Texting monks: just another normal day in Cambodia

Cambodians are probably the friendliest people I have ever met. Add my love for monks into the mix, and the following is one of my coolest stories of my time here! 🙂

One of my friends left Siem Reap early to head back to Phnom Penh. She ends up sitting next to a monk for the duration of the 7 hour bus ride. She mentions to said monk that she has a friend who really likes monks. What does he do? He uses her phone to send me a text message! Best thing ever.

A little hello from Seng, the texting monk.

Stay hapy? I will!

Splish splash… A floating village, a jungle waterfall and Tonle Sap

Aside from Angkor Wat, Siem Reap has many worthwhile day trips to offer. And as I’m only here once…I of course went for it!

Our first trip was arguably the best: a 1 hour car ride then a 45 minute boat trip takes you to the other-worldly Kompong Pluk village, which is entirely built on stilts and so appears to “float”. Want to visit your neighbour? You’re gonna have to row there. Going to school? Take the school boat.

It being the wet season at the moment, water levels were particularly high, which meant we also got to go on indigenous boats through the flooded mangrove forest, bonus! Our day ended on Tonle Sap, a simply ginormous lake where we watched the sun set. It was beautiful, but we had to occasionally dodge some waterbombs thrown at us by locals from passing boats. Don’t worry, it’s all part of the crazy Pchum Ben festivities taking place throughout Cambodia this week.

A further trip took us roughly 2 hours away from Siem Reap to the holy mountain of Phnom Kulen, where legend has it the Khmer empire came into existence. After a VERY bumpy roadtrip (which Cambodians dub as “getting a road massage”) we arrived at the top and visited the riverbed of 1000 Lingas (basically, the Khmer word for penis. It’s apparently a very holy symbol here), a sleeping Buddha and the magnificent waterfall which we used to cool off in. But of course Khmer style, where everyone goes in fully clothed!

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