Today should have been an amazing day!
I was planning to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat and then visit all the big temples in the “center”, since I have seen all the further out once by motorbike yesterday. I couldn’t wait to get to Ta Prohm, one of the temples that appeared on Tomb Raider. Uh, and I was looking forward to finding a cozy spot to read a romantic novel and just to relax and to enjoy the fact that I am traveling through Southeast Asia.
But last night I got a really bad stomachache. And after two days of barely any sleep, I definitely didn’t feel like waking up at 4:20am to ride the bicycle to Angkor Wat.
So I slept in, which I haven’t done in a while, and had no idea what to do with the rest of the day.
I am staying at this hostel in Siem Riep in a dorm for only $3 (Yes, US dollars. Cambodia has two currencies: USD and Cambodian Riel. In big cities both currencies are accepted.). There I met this amazing woman. She was sleeping in the bunkbed right next to me (it’s low season during raining season, so we were the only ones in that dorm room – which is pretty awesome!). While we were getting ready for the day, we started off with some small talk and all the sudden we found ourselves sitting in our beds in deep conversations. Mostly about her incredible path of life and all the obstacles she had to face. And yet, she turned you to be such a positive, optimistic and strong person. Very inspiring! Time flew by, we must have been sitting there for at least an hour, when we decided to go to this amazing Italian ice cream place that she discovered.
After a short walk we passed by the Old Market, which turned out to be my favorite market
so far! It wasn’t over-crowded and the atmosphere wasn’t as oppressive as the markets in Phnom Penh, or, in fact, anywhere else I have been so far in Asia.
As we made our way through the different areas of the market, we tried this Cambodian, sweet I-have-no-idea-what-that-was thing. The treat was made out of many small, round, chewy, white balls with a liquid sugar-something-filling inside. Very yummy!
The ice cream café is located in the probably cutest alley of Siem Reap! It is not a very long alley, even a little narrow, but absolutely lovely! It reminds me of a crossover between Italy and Spain.
And the place itself is just amazing! The ice cream – gosh! This is the definition of a perfect ice cream! I just wish it wasn’t so expensive! Usually I wouldn’t have bought it, since it is waaaay out it my budget. But I wasn’t feeling well, so I thought I deserved a little treat. One scoop costs $1,50! The place is called “Gelato lab”, by the way.
Anyways, my new found friend and me just sat there all morning and couldn’t stop taking.
I haven’t seen my family in almost 2 months and traveling alone through 3rd world countries with the age of 20 isn’t as easy as I though it would be. It can be incredibly stressful. So I really missed home, the easy daily routines and the peace of knowing where I will sleep and what and when the next meal will be.
But sharing about what I have experienced during my travels so far, made me realize that I have had amazing adventures and how lucky I am to be able to do this.
Our conversations gave me energy and so much motivation !
All the sudden it was already 3pm and our tummies were growling. We went to this restaurant, which I also usually never do, because it just not is my budget, but $2 sounded alright. I ordered this pineapple-curry-chicken-rice-dish which got served in a pineapple! How cool is that?!
In the evening, while she went to a yoga class (which I definitely couldn’t afford), I decided to go back to the ice cream café to catch up on some paperwork. But I didn’t get to it, because I met these two, really awesome Indian-American girls who just started traveling through Southeast Asia. They were my age and again, we had really great conversations!
That’s one of the reasons why I love traveling; you meet so many, really amazing people, who are all open minded. And of course we all share the same, big, life changing hobby – traveling. And yet, everyone is so absolutely different and has a completely different definition of what traveling is and how it’s done. With every conversation you have you either learn something new (be it religion, culture, food, politics, or a whole new perspective on life) and thus grow as a person or you just exchange some travel tips and tricks and have a very pleasant chat about you childhood memories or something like that.
I got off topic I here. Anyhow, at the end of the day I just felt really, really happy.
So, even though today didn’t start out as perfect, it definitely ended that way!
Magic of Travel 