This past week, I had the opportunity to visit the 800 + year old temples of Angkor Wat, situated near Siem Reap, Cambodia.
My friend and I arrived in Siem Reap on a Tuesday night and took a cab to the hotel; after we put our bags down, we headed straight back outside to go visit the Night Market. We got a Tuk-
Tuk driver (tuk-tuks are this form of transportation that has a motorcycle or moped attached to a type of carriage in which passengers can sit). In Cambodia, there are no meters- you have to negotiate the price before you travel. Our tuk tuk cost us about $2 US for four people to go to the Night Market. I also should probably mention that the unofficial currency in Cambodia is the US dollar, and that there are ATM machines that dispense US currency (they do not, however, accept change!) The Night Market was intense; there were tons of small shops selling almost identical merchandise: cotton printed pants, Cambodian silk scarves, jade Buddhas, and temple artwork. The market was packed, and each shopkeeper would try to grab our attention by saying, "Hello lady!" We decided to hold off on the shopping until Thursday, and kept walking. We got dinner on a well-known street called Pub Street; my friends got a traditional Khmer barbeque, in which the waiters placed a makeshift grill on the center of our table and provided them with 5 different types of raw meat: beef, snake, crocodile, kangaroo and shrimp. It was up to my friends to cook everything properly and eat it. I, on the other hand, had Cambodian rice, which was very good! Our meal was very cheap too (I paid about $3 for everything)!
The next day, we went to the temples at 8 AM. To enter the temple, we had to first pay $20, 
then had to get our pictures taken to obtain a paper pass that allowed us access to all of the temples (believe me, there are TONS of temples). We hired a tuk-tuk driver for the day for $12; he drove us from the hotel to a majority of the temples and back. We started at Angkor Wat, which was a Hindu temple (and the temple pictured in this blog); the reason for why it is more well-known than the others is because it was the most recently "re-discovered". The interesting thing about all of the temples is that for the most part, they all had Buddhist and Hindu elements. When asked why, a park guide had told us that the temple art would depending on who was ruling at the time. If there was a Buddhist leader, then the temples would change to be Buddhist; same goes for Hindu leaders. We spent pretty much all day ascending and descending temple steps and ended our day with the sunset overlooking Angkor Wat.
One thing that I saw while near the temples was a lot of poverty. There were young children outside trying to sell various things from books to bracelets; they would swarm anyone that looked like a tourist and would follow him/her as long as they could. One of the girls that was traveling with us got called a "horrible, stingy woman" for not buying any of their products. On a separate instance, a girl who was no older than two, was forced to come up to me and my friend and hold up bracelets for us to buy; the girl tried to go back to her parents but they kept pushing her back our way. I definitely have never seen anything like that before, so it was a new experience. I felt extremely uncomfortable saying 'no' to the children, but I was advised to do just that by locals and friends who have visited the area before, otherwise I would have many more come up to me after that.
On our last day in Cambodia, we went shopping in the Old Market and Central Markets (once again, very similar in merchandise- the only difference is that apparently, the Central Market is cheaper than the Night Market). My friend and I had a lot of fun bargaining with the shopkeepers and got all of our souvenirs for less than half the original price that they had asked!
Overall the trip was amazing! I loved every last minute of it and wish to go back to see more temples as well as the floating village (there are houses hoisted up on stilts and surrounded by water)!
For now, back to life and midterms in Singapore...
Shivani