Cambodia

About 4 weeks into teaching we realized that we were going to have to make a "border run" to get a new visa since our original 30-day visa was about to expire. So we made an executive decision to take a week to visit Cambodia, applying of a 60 day Thai visa at the embassy in Phnom Pehn and a quick jaunt to visit Angkor Wat. Our flight to Phnom Pehn was flawless, after that not much went according to plan.
Our plan was to go to the embassy immediately after landing because we knew the paper work took about 3 days. However we showed up way too late to even get an application form as the embassy was filled with people attempting to get back into Thailand. Most of these people were foreign businessmen, non-Thai spouses (mainly males), and a few backpackers not unlike ourselves. With our initial embassy run failing we decided to go to the hotel we planned on staying at. A rather seedy set up, the "Hotel Califonia" (seriously) only had a room for 1 night not the 3-4 nights we thought we had booked. At this point our confidence was high. We finally got a hotel reservation at a place down the street which was really nice and right on the Mekong River. We vowed to get up early the next morning and make it to the embassy before anyone else did.
We arrived at the embassy, filled out all the forms and waiting our turn. When we were called to the window we were greeted by a Thai woman who was clearly unhappy with her immigration job. She gave us the run around asking us for our return trip plane tickets not only the Thailand but also our plane tickets leaving Thailand back to the US. So clearly we pulled out the plane tickets that all airlines send you through the mail and gave them to her......what?? How can you honestly ask me for plane tickets when my flight is over 2 months away. We did in reality have a confirmation email which barely passed her inspection of reading it, flipping it over, and upside down at least once. Even then we were told to wait as her "boss" had to check it all out. After waiting for about 3 hrs, nervously talking to an Austrailian backpacker that hadn't showered in 15 days and continuously tried to convince us that we would get it (inspiring tremendous confidence) and fixing some of our paper work we were given a receipt and told it would be ready in 3 days. This gave us an opportunity to check out Phnom Pehn.
We visited the Grand Palance which was amazingly beautiful, the national museum which had interesting Khmer and pre-Khmer art, but the most interesting but gut wrenching of our visits was to the S-21 prison and the killing fields. The S-21 prison is where Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed hundreds of thousands of people. There were grewsome pictures and accounts of their methods. Our tour guide even had her own stories of how the Khmer Rouge killed her entire family. The killing fields were no better as it was the spot where millions were mass murdered. The bones are housed in a huge glass tower standing about 75 ft high. Walking around the pits in the killing fields you can still find small bones and bits of clothing floating to the surface of the ground. These stops on our tour of Phnom Pehn were interesting and well worth it but also incredibly depressing.
After our three days of waiting for our visas and recovering from the low spirits the Khmer Rouge ruthlessness had put us in, we picked up our passports with their new Thai visas in them, jumped on a plane and landed in Siem Reap about 45 min later. Siem Reap is about 4-5 km away from Angkor Wat at the surrounding structures. We hopped in a tuk-tuk and went to visit some of the smaller temples. Ta Prohm was our first stop. I can hardly do it justice but there were huge trees growing in and around the temple itself, swallowing walls and sections of the temple whole. It was a really awesome place. The next morning we decided to bicycle to Pra Baekeng for sunrise which again was truly incredible and something that even our pictures couldn't do justice to. We continue to bike around, exploring Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom the the two biggest temples. Angkor Wat was just stupid huge and detailed. Our favourite place, however, was Bayon. Bayon is home to 52 different massive stone faces spread throughout the pyramid shape temple. Again, pictures can't do it justice so my words won't even come close. A really cool place a one we thought should still retain its wonder of the world title.