Afterwards, we grabbed lunch, and our tuk-tuk driver taught us how to play a Cambodian card game that all the tuk-tuk drivers play, which I have now named Angkor, since I have no earthly idea what they called it, but it was really fun to play with him! Though afterwards our tuk-tuk nearly died since the fuel line wasn't staying attached to the engine, which would have been really bad since we were....in the middle of nowhere....but our driver managed to fix it and we continued onto another temple, which is one of the oldest in the complex, and by far the most ornate, and in most peoples' opinions, the most beautiful, which I sort of agree with. It was incredible.
The day before, we had actually gone to check out the war museum just outside the city, which was a VERY sobering experience. The man who gave us the tour had joined the Cambodian army when he was 14, to be provided with food and clothing, and in the process of fighting in the war, lost part of his leg from the knee down to a land mine, is almost entirely blind due to getting shrapnel blown into his eyes, has part of the bone from his foot in his eye, which was lodged there during the land-mine blast, was shot five different times, still has ball-bearings under his skin from other land-mine blasts, which give him tetanus about 1-2 times every year....WOW.
Apparently in the park, he was showing us the different personnel carriers and whatnot, and apparently one of them still had a skeleton in it from when it was brought in. I didn't have the nerve to go see, it was just too much. He showed us different artillery guns that could blow 100 meter wide craters up to 10 miles away. It was just insane to hear.
When we asked about the current politics in Cambodia, we were pretty shocked to hear him say that he couldn't talk about it out loud due to the instability that still existed. I think everyone views the Khmer Rouge and civil war as being a thing of the past, when it is still very much a part of Cambodian culture.
Yesterday Sasha and Seth left for Indonesia, so James and I just had a lazy day. We went to the National Angkor Museum to learn more about the history of the old empire and whatnot, which was really neat. Afterwards, we took care of a few errands, then went to this massage place which is only staffed by blind masseuses, which was pretty cool. We got an awesome 1 hour massage for 5$, and was personally really glad we gave our business to them, since it was both a good massage, and pretty apparent that they needed all the business they could get.
Afterwards was some quick shopping at the night market, then dinner and bedtime, and now it's today. ARG. Today has given me some problems. I was SUPPOSED to fly direct into Phuket, Thailand today, however, the airline thought it'd be a great day to change the time of my flight the NIGHT before, and the internet was down today so I couldn't double-check that my flight was still on, therefore I missed it. BLEH. So I had to be routed through Bangkok where I'm waiting to get on a second flight that I had to book into Phuket, where I will crash overnight and go to the islands tomorrow morning instead. Annoying, but it'll be alright.
I will update (hopefully) from the island tomorrow!
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