Catching up: Cambodia

As most of you are probably aware, I set out for southeast Asia at the end of August in order to take a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) certification course. The first two weeks of the program were in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The elephant that walked around the park every day.

Class started on August 30 and it was intensive. Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. left little room for exploration. I did manage to make it out to S.21, the genocide museum, with two others from my class during lunch one day, but the experience didn't engender the desire for more such outings. Mostly, I went to class, did homework and got to know the other 23 awesome people in my class.

The first weekend, we went on a scheduled trip to the city of Siem Reap to visit ancient temples, most notably that of Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat somewhere between 5 and 6 a.m.

The visit to Angkor Wat was one of the most moving experiences of my life. The temple itself is huge, made out of massive stones that were dragged by elephants from over 100 kilometers away. Stone was set atop stone without any mortar in between and then carved into intricate designs and statues. It's a marvel that it still stands today. Inside the temple, I was at once overwhelmed by its sheer magnitude and overcome with feelings of peace and calm--I'm not sure why this last is true, seeing as how there were swarms of people there, but once it started to rain, the temple felt like the calmest place on Earth to me.

On the second weekend, right before all of us went our separate ways to our own teaching destinations, we went on another trip. This time to Sihanoukville, a beach town on the Gulf of Thailand. There we rented a boat and went island hopping for several hours. It was overcast but the water was warm and the views were beautiful.

The island we stopped on to play volleyball, swim and read.
(Okay that last one was really just me and one other girl...)

As my first taste of southeast Asia, I loved Cambodia. Phnom Penh is a lazy, relaxed city full of sweet, friendly people. My favorite part (that I wish I had photos of but alas do not) was the masses of teenagers dancing to Justin Bieber in the park every night at 5:30. I don't know how it came to be but every night at the same time, people would set up stereo systems and blast pop and hip hop music all over the park. In front of each sound system would be a group of teenagers--anywhere from five to 150 of them--performing the same dance together. It was amazing. If I were still in Phnom Penh, I'd join them for some good, sweaty exercise every day.