex to make our payment and receive our permission to take our photos at Angkor Wat. To our surprise the process went very smoothly and within a couple of ours we had our permission form and were ready for our big day! On the morning of our wedding, we woke up around 5AM to get ready for the day. October is just near the end of rainy season in Cambodia, so we needed to start our day early to avoid getting caught in the afternoon storms. Our photographer picked us up around 6, and the best day of our lives began. And it was an absolute dream.
We started our day at the main temple of the complex, the famous Angkor Wat. Though there were 100s of people around us, Kimleng, our incredible photographer, made it seem as if my husband and I were the only two people there that day.
After a couple of hours, we had to take a break for a drink. Though you can't tell from the photos, it was extremely hot and humid out, so every time we got in the car to go to a new location, we had cool rags for our necks and bottles of water waiting for us so that we wouldn't overheat. Kimleng took us to a shady spot where we stopped for some fresh coconut water to replenish our electrolytes.
We then continued on to the beautiful Preah Pilalay. This was one of my very favorite spots. It was like a little secret getaway from the busy bigger temples, and so vividly green and luscious.
Our last stop in our American wedding attire was at the Bayon Temple. This was our very favorite temple because of its structural beauty and also because of what it stands for. If you look closely, you can see many faces carved into the tops of the towers. We were told that these many faces are to represent the many Gods of all religions, and so the temple was created as a place for people of all religions to come and pray. We absolutely loved the openness and acceptance of all people that the Bayon temple represents.
After 6 hours of photo shooting, we took a break for lunch and an outfit change. We really wanted to embrace as much of the Cambodian culture as we could, so we decided to rent traditional Cambodian wedding attire. We want back out to visit some other temples and finish our photo shoot in our Cambodian wedding outfits before finishing our day with our marriage blessing.
We ended our day by driving about an hour outside of the city, to a more remote part of Cambodia, for our water blessing. Before our blessing, we lit incense and said our own individual prayers. We then went to sit outside next to a small temple where we sat on a bamboo mat across from a Buddhist monk who performed our blessing. He began by giving us a berry wrapped in a large green leaf. We were instructed to chew on the leaf wrapped berry during the blessing ceremony. With each chew the flavor of the berry changed. Sometimes it was bitter, sometimes sweet, or sometimes sour, and these flavors are meant to represent a marriage. Sometimes it will be good and sweet or sometimes it will be sour and bitter. He continued with his blessing chants and sprinkled us with holy water, cleansing and blessing our marriage, and bringing us good luck.
We could not be more grateful for this amazing experience. It was more beautiful than we could have ever imagined, and we will never forget this day. I am also forever grateful for a life of travel an adventure that allows me to open my heart and mind to beautiful people, places, and cultures. Travel can enrich your life in so many ways. So, if you can, travel as far and wide as possible, and allow it to teach you not only about others and the world we live in, but also about yourself. I look forward to sharing many more adventures with you all!