Too busy getting stamps in my passport to blog!

After a 2 month hiatus, I'm blogging again! I just got home (Thailand home.. don't get too excited!) from a quick trip to Cambodia and Vietnam with two of my friends. The school term just finished and we had time to squeeze in a bit of traveling before they head back home to America! Our first stop was Siem Reap, Cambodia, where we spent two days exploring Angkor Wat. From there, we went on to Phnom Penh to see some of the (rather nauseating) sites involved in the Cambodian genocide. We then spent three days in Vietnam exploring the Cu Chi Tunnels, boating through the Mekong Delta, biking through a rural island town, educating ourselves about the Viet Cong and the Vietnam War, exploring Ho Chi Minh City, and of course eating lots of amazing food! The entire trip was absolutely amazing. Nothing I could say would do it justice, but maybe some pictures will do the job...

Our first morning in Siem Reap, we woke up nice and early and got to Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise. It was cloudy, but still beautiful!


A rather appropriate depiction of how my eyes were working when we woke up at 4 in the morning...


The sunrise from inside of Angkor Wat.


Beautiful is an understatement...


KJ and I at one of the temples. We're tiny, but this makes us look even smaller than we really are!


This isn't an illusion... these stairs really do go straight up! This particular section was closed off, but we climbed more than our fair share of steep steps.


One of maybe 50 statues lining the path to a temple.


Siem Reap!


Almost every inch of every temple is adorned by intricate carvings like this. I can't even imagine how much work went into it all!


Temples, temples, TEMPLES!


I'm not sure why, but this was my favorite part of the entire temple complex. There's something about the way all of the stones fit together that I think is so beautiful.


A shot of me for the folks back home...


There's nothing like frolicking through ancient ruins!


Me and Domo: same same!


I spy an elephant...


Our tuk tuk driver for the day.


My happy travel buddies, KJ and Erin.


Just hanging out, flying through Angkor Wat...


Erin, taking it all in!


I told you these stairs were steep! I had to mentally prepare myself to start down the "staircase", so I took some photos as an excuse to wait a bit longer to go down.


We almost look like we're part of the carvings, right??


These temples blow my mind!


One last photo for the fans at home...


The perfect photo to end with... happy travelers at the end of a great day =) I stole this one from KJ but it's just too cute not to post!


After going through all of these photos, I'm almost as exhausted as I was that day! Check back tomorrow for photos from day 2 at Angkor Wat!