This series will go country by country through my two-year trip. I plan on sharing some experiences, thoughts, and photos of each country that I visited.

Country by Country 19: Cambodia

The bus ride from Laos was long, but not too bad. I arrived in Siem Reap after sundown and didn't have a room booked. There were tuk-tuk drivers waiting for our bus and one guy offered to help me find a hotel if I agreed to have him take me to the Angkor temples for 3 days. We worked out a price for the tour and he took me to a hotel. The next day, my driver came and we went to the Angkor temples.

The temples of Angkor are probably the most impressive tourist attraction that I've ever seen. If you ever find yourself in South East Asia, you owe it to yourself to spend a few days in Siem Reap. Even though it's packed with tourists, it's worth the price of admission times 10. The only problem with going to the Angkor temples is that other attractions around the world will seem small and lackluster in comparison. I went all the way to Machu Picchu and it was kind of boring after seeing Angkor.

I had a 3-day pass for the Angkor temples. The first day was fine. On the second day, my driver started asking for more money, but he was trying to be sneaky about it. Since it wasn't what we had agreed to, we ended up parting ways. If he had simply said that day 1 costs x, and day 2 costs y, it would have been fine. Instead, he tried his tourist-hustle on me. On the third day, I had a different driver.

Everyone has seen a million photos of the temples at Angkor. I'm going to try and post some of my less traditional photos.

Most of the handrails on these walkways are actually giant multi-headed snakes.

These ladies are all over the place.

A giant mural carving about war. It reminded me of Trajan Column in Rome.

Trees have overrun some of the temples.

This temple has faces on it.

A ruin wall.

It felt like I was in Tomb Raider.

A cowboy at the temple.

A temple wall.

Another temple being eaten by a tree.

A carving above an archway.

The temples were amazing and I could easily make 10 posts showing off how beautiful and mysterious the place is. The majority (maybe all) of the temples are Hindu. Hinduism was replaced by Buddism a few hundred years ago, but because Buddist temples are made from wood instead of stone, they don't exist anymore.

While I was in Siem Reap, I got a visa for Vietnam. The scooter riding in Laos convinced me that I wanted to do more riding, and Vietnam is one of the best places to do it. After I got my passport back (with a new visa), I left Siem Reap and took a bus to Battambang.

When my bus arrived in Battambang, what seemed like hundreds of tuk-tuk drivers crowded the bus and tried to get us to hire them. They really crowded the door and it was hard to get off the bus. I don't like pushy people like that, so I ignored most of them. One of the drivers seemed calm, quiet, and professional so I worked out a deal with him. He would take me to a hotel for free if I agreed to hire him for a tour or two. It sounded like a good deal to me.

He took me to a hotel and I dropped off my luggage. Then he took me around to some of the attractions. I did the bamboo railway thing, and it was kind of boring. We also went the Batcave and to a cave where thousands of people were executed by pushing them off a cliff.

A temple monkey.

A view from a temple.

Cool decorations on a temple.

Bats leaving their cave at sunset. It takes about an hour for all of the bats to leave the cave.

A cloud of bats leaving their cave.

While we were at the Batcave, my driver John told me that his daughter was having a birthday party on the next day. He asked if I wanted to go. Normally, an 8-year-old girl's birthday party is the last place I'd want to be, but for the sake of adventure, I said yes. John dropped me off at my hotel and told me that his nephew would pick me up tomorrow.

At the hotel, I started doing some research into common scams in Cambodia. This is a good thing to do before visiting any country. I'd already read up on Cambodian scams, but maybe I'd missed the "birthday-party" scam. The only thing I could find is a scam where your new "friend" wants help cheating a neighbor at poker. You start playing, then suddenly realize that they've all been cheating you.

I was a little nervous about the birthday party and expected to be robbed or scammed. I left everything in my hotel room except $20 or $40. I even took the hotel keychain off my key because it had my room number on it.

The next day, I waited in the lobby for the nephew. The meeting time came and passed, and I was starting to feel relieved that it wasn't going to happen. As I was getting up to go back to my room, someone came in and introduced himself as John's nephew. There was no backing out now!

We had to make a few stops, but I didn't understand why we were stopping. It all seemed a little fishy to me. Then the nephew dropped the bomb. He said we needed to stop and pick up a friend. "Oh boy." I thought to myself, "I bet this friend is going to be really into poker and will want to cheat a neighbor".

We pulled up to the house and a Korean couple in the 50's came out and got into the tuk-tuk. The man was carrying a Bible. After that, my mind was at ease. The couple told me that they were Korean missionaries and that the man was the pastor of the church that John went to.

We got to John's house, and it was pretty much what you would expect an 8-year-old girl's birthday party to look like. Everyone at the house was super nice and warm. The Korean pastor gave a small sermon that had to be translated into Khmer. The kids had cake and food and it was all very nice and wholesome. After the pastor left, the beer came out and the men sat at a table in the front yard while the kids played inside. It turned out to be a fun experience.

It's cake time!

Confetti time!

Dinner time in the frontyard.

My obligitory "Cheers!" photo.

I had a blast at the birthday party. Seeing how people around to the world do similar tasks differently (like birthdays) is fascinating to me. John said it's not very common for little girls to get birthday parties, but because she's an only child, he wanted to do something special for her. I'm glad I said yes to John's invitation.

The next day, both John and I were a little hung over. He took me out to a few of the tourist attractions, but we ended the day early.

These temples are so colorful and intricate.

A giant Buddah and a lady who cleans up the temple.

My guide, John.

This is John's business card. If you find yourself in Battambang, I highly recommend John Norea. He's honest, kind and knowledgeable.

I left Battambang and took a bus to Phnom Penh. I didn't have a room booked and a tuk-tuk driver took me to a hotel. It was a pretty bad hotel and later I would discover that I was in a kind of redlight district. I didn't really do anything in PP, and I didn't like the city.

One morning at around 4:00 am, someone broke down the front door the hotel. Then they spent about 30 minutes beating someone with a metal pipe in front of my room. All I heard was yelling in Cambodian. I thought thieves were going door to door, robbing people. Later I found out that someone had broken someone else's property, then came to my hotel. The person with the broken property broke down the hotel's door and beat the hell out the person.

I also saw a guy get injured when someone stole his phone. He was in the back of a moving tuk-tuk, talking on the phone. A motorbike with 2 people rode next to him and yanked the phone out of his hands. Somehow the victim was also pulled out of the moving tuk-tuk and was injured.

I had enough of Phnom Penh and left a lot earlier than I had planned. The city just seemed desperate and lacking anything worth seeing.

This hotel had 2 doors when I went to sleep. It only had 1 door in the morning.

After the hotel door got broken, I noped the fuck out of Phnom Penh and went to the coast to visit some islands. On the way down there, the girl who sat next to me kept falling asleep and resting her head on my shoulder. At one point she woke up, realized what she was doing, then asked if it was OK. I kind of shrugged and nodded. Then she went back to sleep on my shoulder.

From Phnom Penh, I went to Koh Rong and Koh Rong Sanloem. Koh Rong Sanloem is a very quiet island that only has electricity for 4 hours per day. It's very beautiful and very boring.

The view from my bungalow.

There's even a treehouse that you can rent.

After Koh Rong, I wasn't sure where to go. I had about 10 days to kill before my Vietnam visa was valid. I went down to Kampot to see what it had to offer. It turns out Kampot is pretty cool. There isn't a whole lot to do, but the vibe is pretty relaxed and it seemed like a nice place to unwind for a few days.

I rented a scooter while I was in Kampot, and spent a few days doing day trips to places close by. Here are some of the photos from the Kampot area.

Obligitory beer-in-foreground photo of Kampot.

A nice place to take a break.

There are still quite a few buildings with bullet holes in them in Cambodia.

A salt farm.

A crazy old hotel on a mountain.

A farm.

Eventually, my time in Cambodia ran out and I took a bus to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The Vietnam / Cambodia border.

Cambodia was awesome, and I loved the Cambodians. They seemed much more friendly and sincere that the people in Thailand and Laos. My biggest regret from my trip is that I didn't return to Cambodia. Hopefully, I will be able to return soon.

Stay tuned for my next post where I'll explore my favorite country from my trip, Vietnam.