First Solo Travel: Cambodia

Royal Palace

Finally! My first solo trip ever. I choose to go to Cambodia because first, I only got 4 days to go, and second because English is not their native language. I'm only in Cambodia for two days because the other two is only being on the road and airports =( So far, solo traveling is incredible! I love how I could interact with local people and also foreign people along the way. Being a woman alone in a non-english speaking country, I found that some people are really nice and helpful. Like the time went I want to take a picture of myself with the timer, some people did offered me help. That was so nice!

The Independence Monument

Well, this is how it goes. The first day, I arrived in Phnom Penh in the morning. A cousin of my friend that works in the embassy picked me up. It was quite a surprise because I didn't thought that the were going to take me around town. I was talking with them via email to ask some things about the country. So we when to Royal Palace. It's a beautiful palace and very clean. After that, we when driving around town and ate a nice lunch at a restaurant called Lemon Grass.

Local Khmer video clips I watched for nearly 6 hours from Pnomh Penh to Siem Reap

At 2.25 PM, I caught a bus to Siem Reap, it cost 11 USD. The ride was about 6 hours with a 15 minutes break. I got to talk to some local family that was going to visit Angkor Wat. We arrived at about 8 PM. The hostel offered a free pick up service with a tuk-tuk, the kid of local transportation there.

The Great Angkor Wat

A monk in Angkor Wat

The next morning, I got up a 4 AM, trying to catch the sunrise in Angkor Wat. I decided to go there by bicycle. Well, I tell you that it was a big failure for me! I'm so bad at reading maps and have to navigate in the dark hours made me missed the sign where I should turn. It took me about 2 hours to get to Angkor Wat. I nearly cried when the sun finally comes up and I was in the middle of nowhere, not seeing the Angkor Wat like I planned. I really don't mind getting lost, but because I only got one day to see the sunrise in Angkor Wat, I felt like I've wasted my opportunity just because I couldn't read a map! That's crazy. So a note for me, I'm going to learn how to read a map properly!

Bayon Temple, I love the smiling faces

Khmer people I met along the way

The bike that I used

Ta Prohm Temple

Angkor Wat was a veri big place with lots of temple. I was really a beautiful kingdom. My favorite waas the Ta Prohm Temple. It was so lovely because of the huge trees that grew amongst the temple rocks. I spent almost all day in the Angkor Wat temple. And for the last night in Cambodia, I went to the Night Market to have some foot massage and buy some souvenirs.

The Night Market

It was a very very short trip, but I loved it. I hope to go other part of the world =D