• Day 1: Beng Melea, Preah Ko, and Bakong
• Day 2: Angkor Wat for sunrise and a good portion of the morning
• Day 3: Angkor Wat for sunrise only, Phnom Bakheng, Angkor Thom’s south gate, Bayon, a drive-by of the Terrace of the Elephants, and Ta Prohm

The only real item of note is that we scheduled our trip to align with a friend who wanted to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat on the equinox, which is evidently significant. Honestly, I didn’t notice anything markedly different other than the fact that there were several thousand people more than usual, creating a massive line, which is absurd given the size of the place.

With that, I’ll fill up space here with some of the better photos from this (my third) trip to Angkor. This was my first time really using HDR photography to my advantage and I think these are some of the best Angkor photos I’ve ever taken. Enjoy!

Becca, Michael, and I flew into BKK on a pleasant Friday afternoon and the two of them were immediately introduced to the urban jungle of Bangkok as we suffered through the first of many hour-long taxi rides through the massive city with its dense, standstill traffic.

After finally reaching our hotel, checking in, and getting some food, we decided to go to the Chatuchak weekend market. Friday night at the market was very different from Saturday or Sunday; only a subset of the clothes shops were open and all the non-clothes shops were closed, there was very little food or drink, there were much less people than usual, and the clientele was almost exclusively Thais shopping for clothes. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the more relaxed atmosphere as we casually browsed the racks and got foot massages.

Saturday was the big tourist day. I took Becca and Michael to the usual spots – Chao Phraya, the Grand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun – and set them loose. The cliche continued into the evening as we went to Khao San Road to observe and partake in the spectacle. However, that plan came to a nauseating halt when both Michael and I started to feel ill about an hour and a half after dinner. Given that Becca was completely fine and that the content of her meal overlapped with ours, any potential theory (Was it the rice? Was it the chicken? Was it the Chang?) has a gaping hole in it. To our credit, we managed to make it to 1:00 or 1:30, which is when the junta started shutting down all the parties anyway, so we felt less bad about turning in “early”. We grabbed a taxi home and two-thirds of our group suffered through a restless night’s sleep filled with trips to the bathroom and the violent expulsion of partially digested food.

On Sunday morning we dragged ourselves to the airport for our flight to Siem Reap. On top of being tired and still partially sick, we had to deal with the worst immigration line I’ve ever seen. The “line”, a barely-organized throng of irritated travelers, took almost an hour to navigate. There were multiple rude Chinese tourists cutting the line, which resulted in another rude Chinese tourist scolding them loudly, which led to one of the Thai immigration officers losing face, standing up, pointing his finger, and yelling “SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” at the top of his lungs. It was not a fun morning.

Once through immigration, the rest of the traveling was uneventful and a couple hours later we were in Cambodia.

Siem Reap

I’m going to be intentionally cursory for this part of the trip since I’ve written extensively about Cambodia before. We spent three nights and two days in Siem Reap, which is probably the minimum amount of time I’d suggest to anyone thinking of going there. Before arriving in Cambodia, I had messaged Dola, my tuk-tuk driver during my previous visit, and he agreed to be our driver for two days. The discounted rate for being a returning customer was nice too.

The first day we visited only Beng Mealea since it takes about two hours to get there from Siem Reap via tuk-tuk.

The next day, we woke up very early to catch sunrise at Angkor Wat, then went to Angkor Thom and Bayon, then called it a day in the mid-afternoon.

In the evenings, we enjoyed Khmer food and Pub Street, stopped by Asana for a drink and to see my friend Lala, and watched the always entertaining Phare circus.

The next day was a long and exhausting travel day: woke up early to get picked up by a minibus (with a temporarily flat tire), transferred to a coach, drove for several hours to the Thai border, disembarked and went through a slow-moving immigration line, waited in the sun for a while, got picked up by another minibus, drove several hours to the ferry landing at Laem Ngop, boarded a massive vehicle ferry, and took that for an hour to Koh Chang. The ferry ride was legitimately pleasant once we found a spot overlooking the bow, felt the ocean breeze against us, sipped beers, and watched the sun sink behind the horizon.

Koh Chang

Once on Koh Chang, we had to hire our minibus driver to take us directly to our resort, which meant another outlay on transportation and another 45 minutes of driving. Koh Chang is the second-largest island in Thailand (behind Phuket) and very, very developed, especially on the western coast. As we drove in the dark, I was amazed at the amount of businesses and lights that whizzed by before we finally reached our bungalows. After checking in, getting situated, and thinking the day was just about over, the staircase to Michael’s bungalow buckled and collapsed as he and Becca were standing on it. Luckily no one was hurt (too badly).

Just as with Siem Reap, we had two full days on Koh Chang. Though it’s highly developed on the coasts, the island is lush and gorgeous and very beautiful, especially when viewed from the water. We spent most of the time relaxing and going to the nice beach up the coast from us.

Our only real excursion was going to an elephant park (appropriate for Koh Chang, which translates as “Elephant Island”) on the second day, where we rode and swam with the elephants. I’ll fully admit that I’m not sold on the morality of such places – especially since the mahouts tried to secretly sell us pieces of ivory jewelry during our tour – but swimming with elephants and riding on the back of one in the water is pretty freaking awesome.

The next day we suffered through another exhausting travel day: a 45-minute minibus ride to the pier, a one-hour ferry ride to the mainland, an all-day minibus ride to Bangkok (with a borderline maniacal driver who made several mysterious package pickups and deliveries along the way), and then the obligatory one-hour taxi ride in Bangkok, mostly spent staring silently out the window in anger and frustration.

Bangkok

The reasons for going back to Bangkok were three-fold: Michael was flying back home for Thanksgiving, Erik was arriving from San Francisco, and Bangkok is where I wanted to be for my birthday since I had rooftop bar demands that had to be met.

We booked bunk beds at Oneday Hostel, a fantastic, upscale place in Sukhumvit that is a slice of San Francisco in Bangkok, complete with a fancy cafe and coworking space (of course). Normally, I don’t stay in hostels since I’m a light sleeper, don’t want to deal with strangers’ sleeping habits, and prefer my own private space, if only to have more security for my things. However, since there would be four of us, we could book an entire room just for ourselves and live it up slumber-party style.

The overlapping time of the four of us was less than 24 hours, but we managed to fit in a fun night out at a girlie bar on Sukhumvit Soi 4, a solid afternoon at the weekend market the next day, and a surprisingly delicious farewell dinner for Michael that night at an unassuming restaurant in our neighborhood. As per Erik’s request and custom, we got one last cheek to cheek (to cheek to cheek) photo.

After lots of window shopping at a couple malls the next day, we hit the town for my birthday. After a delicious Thai-Lao dinner, the first stop of the evening was Moon Bar for amazing views and an equally amazing rooftop experience. And just as astounding as the views are the prices, so after a drink we bounced to Maggie Choo’s, an underground spot that I’d describe as “opium den meets San Francisco cocktail lounge”. We had a couple delicious rounds while listening to a French jazz quartet, as you do in Thailand.

After Maggie Choo’s, I believe we went back to Sukhumvit Soi 4 for more shitshow-watching, but my memory is fuzzy so I’m not going to say much about that. I do believe we turned in shortly after the bars closed since we were traveling the next day.

Phuket

After a slow morning, tolerable taxi ride to the airport, and uneventful flight to Phuket, we checked into our guesthouse in Patong and began gearing up for Birthday Night Out Part II. As you do on a night out in Patong, we went straight for Soi Bangla, a bright, loud, chaotic, alcohol-fueled maelstrom of bars, clubs, touts, ping pong shows, thumping Vegas-style music, working girls, ladyboys, and drunk tourists of all types.

My demand for the evening was shisha, so we found a very fun shisha bar and spent many happy hours there indulging in the obvious, with a healthy side of beers, buckets, cocktails, and free tequila shots from some random guy at the bar. Our entertainment consisted of scantily-clad women dancing and showering on the bar and a room full of single white men and their Thai companions who had been purchased for the evening.

The culinary delights of the evening deserve a mention as well. The bar continually supplied us with snacks to keep us around, which was appreciated, but the foods themselves got weirder over the course of the evening. The initial goodies of popcorn and peanuts turned into cotton candy, which melted all over me within seconds due to the heat, then became hard-boiled eggs later in the evening. I’ve never considered eating hard-boiled eggs while drinking… but I will from now on!

The final, beautiful culmination of the evening – and also the perfect union of drinking, food, and entertainment value – was Erik devouring a bag of roasted bugs while totally hamming it up for the camera. Out of respect for him, I won’t post that video here, but you should bug him (hey-ooohhh!) to show it to you.

The next day (our last in Phuket) was much more mellow and our big accomplishment was wandering the night market by our guesthouse. The day after that, we hopped on a ferry to Koh Lanta, my recommendation for some very relaxed island time.

Koh Lanta

Upon arriving on the island and checking in to our bungalows, our thoughts turned to food, it being Thanksgiving. We walked the beach a bit from our resort and stumbled upon Moonwalk, a spacious, uncrowded seaside restaurant hanging over dark, rough rocks with beautiful views of the beach, the ocean, and the distant lightning that was flashing occasionally on the horizon. As we went around the table and said what we were thankful for, we enjoyed a terrific dinner of bruschetta, barbecued snapper, massaman curry, Thai beer, and mango sticky rice. The massaman curry was particularly full of spices (no, I don’t mean spicy), giving it a very autumn-like taste, which was appropriate and appreciated.

We spent the rest of the evening, as we did all our evenings on Koh Lanta, lounging in chairs next to a bonfire by the ocean, sipping on drinks, talking, and looking at the stars. We also had to dodge the daily thunderstorms when they rolled through, but they always passed fairly quickly.

After a few days of standard island activities, it was time to part ways with Erik since his time was at an end. As he took his transfer to Krabi for a flight to Bangkok, Becca and I took a ferry to nearby Koh Phi-Phi.

Koh Phi-Phi

First and foremost, Koh Phi-Phi is the most beautiful island I’ve ever been on. Before going, I was worried that it had become too developed and crowded and overpopulated with backpackers. These fears are validated if you stay in Tonsai Village, the loud, dirty party center of the island, but if you stay on a beach away from the village, the island is beautiful and peaceful. Our resort (Phi Phi Hill Resort) was two beaches away from the village and at the top of a hill, meaning it was peaceful, relaxing, and had stupid beautiful views of the island below. We could watch both sunrises and sunsets from the top of our hill.

That said, we did dip into the village occasionally – via either a delightful long-tail boat ride or a hot, sweaty trek through the jungle – for shopping, food, or sunset drinks. One evening, we went to the village and Lo Dalam beach, the nightlife center of the island, for drinks and people watching. Oh man, did we get what we were looking for and more. It felt like a smaller version of Full Moon, except this party happens every night. Becca and I grabbed some beers, buckets, and shisha and sat down to watch the show, which included, but was not limited to: the usual drunk backpackers, Thai boys playing with fire poi, full frontal male nudity (in conjunction with fire poi!), a drunken soccer mom in soccer mom clothes dancing by herself in the ocean, strip Jenga with what appeared to be a rugby team, and a backpacker soap opera that unfolded right in front of us for at least half an hour.

But wait, there’s more.

After we knew we were done for the evening, we found a road leading from the beach that was lined with stalls of delicious drunk food, so of course we stopped by. Interspersed among the restaurants and food vendors were a handful of tattoo shops, which were just as busy, as backpackers of various states of sobriety decided that yes, now was the time to get that tattoo they’ve always wanted. Unlike normal tattoo shops, which promote cleanliness and privacy, these shops were wide open and in plain view of anyone walking down the street. We took full advantage of this and gawked in amazement like children at a zoo watching the caged animals.

At one particular shop, we talked to a few of the guys who were getting inked. The man to our right took swigs from his bottle of Chang as he proudly displayed the large rain cloud and lightning bolt being hammered into his bicep. Yup, a rain cloud. The real gems though were the two kids to our left. The first one had just finished getting a hah taew tattoo (one of these), which are very popular in Thailand. In fact, they’re so popular, especially for backpackers, that this shop had a printout, making the process of getting a basic tattoo in Thailand as simple as pointing.

However, this kid didn’t want all five lines; he wanted only three. Because I guess he believes in only 60% of Thai proverbs? And he didn’t want straight lines; he wanted them arranged in a circle. Because… why not? When we asked him what the lines meant, his verbatim answer was: “Um, something, something, and… something.” Bravo, my friend. Bravo.

His friend wasn’t much better. We asked him about the tattoo he was getting, and he responded with: “It’s the tattoo from The Beach.” I was really confused about this initially – and for the rest of the night – since I had read that book fairly recently and didn’t recall anything about a tattoo. It wasn’t until a day or two later I figured out what he meant: in the movie adaptation, Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio’s character) has a small tattoo on his arm. I know this only because a Google search reveals a single frame where the tattoo is visible. In summary, this kid was copying a forgettable, meaningless tattoo – that was completely irrelevant to the story – from a shitty Hollywood adaptation of the most cliche Thailand backpacker book of all time. You get a slow clap too, buddy.

I’ll also mention that all the shops used the bamboo method instead of the machine method for tattoos, which is common in Thailand. I’ve read that the bamboo method is much less painful and supposedly results in better color and faster healing. I can’t vouch for the color and healing claims, but every customer we talked to that night said that the tattoos didn’t hurt at all. Granted, they were all liquored up, so I take their testimonials with a grain of salt.

At this point, we had seen enough and were ready for a long-tail boat ride back to our beach. As we were leaving, a round of tequila shots suddenly appeared and everyone in the shop – customers and tattoo artists – had one. That’s just perfect. Have a fantastic night, gentlemen.

Having gotten our fill of the party scene, Becca and I resumed our usual beach activities for the rest of our time on the island. On our last day, we split up: Becca went on an around-the-island boat trip and I went on a death march hike through the jungle to Hat Phak Nam, a beach on the eastern coast. I stumbled upon one of the island’s viewpoints on the way and stopped for a while for some photos and to change my sweat-drenched shirt.

After extending our stay for one more precious day in paradise, we boarded an early morning ferry destined for the Trang islands, a loosely-related clump of islands to the south-east that are a bit far from the normal tourist track. Based on Lonely Planet descriptions, we settled on Koh Kradan, a very small, quiet island that is still conveniently serviced by the Tigerline ferry. After a couple stops at other islands, the ferry stopped again at a seemingly arbitrary spot in the middle of the ocean, where we transferred to a waiting long-tail boat for an hour-long ride to the island itself.

Koh Kradan

Koh Kradan is a very small island with only a handful of resorts, the vast majority of which are on the eastern shore. The island has no permanent inhabitants besides those who work in hospitality. Upon landing, we walked nearly the entire length of the main beach to get to our bungalows, which were simple bamboo huts with no aircon, no hot water, and thin mattresses on the floor. Why would we pay $35 a night in Thailand for such a place? Because we were literally on the beach, heard nothing all day but the gentle sounds of small waves, and the water’s edge was only ten feet from our front porches at high tide.

Our four days there were awesomely lazy and once I stopped shaving, I felt myself really slipping into island bum mode. We spent all of our time eating, drinking, sleeping, reading, sunbathing, swimming, and sitting on our porches during the brief storms, not only because we wanted to, but because there was nothing else to do.

One evening, we walked through the jungle across the island (no more than a 15-minute walk) to catch the sunset over the rocks. Afterwards, we backtracked to Paradise Lost, the only resort not on the coast and home to the best restaurant on the island. As we devoured massive bowls of mouth-watering massaman curry, Wally, the American owner, played the role of “Dad” as he flipped through dozens of satellite TV channels, deciding what he – and therefore the entire restaurant – would watch. The iron fist with which he dominated the remote control was evidently a twitchy one, as he changed channels every minute or two, greatly disrupting the flow of whatever mediocre movie we were getting sucked into. That said, we were quite happy to hang out for a while and be couch potatoes, downing large Singhas until it was time to walk back through the dark jungle to our moonlit beach.

After four beautiful, lazy days, it was time to get Becca on the journey back to her first-world life. Since we were on a more isolated island, the trip back would have to be split into two days. The day before her flight out of Bangkok, we took a long-tail boat through a heavy storm to the mainland, then transferred to a minibus to Trang, one of the provincial towns in the south, where we spent the night. The next day, we flew from Trang to Don Mueang (AirAsia) Airport, took the free shuttle to BKK, and had a bittersweet goodbye in the departures hall.

Traveling with my friends from home – especially through places that I was familiar with and could be a tour guide for – was wonderful and perfect and something I had been looking forward to for a long time. I’ve had a great time making new friends and travel buddies everywhere I’ve gone during my sabbatical, but there’s something really special about traveling with good friends I’ve known for many years.

It was, of course, effortless and joyful to travel with Becca for so long and I’m excited about this new annual tradition of going on an international, multi-week backpacking trip. Where to next, boo?

With that, I’ll leave here a short montage of some footage I took on the islands with my phone.

Siem Reap and Angkor

After a short flight to Bangkok and another short flight to Siem Reap, I grabbed a tuk-tuk from the airport and OH MY GOD WHY IS IT SO HOT AT NIGHT?!?! Truth be told (and I feel silly using one of those phrases that’s overused), it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. Siem Reap is 35° C, just like Chiang Mai, but Chiang Mai weather is much more tolerable because it’s very dry at this time of year. Even with the cool breeze hitting me while sitting in the back of a tuk-tuk, I was still sweating through my clothes. I got used to the weather after a day or so, but that first 24 hours was a little bit of a shock to the system. After that I just resigned myself to being constantly sweaty and always bringing an extra shirt with me.

I ended up hiring my airport driver, Dola, as a tour guide and he whisked me around Angkor on his tuk-tuk and motorbike, cramming a lot of sightseeing into three days. All the temples are quite impressive and should be on any traveler’s bucket list. My one piece of advice is to go in December or January if you want the best weather (at the expense of more tourists).

The first stop on the sightseeing tour was Angkor Wat at sunrise on the first day. Angkor Wat is massive and an amazing work of art and tough to put into words. I don’t know if I have much more to say than what you’d find in a tour book, so I’ll let the photos do the talking.

After spending a few hours at Angkor Wat, Dola unhitched his motorbike from his tuk-tuk and we spent the afternoon at Phnom Kulen, which included a fun motorbike ride up and down the mountain, a temple with a large reclining Buddha, and swimming at the base of a waterfall.

Swimming in the river at the waterfall was incredibly refreshing in the Cambodian heat and even a bit cold after a while, given the water temperature, lack of sun (it being blocked by the canopy overhead), and wind. The river was full of those little fish that nibble at your dead skin if you stay still for too long and there were plenty of locals screaming and splashing around. Many of them couldn’t swim and quite a few jumped into the water full clothed, neither of which are that unusual for Southeast Asia.

The second day highlights were a long motorbike ride through the countryside to Beng Mealea and lunch at a Cambodian wedding.

Beng Mealea was my favorite temple of the trip. It feels a bit like something out of Indiana Jones as the jungle has grown back over the years to slowly overtake the temple ruins. When you tour the temple with one of the full-time guides, you wander through courtyards that are dressed in trees and vines and climb over piles of collapsed stones. I liked it a lot more than Ta Prohm, which has too many tourists, less nature (the jungle there is manicured), and lots of heavy equipment as parts of the temple are being restored.

The wedding was very interesting too, mostly because it was such a different format than American weddings. My driver’s friend was getting married, so we stopped by for lunch, which is really what a Cambodian wedding in the countryside amounts to. It’s customary for a wedding to be on a weekday, for only an hour or so during lunchtime, with no ceremony, MC, or dancing. Guests arrive whenever they can make it, sit down at one of the circular tables, pick at the seven courses of lunch, drink Cambodian beer, and shout to each other over the blaring music. Given the heat, suits are clearly not required or acceptable, so the standard attire for men is jeans and a collared shirt. As if I didn’t feel singled out enough being the only white person there, I was wearing my temple-visiting clothes (shorts, t-shirt, and backpack). Outfit FAIL.

On top of that, there wasn’t much veggie food, so I was forced to drink my calories. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, except I hadn’t eaten breakfast that day, so the alcohol hit me harder than usual. The other guests were intrigued by the presence of a foreigner, but greatly appreciated the fact that I smiled a lot and drank a lot of beer. (I was inappropriately dressed and not eating their food, so what else could I do?) Given how much Cambodian men like to toast and drink, I drunkenly passed out at 2:00 when I made it back to my hotel and had a very nice 6-hour nap. If the wedding had been longer than one hour, I would have been in big trouble.

The third day highlights were pretty much everything at Angkor Thom, especially Bayon.

Riding through the countryside of Angkor is an eye-opening experience by itself, as it offers glimpses into the daily life of real Cambodian people, many of whom are very poor. Emaciated cows grazing on dried grass, trash strewn everywhere, and uniformed children walking arm-in-arm from school all became very common sights. (That reminds me: Cambodian kids are probably the most adorable kids on the planet. Angelina Jolie was onto something!)

For the next three days, I relaxed in Siem Reap, spending most of my time developing photos, writing, and eating lots of delicious Khmer food (very similar to Thai food, but without the spiciness). The Khmer cocktail class was very fun and Phare, the Cambodian circus, was phenomenal and life-affirming; both activities are highly recommended if you stay in Siem Reap even for a little bit.

Phnom Penh

The all-day bus ride to Phnom Penh was pretty uneventful, given that I was already familiar with how the Cambodian countryside looks and how some of the drivers on the roads are borderline psychotic. Probably the only detail worth noting was that the entertainment system on my “VIP bus” was a Sony set-top box loaded with dozens of Blu-ray rips, clearly torrented given that most of the filenames had “YIFY” in the title. Classic Southeast Asia.

Once in Phnom Penh, I met another tuk-tuk driver at the bus station and hired him for a couple days to take me around the city. We had a couple decently-packed days, going to the royal palace, the national museum, Friends restaurant (a good-cause establishment that gives jobs and experience to former street kids), Tuol Sleng (a.k.a. S-21 prison) museum, the killing fields, Wat Phnom, Russian Market, and Central Market.

The next two days were a lot more relaxed as I needed time to develop photos and write; my time not spent doing one of those two activities was spent eating, hitting the pool, or getting massages. I also had the pleasure of meeting up for drinks with Anne – one of my friends from Chiang Mai – and her boyfriend, who are also traveling throughout Cambodia.

On Saturday, I linked up with Steven – another friend from Chiang Mai – for some good bro time, including a field trip to a military base outside of town. Steven (via his company) organizes trips to the shooting range, where customers can shoot fully automatic rifles at various inanimate objects, shoot RPGs at the mountain, and throw grenades. It just so happened he had a large group of people going, so he invited me to tag along and I offered to take photos. It was all good fun even though I didn’t shoot anything; I think I derived just as much satisfaction from watching others do it. And you don’t have to be the one pulling the pin to appreciate the force from a grenade that explodes nearby.

Fun fact: contrary to what the movies show, grenades do not have fiery explosions, just a lot of force (and shrapnel) being released. Similarly, propane tanks do not explode in a huge fireball when shot with regular ammunition. To get that effect, you need to light a fire next to the tank, which will ignite the propane when the tank is punctured. The More You Know, folks.

Sequence of throwing a grenade:

After the long day of drinking with Steven, I spent most of Sunday relaxing until a 90-minute quad-bike (ATV) ride at sunset through the villages by the killing fields. My understanding is that the adults in the villages have mixed feelings about this tourist activity because of the noise and dust, but the kids love it. When they hear the quad-bikes approaching, they all run up to the road to wave, say “Hello!”, and throw up some high-fives.

After another day of relaxing, I spent Tuesday at the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center, which was substantial and photogenic enough to warrant its own post.

Battambang

The next day I took the bus to Battambang, a small town (though somehow the second-largest city in Cambodia) in the northwest part of the country. The ride was highlighted by a hilariously awful Khmer-dubbed copy of Cradle 2 The Grave. I’m happy (I guess?) that some lovely Khmer people could experience the joy that only DMX can give. I don’t have much to say about Battambang, as I didn’t do any sightseeing and instead used my time there to catch up on sleep, photo editing, and blogging. I don’t feel too bad about this as the sights aren’t very different than what I’ve seen already.

After a very uneventful (i.e. DMX-less) 3-hour bus ride, I found myself back in Siem Reap for 48 hours, mainly to catch a flight, but it was also nice to hang out in a place that I was somewhat familiar with. I was also able to meet up with my friend Lala, who runs the aforementioned Khmer cocktail class. Her bar (Asana) was coincidentally having a 2-year anniversary party, at which I drank too much and had to put myself to bed. After one more day to relax, I left for the airport and caught my flight to southern Thailand.

Thoughts on Cambodia

I didn’t really have any expectations before visiting Cambodia and I definitely enjoyed my time there. A lot of the culture was already familiar to me (food, motorbikes, music, wai‘ing, losing face, etc.) as it’s similar to Thailand, but it was interesting to see little differences here and there.

Cambodian traffic and driving are worth mentioning, as the road culture is quite different than what I’m used to back home. The two words that often pop into my head are “chaotic” and “lawless”. The major roads are especially colorful, as all types of cars, trucks, buses, tractors, motorbikes, tuk-tuks, and bicycles jostle for space on the pavement (or dirt). Traffic lights barely exist, stop signs might as well be invisible, and driving on the wrong side of the road is okay. Intersections roughly translate to: “slow down a little and find a gap in the cross-traffic, then plow ahead”. Passing on a two-lane road becomes something of a game of chicken, with the smaller vehicle having to concede to the larger one, even if it means pulling off (and continuing to drive on) the dirt shoulder. What’s funny is that all of this seems to work because everyone follows the same rules. After observing a lot of driving over the last three weeks, I’ve yet to see an accident. That said, it’s probably a very wise rule that foreigners are not allowed to rent motorbikes in Siem Reap.

Cambodia being a poor country, and me being a single white male, I get approached and pestered a lot. Sure, it might be annoying that tuk-tuk drivers are constantly hassling me about rides or drugs or girls. And it might be exhausting to see so many beggars or war victims always asking for money. But mild annoyance is as far as my negativity goes. I cannot, in good conscience, possibly look down upon or blame or even ignore what these good people have to resort to simply for survival. The people, their families, and their country have been through hell. I haven’t had my family uprooted from its home, or my country bombed and burned and destroyed, or my relatives murdered in a genocide, or my limbs blown off by a landmine, or anything that’s a fraction of what Cambodian people have had to ensure. I made a point of trying to keep all that in mind as I traveled through the country. I feel good that I made friends and spent money and educated myself on a truly dark chapter of human history. I hope to return again soon, hopefully in a more meaningful capacity.

After being picked up by my driver/guide – I was the only visitor on the day I went – and driving for an hour south of the city, we pulled onto the property, turned onto a dirt road, and stopped abruptly, as a 3-ton elephant was walking towards us. I learned this was Lucky, a gentle giant (quite literally) that is allowed to go on walks through the property. We had caught her during her morning jaunt, so we spent some time feeding her and taking photos. A few locals (who can visit the park for only 50 cents per person) came over and fed her too.

After 15 minutes or so, we left Lucky and drove over to see the other elephants, who are usually not allowed to go on walks because they’re more aggressive and unpredictable. Lucky came back from her walk and painted me a t-shirt, a trick learned through positive reinforcement and no abuse, unlike some other places in Southeast Asia.

After art class came some sports therapy in the form of a sock change for Chhouk, an elephant who has a prosthetic foot. He was found injured in the forest some years ago, most likely as a result of stepping in a poacher’s snare. A school in Cambodia that works with human prosthetics was called in to design and construct an elephant prosthetic. The trainers have taught Chhouk a few “tricks” that help them with their care, including “lie down” and “lift up a hind leg”. These may not sound that impressive, but it’s quite something to see a massive beast make those moves on command.

Chhouk wears a sock over his leg underneath the prosthetic, which has to be changed twice a day. Note his generous treat at the very end (an entire bunch of bananas).

Next up was a visit with the eight tigers at the center, most of whom are paired off into “couples”. The one we visited the longest was prowling in her cage for a while before sitting down next to us and purring when we pet her. The tigers have large outdoor enclosures that they can wander in freely, but often when it’s hot, they like to stay inside and lay on the cool cement.

Next we visited the clouded leopards, of which only one was out and about due to the heat. Did I mention Cambodia is fucking hot?

Up next were many, many gibbons and two types of macaques. The gibbons were pretty amazing to watch (and incredibly fast) as they swung around on every branch, bar, and pole in their habitat.

After that we watched a family of smooth-coated otters for a while. The otters (one father and four kids) were quite entertaining as they just play all day. The children are particularly attached to pops, so if he goes anywhere, the entire pack follows.

Next was a black bear, a few sun bears, and a serow, which have funny blue tongues, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a photo.

After a very tasty Khmer lunch, complete with coconuts and some lazy time in hammocks (a Cambodian pastime), we joined Lucky for her afternoon walk. Although I was very much enjoying my iced sugar cane juice, Lucky insisted that she try some too, so I gave her half, then we continued on our stroll through the jungle.

Going on a walk with an elephant is similar to going on a walk with a dog, except a lot more trees are trampled or ripped down. It’s really something to witness the strength of an elephant in person; they can push (with their body) or pull (with their trunk) trees and snap them in half like twigs.

In fact, after shooting that last photo above, I had to duck out of the way because the top of that tree came crashing down where I was standing.

After saying goodbye to Lucky, we went over to the nursery to see all of the animals there: a baby cuckoo bird being hand-fed bugs by one of the employees, a few other cuckoo and Myna birds, a couple owls, and a hairy-nosed otter (the only one in captivity in the world!) enjoying a fishy lunch.

The last visit of the day was a habitat with four baby macaques, who jump and play and climb all over everything like… well, like monkeys.

And after all the fruit was eaten, the grooming started.

Once the macaques started getting a little too rambunctious (and climbing all over my camera), it was time to go.

As if the photos didn’t illustrate this already, the behind-the-scenes tour is really incredible and certainly one of the most memorable things I’ve done on my trip, plus the money goes to a really good cause. Win-win, no doubt. I highly recommend this experience for anyone going to Cambodia. Just maybe try to go when the weather isn’t face-melting hot.

Check out Wildlife Alliance and Phnom Tamao Zoological Park and Wildlife Rescue Center for more info.