I spent a few days visiting friends, crashing on their couches and seeing the Thai towns they had been living and teaching in. It was nice to get a glimpse of Thai life in other places but I had my sights set on my next trip beyond the Thai borders. A group of four other girls and I would be traveling to Siem Reap, Cambodia for 5 days.

The morning of our departure was an extremely humid day and my friend, Catherine, adeptly commented that it looked like it would rain, which it did as soon as we stepped out of the apartment(excellent timing). We ran to the bus station and met the other girls who had ridden their motorbikes through the downpour. We were quite a mess as we situated ourselves on the bus and began laying our soaking wet clothes all over the seats around us. Fortunately, the sun shined on my side of the bus and managed to almost completely dry out my socks and sneakers by the time we arrived at the border.

We sorted out visas and walked through immigration without any issues but then had a two hour taxi ride to Siem Reap. To our dismay the road ahead was filled with storm clouds. We joked that we were storm chasers and prayed that the rain would not follow us to the city. It was surely a beautiful ride through the country and I was sitting in the front seat watching for the bolts of lightening on the horizon.

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We passed by the storm and left it behind us as we neared the city. Once the driver found our hostel and we got ourselves settled, we left to explore. The city was bustling in the evening with the night market, restaurants and nightlife. We familiarized ourselves with our area, exchanged money and then got some much needed food. Cambodia uses American currency along with their own(Riel), which definitely messed with my head. It has been so long since I’ve used Dollars that they looked strange to me (not to mention, boring, being all the same color). I was also adjusting to the conversion, Dollars to Riel as well as what that would be in Thai Baht. Food was actually more expensive than in Thailand, but alcohol was significantly cheaper and 50 cent draft beer was plentiful!

We relaxed that first night after a good meal and a few cold ones. A full day of traveling had taken a lot out of us and we had an early morning ahead of us to be at Angkor Wat for the sunrise. We had only just arrived and had so much in store for the next few days!