Angkor WHAT!?

We flew back to Bangkok and took a bus to Siem Reap in western Cambodia. The border was a chaotic welcoming but we eventually made it to our hotel just near Pub Street. After sitting in a minivan for the past 9ish hours, all we wanted was to sit and have a cold beer. We were low on cash because the visa for entry took the last bit we had, but no worries, thats what ATMs are for right? If the ATM would take our cards that is. Joe had found out a few days before that his bank issued him a new debit card for no apparent reason, so his current one was defunct.​My PNC Visa debit would not even be read by the ATM (my bank sees no reason why even though I tried it at 6 different atms in 3 different countries). Thank goodness I signed up for Capital One 360 when they were doing some promo to give you $200 just for creating a bank account. But oh wait, the money I transfered from my PNC account to Capital One would take 3-4 days to clear, so we were going to have to wait 36 hours until the start of the business day in the US when we only had $5 cash to our names.

I decided to call Capital One to see if they could do anything to speed up the transfer (shout out to Google Hangout app for giving me a false US phone number to call fo free over wifi). The representative was super chipper and explained that the waiting period was mandatory but that I could sign up for overdraft protection. Kind of like a short loan, I can overdraft, incur minuscule ​interest on that amount, and as soon as my transfer cleared it would automatially repay the overdraft and interest and I would be none the wiser. So we ran down to the ATM in the morning and I finally was able to pull some cash! Thank you Alec Baldwin (never thought I'd say that haha)

Throughout our 6 days in Cambodia, we saw Ankor Wat (one of the oldest religious sights in the world); ate Fish Amok, the national dish consisting of a less spicy, more frangrant coconut curry; drank many 50 cent glasses of beers; snagged a bag of sun baked, tiny w​ater clams​ from a street vendor; saw a Cambodian acrobatic circus; watched the process of silk from the cocoons of silk worms to the painstaking hand-spinning and weaving of threads; and got to meet up with our previous Atlanta roomie, Patricia!

The largest downside to the cities were the harrassment of tuk tuk (scooterdriven, coveredwagon taxi) drivers on every block. I might have been able to shrug it off if they could take no for an answer. You say you dont want a ride and they follow you asking if you've seen this or that, and finally try to offer you weed as a last resort. The first phrase I learned in Cambodian was no thank you.

The most incredible thing we did in Cambodia was to visit the sights of torture and massacre of the Khmer Rouge (Khmer is the name for Cambodian people, Rouge meaning red for the color of communism). Just as we were not taught about the Northern Ireland Troubles in history class, I had no idea that just 35 years ago, the dictator of Cambodia closed of the country's borders with land mines, took captive the urban populations, tortured any and all educated citizens, and ended up mass murdering over 4 million of the country's 8 million population. How America (who was right next door fighting the Vietnam War) let this slide under our gaze is unfthomable. How such an insane man rose to power (and even gained aid from the UN) in the first place is incomprehensible. How none of those responsible for such malicious deeds have yet to be prosecuted is downright unjust. The whole visit opened my eyes to why the country is in such rubble and still trying to rebuild. It helped me appreciate each person just trying to sell a single tshirt or a couple coffees so they can feed their children. The whole country is struggling and here we are waltzing about trying to pick between the blue or yellow hammock to bring home for our backyard that is larger than their entire home. Please google the Khmer Rouge if you find yourself experiencing First World Problems and would like a reality check. It is amazing in a terrible way.