... "You want Tuk Tuk?" was asked 50,000 times?

You would go insane. The Tuk Tuk to tourist ratio in Cambodia (or Siem Reap at least) must be staggeringly off because there seems to be 10 times more rides available than there are people. Thankfully we found a wonderful kind-eyed man to take us around Angkor Wat today who was nice enough to let us finish our breakfast before he approached our table asking if we needed a ride. See "Patrick" (still not sure what his Khmer name is) below along with our friend Taylor who was able to meet up with us after teaching for a few months in Chang Mai, Thailand.

We had an awesome day seeing 6 of the 15 temples at Angkor Wat - a staggeringly impactful ruin site that dates over 1,000 years old. I was really looking forward to this and it didn't disappoint. The $20 admission and $5 Tuk Tuk ride for the day was well spent - check out some of my favorite photos below.

Sorry I had a hard time narrowing it down...

The genocide that took place in Cambodia only 30-some years ago is still very apparent and begging from those affected (missing limbs, burns, disfigured children) is extremely common and difficult to take in. I bought the book "First They Killed My Father" (which talks about the genocide from the perspective of a 5 year old girl) from a limbless man named Douk on the street who warmed my heart. It's hard to believe that 1.5 to 3 million Cambodians were killed by their own people, the Khmer Rouge, in a Natzi-like takeover. What's harder still is that I was unaware of this before I decided to come to Cambodia. Something is either off in our education or maybe just my understanding of world history. Anna and I have taken on a case to become more informed - googling just about anything we don't know enough about (which is everything). From Communism to Che Guevara to the difference between Holland and the Netherlands to the US' involvement in the Vietnam War, we're slowly working to understand certain events and embarrassed we hadn't deepened our knowledge and broadened our perspectives sooner.

Ah well. Better late than never! Boarding a 6 hour night bus to Phnom Penh soon and we plan on seeing the Killing Fields tomorrow which is one of the labor sites turned grave sites of thousands of Cambodian victims. Preparing ourselves for a darker (but necessary) day.