Wild Cambodia
- Vincent Perez
- Mar 18, 2018
- 4 min read
I arrived in Cambodia early in the morning and took a $7 tuk tuk ride to my hostel, the Mad Monkey. Easily one of the best hostels that I've ever stayed in. It's definitely for the young crowd that wants to have a good time. I didn't do much as far as sightseeing on my first day in Siem Reap. I walked around town a bit and went to the night market to buy some cheap, super cheap clothes. I literally could've spent all my money and bought an entire new wardrobe of clothes but I managed to just settle for two pairs of Under Armor shorts (probably fake) and two sweet pair of Cambodian pants. When I got back to the hostel the rooftop bar was "popping". I made my way up there and met a really cool Australian guy named Jackson. We talked for quite a while and even tried our luck at some beer pong (spoiler alert: we didn't lose once). We ended up meeting some guys from Denmark, Ash and Oliver, and as much as I wanted to go out with them, I decided to call it a night around 10 pm because the next day I was planning on going to see Angkor Wat at 5 am to watch the sunrise. It was the smart choice and low and behold, Jackson and my roomie Sammie were also planning on doing the same thing. So we all pretty much decided to go together.
Day 2:
4:30 am came quick and as much as I wanted to stay in bed and sleep, I knew that I had to get up and watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. We all arrived at Angkor Wat at about 5:40 am and waited by the pond for the sun to rise. Since we didn't have time to grab breakfast, we all decided to eat right by the pond. Cool thing about Angkor Wat is that they know people come early to watch the sunrise, so they have people there to sell you coffee and food. After saying no a few times, we finally gave in and chose the funniest waiter to serve us. The sun showed up around 6:50 am and man was it beautiful. It truly was one of the coolest things to see/do in Cambodia. Put it on your bucket list and come see the largest religious temple in the world. You will not be disappointed! We spent about 4 hours wandering through all the magical temples and taking come cool pictures. We left the temples and went straight back to the hostel for a nap (much needed). Once we got back to the hostel I was actually pretty hungry, so I went around the block to this Mexican place called My Tortilla. The food was pretty good and of course, cheap. On my walk back to the hostel I spotted a "hole-in-the-wall" barbershop aka a man in his garage with a barber sign. It had been a while since my last haircut, so I thought, "what the hell". I walked over to him and asked if he was free to cut my hair. He said yes and so I hopped in his chair and prayed that he knew what he was doing. I have to say I was skeptical at first but when it was all said and done, it was a pretty good haircut and he even trimmed my beard. I asked him how much for both and he told me "Five dollars". My chin almost hit the floor. I couldn't believe how cheap it was for a haircut, beard trim, and he even cut some of my nose hairs for me! Probably one of the best haircuts I've ever had and it was by far the cheapest.
After my haircut I went back to the hostel to shower and get ready for the night ahead.
Tonight the hostel was having a pub crawl and I decided to join in on the fun. It was at the rooftop bar that I went this fellow named Rhys and his buddy Joel who are from England, Jessica (forgot where she is from), and Alexia from France. Us four, along with everyone else from the hostel decided to play this number game called 7-11. The game is simple. You just take turns saying a number starting at 1 and go until 21. The only rule is that the numbers 7 and 11 are switched. So you start by saying, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 8, 9, 10, 7, 12, 13, etc. That's it. Once everyone makes it to 21, that person who said 21 gets to make a new rule. We played that for hours until we left for the pub crawl. It was one of the most fun nights I've had in Asia.
After it was all said and done, Siem Reap, Cambodia was surprisingly one of my favorite cities and places to visit in Asia. I stayed at an amazing hostel, met a totally rad group of people, saw the best temple in the world, and made great memories. It's really hard to imagine a place that isn't a huge metropolis to be so much fun, but what I'm finding out is that the most fun i'm having are in places that I would never expect. I'm not complaining one bit, I'm just ready for the next traventure and hopefully continue making new friends and memories.
Next up: Vietnam!
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