El Noche Primero en Siem Reap

This picture just about sums up night one in Siem Reap. After dropping our stuff off, we headed down town and went to a Khmer restaurant for dinner. I wasn't really sure what to expect from Cambodian cuisine, but after eating PAL inflight food I'm pretty sure I'm up for anything. Boy was I surprised- it turns out that Cambodian food is a lot like Thai food's tasty cousin. Curry, ginger, coconut milk, saffron, jasmine rice- any combination thereof and you're probably going to get something good. I had ginger chicken and spring rolls with sour peanut sauce (sounds gross, tastes awesome). I might have licked my plate clean had I not been traveling with a bunch of co-workers. Top off a delicious meal with icy cold .50 cent beer (actual price, not affiliated with the hip hop star/former crack dealer) and you've started off any trip the right way. Adding to the fun at the restaurant was the fact that our Cambodian waiter spoke Spanish, so I was able to habla broken Espanol I learned from mis amigos mexicanos all those summers ago while eating microwave burritos under a Twin Enterprises tractor trailer. Uno cerveza mas aqui, por favor!

After some great conversation and food, it was off to the night market.

The night market was my kind of tourist trap. There were hundreds of stalls selling goods ranging from Buddhist figurines to carved ivory to spices to scarves to hammocks. The most prevalent item was t-shirts. Every stall sold them; the funny thing was it seemed like there were probably only five different prints over and over: Angkor Beer Logo, Tiger beer logo, "Tin Tin in Cambodia" (for the Europeans), Khmer Alphabet, and "DANGER MINE FIELD" with a big skull. There are still mines all over Cambodia as a result of their civil war and plenty of signs warning people not to step off the marked path. I ended up buying a Tiger beer tshirt because I read that Zac Efron wore one to the Hannah Montana premiere, and the kids tell me he's pretty cool.

Sorry, Sara, I didn't get you any bags. But I did get you a DANGER MINE FIELD tshirt.

Coolest thing I saw that I didn't buy: homemade whiskey with an alcohol preserved Cobra holding a scorpion in its mouth inside the bottle. As if a whiskey bottle with a cobra inside it weren't badass enough, you had to add a scorpion! It took a lot of will power not to drop 6 bucks on that (note: instead I spent 4 bucks on a full back tattoo of a cobra eating a scorpion- who's bad ass now?).

After a few hours at the market, it was back to the hostel for another round of Angkor beer and then some rest. Reveille for Angkor Wat was 0600.