Vacation!

Finally I am posting about the vacation four friends and I took about a month ago! Two weeks in Cambodia and Thailand was wonderful, and a bit strange to be in other foreign countries. There were a few times when talking to a Thai or Cambodian person and they didn't understand what I was saying, to which my first response was to switch into Mongolian and try to explain myself in Mongolian instead -- Only to realize that would do me no good being outside of Mongolia! This only happened a few times though, as most people's English was amazing, and it seemed like everybody spoke at least some English due to all the tourism. So that was very different than Mongolia.
Bangkok is huge! We spent most of our time around Koh San Road amidst all the other backpackers. Excellent people watching, food, shopping, temples... I could go on and on! My friends and I loved seeing so many other kinds of people and speaking so many different languages. Cambodia was great. The people there (and Thai people too) seemed to always be smiling and much like Mongolia, the little kids would yell "hello, hello, hello" to us as we passed by. We took the train from Bangkok to the border, then a taxi to Siem Reip. During the 2 hour drive to Siem Reip from the border I saw a guy getting his haircut in one of those old barber chairs but just out in the open under a little hut for shade, and all kinds of cows and maybe water buffalo? the cows looked so different than the cows in Mongolia. There were several soccer fields with goal posts and everything (have not seen goal posts in Mongolia yet) and people riding motorcycles, usually a baby or a toddler in front, then somebody driving, and then usually a person or two behind them. We ate amazing food and shopped entirely too much. The Cambodians trying to sell us things would always call us "lady" and all the young kids selling things would do the same, "lady, you want a postcard, you buy ten, see, one, two, three..." "I give you good discount, how much you pay lady?" Their sales scheme worked on us probably 90% of time! The main thing we saw in Cambodia was Angkor Wat, temples built in the early 12th century. I don't even know how to describe how amazing all these temples were! One day we did a big loop around the further out temples in a tuk tuk, a carriage thing pulled by a guy driving a motorcycle. Our driver's name was Jumbo; he was a wonderful little man that drove us around all day. The next day we rented bikes, a dollar for the whole day. So we biked the 6ish km out to Angkor Wat, then 17ish around all the inner temples during the day. Biking around was really nice and only got tricky on the Siem Reip streets when we were going into and out of the city, as the roads were packed with other bikers, people walking, cars, buses, and motorcycles. We all survived the whole day though and were really happy we biked. The guys that worked at the guesthouse we stayed at were extremely helpful and kind, and their English was fantastic. The head guy's name was Song, to which he told us the acronym: See Oportunity N Go... this actually really helped me remember his name! He set up a taxi and people to help us getting back to the border and then a bus back to Bangkok. Oh and this guesthouse, which it technically was, but looked like a hotel, air conditioned rooms, TVs, own bathroom... $14 a night split between two people, yeah it was wonderful (yes my perspective may be a little skewed because of coming on this vacation from living in Mongolian ger... but still, it was nice!) So at the gueshouse though we ran into a few Peace Corps Cambodia volunteers, small world! It was really interesting for us all to swap stories and clear up a few rumors about Peace Corps Mongolia --no we don't all get personal horses issued to us! haha We went with them to watch a free show one night and got to see some traditional Cambodian dancing, so that was really cool. I found it really fascinating to watch them speak Cambodian to the local people too. So Cambodia was awesome. Getting back into Bangkok we left that same day on a night bus that took us down to Koh Phangnan and the next day we were laying on the beach! The next few days consisted of basically laying out, eating, drinking fruit smoothies... well yep that's pretty much it, repeated a lot! One morning though I did get up for a run and saw all kinds of students in their uniforms on their way to school. Making me think what a different experience I would have had if I had been placed in a Peace Corps country like Cambodia or Thailand... It's interesting though because talking with the Cambodian volunteers, even though the climate is totally different and all that, a lot of our challenges and successes sounded pretty similar. Anyways, we were all quite sad to leave Bangkok and all the good food, the beautiful weather, days free to do whatever we wanted... but we did leave and got back to Mongolia safe and sound. Being back has been good, school is crazy busy and it is getting a little warmer outside... and in 4 months I will be coming back to the States... crazy.