Weddings, Laura Croft, and Fish Doctors

So our Siem Reap trip was last weekend and shows about ancient villages, tomb raider temples, attacking monkeys, shopping, and feet devouring fish were to be had. And they were had.

Thursday consisted of a SIX hour bus trip, so while all of you were preparing to eat hot dogs and do fireworks and sparklers, Shanleigh, Sarah, Cassie, Theary, Sharon, and I were watching strange music videos about Cambodian broken hearts and nerds that never got the girl and then randomly Justin Beiber's "Boyfriend" video (which was surprisingly terrible in both quality and morale value). To be fair, Shanleigh and Theary did make 4th of July cookies before we left the house and they were delicious. But, we began our unorthodox SIX hour bus trip and arrived in Siem Reap about midnight. We then went straight to our hotel and got some much needed beauty sleep before our big day at the Culture Village.

The next day, Friday, we made a semi early start, had breakfast at the Blue Pumpkin, and split with Sharon because she wasn't feeling well. So, Cassie, Theary, Shan, Sarah, and I trekked on by ourselves to the Culture Village.

 

For those of you who have no idea what that is, and I'm guessing that is most of you, it is like an amusement park that puts on shows instead of rides that paint a picture of the past and present cultures of the people that live in Cambodia. When we got there, we discovered we had shown up like 30 minutes shy of the first show so we decided to use the time before the next show (like two hours) to explore a bit. First we went through the wax people museum which was super cool and slightly freaky. Then we just walked aimlessly about and ended up in some kind of Wonderland/garden. I'm still not quite sure what happened. But we took lots of goofy pictures, did some archery, and we saw a cow, so it safe to say that things were going pretty great.

Like, why are there giant eggs here? Idk either, but we took pics with them

Me and Theary! :)

Wonderland?

...Why? hahahaha

Yes, you may call us Katniss. I am AK. Alaskan Katniss.

ACU girls! :)

Everyone was so tired of the heat hahaha

Getting back to my roots...she wasn't that friendly

Again. WHY?

For real though, the archery was cool. Brought back all those memories from Carolina Creek from last summer! It cost a dollar for 10 arrows and I am not ashamed to say that I shot 30 arrows. AND on my first time I won a prize! I hit the bullseye once and the sin area (now there's something you can unpack, when you hit anything but the bullseye it's called sin, yes we did use that as a processing tool at camp haha) four times so I won two free bottles of water. Well after I discovered there were prizes to be won, my competitiveness shot through the roof and I had to try to get that $100 dollars or at least the $10 + a tshirt. Let's just say I decided to quit after last 20 arrows and leave it at that.

My prize!

Next up we saw the Lounging Buddha and chilled with him for a little bit.

Planking like a boss

After that it was about time for the first show so we went to that. It lasted about an hour and  I think it was dancing and celebrating the times back when they did fighting for fun and there were some amazing contortionists. Also, I'm pretty sure there was an actual cock fight on stage at some point and I'm not really sure why...

After that explored a bit more, may or may not have gotten a little lost, and then went to the next show, A Traditional Khmer Wedding. We showed up right as it was starting and wouldn't ya know it, there were front row seats open! Score. Grabbed those and settled in to watch the show. As it began, the host pulled a Cambodian man from the crowd to play the groom's father. He came rather reluctantly so the audience was laughing and laughing and laughing. The girls and I were too... Until a man came up to me and said, "You come?" beckoning to the stage. I looked behind me and Shan and Cassie are staring down at the ground giggling and stealing glances at me.

Now you're wondering if I went. I hope you all know me well enough.

I stood up and said, "Yes!" and almost tripped on my way  to the stage trying to take my shoes off, which was like two feet mind you. Solid.

Well, I went through the wedding ceremony and gave my son what I think was a blessing with my silent Cambodian husband and then danced for joy with the rest of the wedding party. Needless to say, I rocked it. Everyone knows I'm like the best dancer in the world.

 

 

After that truly hilarious experience and having multiple tour golf carts full of Japanese and Chinese people yell, "You good Mommy!" at me (celeb status, hollah), we  decided to call it a day because everyone was beat and the big show wasn't for like five more hours. So, we all went back to the hotel and rested for a bit. Then we went to a super good pizza place followed by delicious ice cream, and then hit up the night market! It was super cool. I finished up my gift shopping there:) The night market was just like a regular market in the day except that it was open only at night...ergo NIGHT market. They also had shows going on with what I thought were scandalously dressed dancing girls. Don't worry, they were just scandalously dressed dancing "ladymen." Not gonna lie, that was a little scary and definitely different haha after the night market we went back to the hotel to catch some sleep before a 4:45am start out to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat, one of the temples we planned to visit.

The next morning we all rolled out of bed and started our temple day. Our plan was to start really early, beat the crowds, and get the big temples done and seen in one day so we only had to get a cheap one day pass. First up was Angkor Wat, probably the most famous. For those who do not know what a Wat (haha) is, it is a pagoda, a place where monks live and this one is one of the most famous ancient ones.

Sunrise

Chillin in the baths...what they used to be at least

 

Next up was Bayon. This one was famous for its many different faces on the sides of the top of the temples. It was more in ruins than Angkor Wat was but still beautiful.

It was at this temple that The Incident happened. After walking around all day and getting up early, a girl is bound to be hungry. So I pulled out my  cheese crackers and was munching away as we waited for our tuktuk driver. And these ADORABLE little monkeys come up to us. Actually, quite close. Actually, alarmingly close. And then Sharon tells us that we need to be careful because the monkeys are known for being very aggressive and will come up to you and steal things right from your hands including food, cameras, and phones. So I put up everything but my snacks and then this monkey jumps up on the post next to the one I'm sitting on. Lemme set the stage for you. There is a metal sign about two feet in front of me, my back is to the monkey so he can't see my snack, and I'm turned talking to Sharon or listening to something someone was saying. Suddenly, there's something heavy on my back, I lurch forward and whack my nose on the sign in front of me and out of the corner of eye I see Sharon raise her giant water bottle and swing towards my back. And then it was over. You say hello monkey, I say goodbye monkey. Sadly, we did not get an action shot. But, I have learned my lesson and put all possessions away when I'm around monkeys now. Which strangely is a lot more often than I thought...

Next up we went to Tuh Prome, where the classic Tomb Raider was filmed. Those movies hold a special place in my heart because I remember watching them with my dad and me thinking they were a pretty big deal haha anyways, this one was super cool because of the trees. There are giant trees everywhere and giant I mean GIANT tree roots wrapped around pretty much everything. Absolutely beautiful.

 

After we got done playing Laura Croft and buying some paintings, we headed out. After that temple everyone was pretty beat so we called it a day and headed back to the hotel to rest some before supper. Once we were adequately rested up, we went to a different night market for a bit. And then we happened upon Dr. Fish.

These fish eat, yes EAT, the dead skin off of your feet. I won't say I want to do it again, but it was fun to experience. After that the girls got pedicures, but mine was still good so I got a 30 min foot massage instead. For two dollars. And it was amazing. You have permission to commence your jealously. America should really get on this bandwagon of super low prices for things. Lower than Walmart, lets go people.

I don't even have my foot in there yet!

As long as I didn't think about it for too long, I could keep my feet in for the 15 mins

After Dr. Fish we went to the night market again and got kebabs for super which I hadn't had since Oxford at Ali's! There's a pretty good place in Abilene, but it was a little different. After that we called it a night! Top night, top night.

And Sunday is...
Shan's turn to talk:) So read our next blog to find out the rest!

Hope you're all doing fantastic! Love and miss you all dearly.
Peace & Blessings.

Stay classy.
Mallory Jean

PS. This is from a few weekends ago from the Riverside, but this guy does aerobics every night with all these people and they just copy what he does...so we thought we'd join in...enjoy...