Temple Trekking

Yesterday Nicky, one of our volunteer group's leaders, took us on a day trip to explore some ruins of temples from the 10th century. We weren't sure if he had a driver's license (which seems to be optional here) but we made it through a police stop and to our destinations!

The first place we went to was called Phanum rung. The ruins were actually at the top of a dormant volcano which overlooks Cambodia. Even though most of the meaning was lost on us, the architecture and detail were very impressive. We had fun climbing and jumping through the different areas and felt like we were in the Temple Run game. The whole place was packed with Thai people because yesterday was a Buddhist holiday and admission was free. We caught many of them taking pictures of us because we stood out so much, and one woman even walked right up to Fiona, one of the girls from Scotland, and kept grabbing her arm and comparing their skin color.

After another delicious lunch of Pad Thai and fried rice, we drove to another place called Mung tum. It was similar to Phanum rung, but a bit bigger and with more pretty nature around it. All of the flowers here are beautiful and look like they are plastic. We climbed around and explored until we were dripping sweat, then hopped back in the back of the pickup to air dry on the next drive. 

Our last stop was a pretty large Buddha, of whose name we have no idea. There were about 300 stairs to climb, and each step had a bell to ring on the way up and on the way back down. This was meant to signal to the Buddha that we were there and to bring us good luck. We also stopped at the top to look over a big cliff and get some good landscape pictures.

When we got back, Kelsey and Colleen went to get their first Thai massages. They only cost about $8 for an hour and are amazing! We even got ginger tea and aromatic soap souvenirs at the end. This probably will not be the last of Thai massages. The four of us went to dinner with Fiona and two girls from New Zealand who are doing the teaching project. We splurged a little and spent $6-8 on our meals, and most of us decided that the food is better at the cheaper places. Our goal is to try somewhere new each night since there are so many options within about 3 blocks of our house. The rest of our night off was spent playing cards in a local hotel that the New Zealand girls booked for a night to get out of the guest house and into a room with A/C and a real bathroom. We are having a ton of fun comparing everyone's accents and common lingo. A fun fact that we learned was that prefects are not just characters in the Harry Potter stories, but they actually exist in Europe and New Zealand!

Today we woke up and met the rest of the volunteers who had been on the elephant project at the hotel. We took tuktuks to an even fancier hotel in the city that has an outdoor pool for the day and are planning to all meet up again tonight (after Cyle and Garrett have their first massages) to watch the World Cup Final!