Cambodia has always been one of those mysterious places that I’ve been meaning to go to. It’s definitely on my bucket list and I’m glad that we did it! I was never a huge fan of places with big cities and all, I much prefer outdoorsy, nature-ish places if I was given the choice. I think Sam was a little shocked when we actually finalized the plans for Cambodia because in his mind all he pictured was: sketchiness, poor country and crappy food and he really couldn’t believe that he’s about to leave his bubble for this!
I must say that Cambodia was quite the eye opener. It was absolutely stunning! Thanks to our local tourguide, Abi, we learned a whole ton of history about this country and how it came to be, the corruption and the wars. It makes me sad to see that although there are so many tourists visiting Angkor Wat and the other temples, and yet so little of the money actually goes back to helping the local people. Angkor Was was magnificent! It was a bit disappointing that the sunrise wasn’t as pretty as I had imagined it to be (it was quite foggy) but the temple itself was incredible! We got there at like 5am in the morning and there was a ton of people there already (I feel bad for the tour guides that I have to keep waking up so early all the time!).
One thing that I love looking at when I go to new places is the vegetation. I love looking at their funky looking trees (they probably say the same about trees over here in Canada) and cool looking flowers! I mean, check out that tree on the left of the image below, it’s like a lollipop!
Just look at the details! It’s all hand carved!
Tomb Raider!!!
Sam is extremely afraid of heights!
So this bull below isn’t quite a good representation of the animals that we’ve been seeing in Cambodia. I’ve never seen a cow that’s just skin and bones before! All the cows that I’ve seen in my life has been quite…meaty. But the cows and dogs here, are all just skin and bones and you can see the rib cages from afar! Poor cows don’t even have grass to eat. Stray dogs there are all so skinny too because there are no scraps for them, because there isn’t even sufficient nutritious food for humans. 
Gave Sam the camera to help me take a jumping shot so the bull can be directly below me… FAIL.
This is probably my fave photo from the trip. The country is so poor that there are all these children that are trying to sell you little hand made trinkets for some money. One USD dollar is equal to 4000 Cambodian dollars. It’s really upsetting to see how these children are not able to go to school and it’s not just because they don’t have money, it is also because there are no teachers who are willing to teach at such low wages provided by the government. How can these children get themselves out of poverty without the proper education or even opportunities.
The floating village was probably one of the cooler things to see in Siem Reap. People live on the water because they cannot afford land. 
No school buses, just school boats!
Cambodia has been in war for quite a long time and it’s only recently that the wars have stopped. However, the veterans from the war are not being taken care of by the government. These men spent their lives serving the country and how unfair it is that the government just cast them aside after the war. A lot of them become small street entertainers or tuktuk drivers just to make a small living to support their families.
Can’t leave without my signature jumping shot!
This was probably the most hilarious thing that happened on the trip! Sam…being Sam, brought Pringles into Angkor Wat and as we were walking these Monkeys saw his Pringles and immediately ran towards Sam! They were very focused on getting their hands on his chips. I guess I really should be helping him but…oh wells! haha The monkey actually tried to jump up to snatch his chips! Sam got scared, threw the chips to the ground and all the monkeys attacked the can of Pringles.
Yup…….Sam: 0, Monkey: 1
We had some free time on our last day so we decided to head back to Angkor Wat on our own. I can easily spend a whole day or more there. The structures and details were amazing! Words can’t even describe how incredible it was to be inside that temple. It’s a shame that we don’t have anything like this here in Ontario and the trip to Cambodia was definitely very well worth it.
Me trying to look candid and all…
This was a lot steeper than it looks! I really had to use my arms to pull myself up, no way I was gonna go back down in these steps haha I thought about it, and I decided not to because I still want to head over to Thailand in one piece!
Special thanks our super duper awesome tourguide, Abi! This guy is so knowledgable and he definitely made our trip 10 billion times more fun! We’re so happy to have met you!!!!
I did capture some iPhone snaps here, when my 5d wasn’t available!
Next stop…Chiang Mai, Thailand and Krabi, Thailand!