Crossing the Border- The Kingdom of Cambodia

Today was the day. Haley and I crossed the border into the Kingdom of Cambodia. Our trip started early; we gathered supplies from the 7-Eleven (water, pringles, snickers), and were the last pair picked up by the mini bus. Squished in with eight other people (3 of them being some very chatty New Zealanders) we began our five hour bus ride to the Thailand-Cambodia border point of Poipet. After a bumpy ride to the border, we made a quick stop for "lunch" which turned out to be a Cambodian Visa scam (we had no choice but to pay double the normal price). We then headed to the crossing point and waited in a horrendous line (about and hour wait) to officially cross over into Cambodia.

We made it. We were drip sweating, tired, frustrated with all of the waiting around, dreading the thought of another 2 hour taxi to Siem Reap, and to top it all of my ankle of my injured foot looked like it had gotten a case of elephantiasis- but we were in Cambodia so who cares!

Passed out in the taxi, woke up to a Cambodian taxi driver trying to get directions to my hotel (he didn't speak a lick of English), and all I wanted was A/C. We arrived at our hostel (no A/C) and finally got to take a breathe. Because our pringles and snickers weren't exactly a substantial food supply for the day we headed out into the small town of Siem Reap and the famous pub street for dinner. We were STARVING!

Found a really cute bistro on the pub street and ordered Western food. I was a little skeptical considering our surroundings but my meal was the best Western food I've had in Asia this entire trip! It was also one/the cheapest Western meal I've had here.

Haley and I were both excited to see the famous Angkor Wat temples at sunrise in the morning, but here are some of my initial observations, feelings, etc of Cambodia:

1. It is extremely hot
2. The people are all very friendly but definitely have a Pandora's box thing going on... It's crazy how little the
    people here have but how happy they still are
3. People (guys mainly) have random slap fights with one another

As a side note Haley and I didn't give any money to a woman who wanted to buy milk for what appeared to be a very fat and happy baby (despite the begging mother's pleas that the baby was starving). I felt very guilty after but we are broke college students and the milk powder was $20USD. Good news is that she was at the same spot the next night so the whole starving baby thing was definitely a ruse. And just to make it seem like were not so terrible we did buy things from vendors in Cambodia and I put some money in a beggars cup (hopefully my karma isn't completely out of whack).