Tuesday March 22nd 2011-Ankor What??? And some ?nam

Sunrise at Ankor Wat was pretty cool to see.  Exploring the actual temple was even better.  It was amazing to think that this huge temple was lost in jungle for hundreds of years.  The thing was enormous. We spent a few hours there just wandering all of the rooms in the place.  The cool thing about being able to see this is that apparently in a few years people will not be able to wander around it anymore…Because it is not in great condition they are going to close it down to the public to preserve it.  After visiting the main temple at Ankor Wat, we were dragged off to another temple.  A few of us in the group had read about the Tomb Raider Temple which has been untouched since found, and wanted to go see that but unfortunately the Semester At Sea trip was on a schedule and could not just change it even though the majority of the group wanted to go see it.  That kids annoying mother threw a fit at the leader of our trip who told her she is free to do what she wants.  That’s the good thing with Semester at Sea trips is that at any time you can just sign out and go do your own thing, as long as you’re on time for planes and trains then you will be fine.  He told the woman that time was short but she is free to go do what she wants.  She could not comprehend the fact that both busses had to go with the original schedule.  It turned into her and her son and daughter (who came along with her) complaining about waiting around a lot on this trip…which I did not agree with.  For a SAS trip, this was run very fast and smoothly.  So she complained that we could not go to the Tomb Raider Temple, even though she was free to do so alone, as long as she was on time back to the hotel for the flight.  I could not even listen to her bitch at our nice trip leader anymore so me and a few girls on the trip hopped in a rickshaw and started to head off to the Tomb Raider Temple independently.  When the mother saw this she ran over to us to ask if we could all go as a group.  I was thrilled to tell her “no, we cannot, we are going alone.”  That’s it.  It felt great to simply deny her but we were already pressed for time and there was no way I was waiting around for some old lady. 
Looking back I am so happy we went to this other temple.  It was apparently what the Ankor Wat temple looked like before they cleared it all out so it was nice to see something so untouched.  There were 500 year old trees growing right through the brick of it, roots much bigger than myself crawling up the walls of the temple.  Once again I had the opportunity to grab some great pictures of myself next to the roots.
The weird thing about these temples is how you can walk around anywhere in them with no restrictions.  There were points when I was walking through the temple that I felt I was the first to ever walk through there.  Climbing through dark crevices over fallen ruins where nobody else was at the time felt so weird.  It is something that would never happen in the United States, or any other countries for that matter.
I felt like we were a little rushed for time at the end and we had no idea where we were.  We stressed out for the entire rickshaw ride back because we had a lot on the line.  They would leave us in Cambodia if it came down to it and we would have been in big trouble.  Luckily after stressing for so long we made it back to the hotel even before the other group.  I made sure to flaunt my pictures in front of the woman and told her how much they missed out by not going to the other temple.  I had her real rattled. 
After a much delayed plane and cockroaches on the airport floor, we made it back to the ship where I slept for a few hours before going out for the night.  Aaron, Drew and I asked to go to Buffalo Bar but the motorcycle driver had no clue what we were talking about…we told him to drive until we saw something.  When we saw a corner with a few bars and a lot of people on it, we told him to stop.  Sure enough we were right in front of Buffalo Bar.  After a new I Pho t-shirt, some beef Pho, and inflatable swords we paid some motorcycle drivers to just go around for the rest of the night.  I can’t do these nightclubs every night like everybody else on SAS.  I would rather drive around on the back of a motorcycle all night and look around the city for interesting things.  I lost a nice Izod polo because I put my Ipho shirt on and forgot my polo on the motorcycle. I was pissed but the $2 t-shirt was pretty cool so it was a good trade.  Aaron and I got some more pho of course and then headed back to the ship.  It was a long night of doing nothing but it was perfectly enjoyable.