Wanna know what I've been up to?

As of today or yesterday (or sometime recently) I have been in Thailand for 4 months!  Which is crazy, mainly because I feel like I've been here for one, maybe two.
I haven't posted in a while, because I haven't traveled! But I also realized that maybe you guys are like "Hey, we're waiting for some blog posts over here!" Okay probably just my sister and mom but still.

SO I'll tell you what I've been up to lately-
1. Tom's Birthday!  Our Thai TA with whom we have bi-weekly Thai language class (which is actually really helping) turned like 27 or something like that two weeks ago.  So obviously we had to celebrate!
2. Midterm = studying for a week straight and absolutely nothing else.  A week ago I had a midterm for my Pollution Control Technology class which was frustratingly put through Google translate and came out incorrect...as in the first question took about 20 minutes to read and another 20 to find some sort of question written in the terrible English.
3. LoCARNet First Annual Conference! Me and three other girls from my program were asked to take notes at the Low Carbon conference (mainly because English is our first language) and we were paid! dolla dolla bills y'all.  But seriously, got to hear some interesting perspectives on how to focus policymakers on environmental-oriented and sustainability initiatives.
4. Research, Research, Research. For both my term project (a Life Cycle Assessment of diesel in Thailand) and my capstone (a Life Cycle Assessment of biofuels from algae). Sounds pretty sweet but researching is mind-numbing and my brain is currently mush.
5. The occasional shopping escapade and seeing Looper (surprisingly creepy but good) and Perks of Being a Wallflower (sad but adorable, now reading the book).

And here we are.  I actually started this post as a slightly sad, reflective post talking about all the things I'll miss about Thailand or just Southeast Asia in general, but you'll have to wait for that one folks!

Siam Reap, Cambodia

    Recently just got back from spending a few days in Siam Reap, spending a majority of the time wandering around temples.

9/25/2012--
    MK and I left our apartments around 345 AM to catch our 5 AM bus.  We arrived at the Thai-Cambodia border (Poipet) after a quick and painless 5 hour bus ride, and caught another bus to the bus station, where we purchased $10 tickets to our final destination- Siam Reap.  A few hours later we were dropped off and caught a tuk-tuk to nearby our guesthouse, the Golden Takeo Guesthouse which has actually been one of the nicest places I've stayed while in Southeast Asia (for $16 a night!).  Arriving around 1 PM to find comfortable beds, pillows, and blankets along with a TV (I haven't had one since I left America) we took a nap while we waited for W and her brother, Andrew to come back from adventures that day.
     We woke up around 6 PM (we woke up at 3 AM that morning, okay?) and headed to dinner in town.  The guesthouse's tuk-tuk driver who became our quick friend that week, TiTi, dropped us off at a Cambodian-style restaurant where we got delicious coconut-based curries and fried pumpkin over rice.  Seeing an ice cream store nearby we couldn't resist, and each got a cone with two different flavors.  It was the first real ice cream I've had in a few months and was amazing.  Wandering around the main stretch we settled at a small "club" called Angkor What? [For those of you who don't know about Cambodia, the major attraction (besides the Killing Fields) is Angkor Wat, a huge temple] ...get the wordplay now?  The walls are covered with a mural, and on top of that signatures of attendees, so we obviously added our names in an empty corner.  We were looking at some signatures and found "TARHEELS" written above "DUKE" which was crossed out- so we had a mini-freak out.  Turns out it was one of MK's friends who had crossed out Duke and written Tarheels!

9/26/2012--

      Our first real day in Siam Reap was spent exploring the many temples included in our $40 3-day pass for Angkor Wat and surrounding temples.  Our first stop was the overwhelming Angkor Wat (around 12 PM, the heat was almost unbearable).  Regardless, it was amazing to be in a temple that was built in the 12th century.  

In front of the entrance

  

    After Angkor Wat we hopped in the tuk-tuk and headed to Angkor Thom, which translated into English from Khmer means "Ancient City."  It was a giant complex of temples, pagodas, terraces galore.  

Bayon

Terrace of the Leper King

Elephant Terrace

     

     Our last temple of the day was Ta Prohm- where Tomb Raider was filmed!  It was built in the 12th century but was left abandoned in the 15th century with the fall of the Khmer empire.  As a result, gigantic trees have taken over the temple and in some parts their roots intertwine with the stone, sometimes pulling down the stone with it.  

 






         We decided to end the day riding elephants into the sunrise.  No, really.  A short tuk-tuk ride away we arrived at Bakheng Hill for a $20 ten minute elephant ride up a hill to a temple at the peak.

    

    We watched the sunset from a temple at the top of the hill and it was gorgeous.  I took around 50 pictures, but I'll only show you a couple of the cool ones...

9/27/2012--

    We got off to an early start for our last touring day in Siam Reap, waking up at 4 to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat.  Taking breakfast to-go complimentary of the guesthouse, we headed out along with thousands of others to get a good spot.  It was a little cloudy but pretty either way.

    Hopping in the Batmobile (jk, tuk-tuk) we took a sleepy ride to the "Floating Village" at Kampong Pluk, and for a mere $18 we got taken around the Floating Village via motor boat and hopped into a canoe-ish boat and were paddled around the Floating Forest by a cute old Cambodian lady.  The village was fully underwater (well, the house are all on stilts) because it's monsoon season over here in Southeast Asia, but during the dry season there is absolutely no water. Hard to picture after seeing the whole village function underwater.  As we boated by all the kids ran to their porches to yell "Hello! Hi!" and wave- adorable of course.

    A ten minute tuk-tuk ride away through muddy and un-paved pothole filled backroads, we arrive at a temple Titi suggested we visit, not far away from the Floating Village. Appearing out of no where, the ruin-like temple emerged from the landscape.  We clambered up the gigantic steps (apparently the thing back in 12th century Cambodia) and making our way around the hoards of children asking "oneeee dollllarrrr laddyyyyyy" (who are at every temple) we surveyed the view at the top.

   A quick break for the sudden rainstorm back at the guesthouse we ate lunch and MK and I headed out for more temple exploring while W and her bro head to Phnom Penh for the Killing Fields.  Titi took us to five different lesser-known temples that are included in the Angkor Wat pass.  For once, there weren't crowds upon crowds of tourists everywhere, and we found ourselves alone in some temples (possibly due to heavy rains).  Spending the rest of the afternoon exploring temples until sunset, another touristy day complete.

sudden onslaught of rain

A majority of those people asking for $$

a "my size" door!