ATVs and Temples: Day 2 in Cambodia

by Taylor
for Thursday, July 18th

Thursday morning we woke up at 6:10. We wanted to get out early because 1) it is really hot out and the morning is cool and 2) we wanted to be able to see as much of Angkor Wat as possible. After almost dragging Christian out of bed and getting dressed, I was ready to go downstairs for breakfast. My mom had told us the night before to wear clothes we could get dirty in because we were going on an ATV tour and the people had told us we were going to get muddy. The breakfast at the hotel was pretty, I don’t have a perfect word to describe it neat(?) They gave us a menu and then we got to choose what times of eggs we wanted.

After breakfast, a driver from the ATV place was there to pick us up. The vehicle was a motorcycle with like a large wagon attached. It basically was a large, motorized tuk-tuk. My mom had prearranged that we would have three ATVs. Since Sarah Ann and Christian weren’t allowed to drive, Mom and Dad would just drive their own while Rachel and I would take turns driving one. When we got there the head guy originally said that I wasn’t allowed to drive. I was kind of mad but then he let me take a driving test. Even though I thought driving was pretty scary and I thought I had done a poor job, apparently I passed. Since I passed, the guy then decided I could drive.

On our ATV tour with the green Cambodian countryside behind us

Riding the ATV was terrifying at first. Every pothole or turn I would clench up, waiting for the ATV to crash. Luckily it didn’t. Rachel loved going fast and through mud. Eventually though I realized that everything was fine and I wasn’t afraid anymore. I even got the hang of driving and it was awesome. By the end we were all muddy but I was probably the most muddy. Near the end Rachel, with my approval and encouragement, decided to go through every mud puddle possible. The person in the back, not driving, got muddier than the person driving. It was awesome! The game ended though once Rachel accidentally drove off the road into the fields off to the side. It was also interesting to see the villages and the countryside of Cambodia.

We drove through little villages. Most of the houses are on stilts because of flooding during the wet season

I got super muddy!

After the tour, we went back to our hotel to shower and change our clothes. My clothes were filthy. My new shoes that I bought just weeks before were once white and now they are very brown.

Once we were all clean it was time to return to Angkor Wat. We brought rain stuff because we had all expected it to rain even thought the sky looked sunny and almost cloudless. The first temple, Preah Kahn, was almost like the Tah Prohm one. There was lots of rubble and it was easy to get lost in. It was huge and we had fun wandering around and climbing over rocks. Sure enough though after about thirty minutes it begin to downpour. We tried to rush out of there but once we thought we were out it turned out that we had gone out the wrong gate. After about 15 minutes of trying to find our way to the correct exit and trying to hide from the rain, we got out. We were all soaked. Rachel, Sarah Ann and I didn't even try to avoid the rain anymore. We just walked through it. It felt kind of good since it was so hot.

Preah Kahn, one of our favorite temples

After that we went to some other temples that were small and too insignificant to write about. Then we left Angkor Wat and ret to the rat museum. The museum was really interesting and we got to see a demonstration of how the rats worked. Christian liked it a lot! To finish our day we went to the Killing Fields. It was a Buddhist temple that was also a memorial of all the people who had been massacred during the Khmer rouge empire. It was sad but we learned a lot about the not-so-distant tragic history of this country.

A HeroRat who helps find landmines

a display of human skulls from the Khmer Rouge killing fields shown at a Bhuddist temple, Wat Thmey, in Siem Reap