Angkor Wat is said to be the largest religious site in the world. Not knowing a whole lot about it prior to my landing in Cambodia, I was surprised to hear this and had very high expectations of it; due in part to Neumann’s telling me it was spectacular as well. It is located about 20 minutes from Siem Reap by tuk-tuk, and is really the only reason that people come to Siem Reap, so it was pretty clear from early on that Angkor Wat was going to be pretty crowded, but the most spectacular things in the world are said to be the most spectacular things in the world for a reason, so I was very excited about getting there.

This was still early on in my trip, so I still had the early morning excitement to get out and see things, where as Erick, my newfound German comrade had been traveling for seven months and was much more interested in sleeping in, so I ate banana pancakes and drank coffee, enjoying my priceless morning-time view of the fantastically brown river. He doesn’t seem to be able to hold his alcohol very well at all either, because when he stumbled out of his room around 9:30 he looked like hell. His hair was all disheveled; he was peering at me through half open eyes, and looked like he had a horrific headache to boot. I made fun of him since we’d only had a couple beers, and 20 minutes later he was dressed, and we were off to Angkor Wat.

We had met a tuk-tuk driver the night before who offered to drive us to and all around Angkor Wat for a good price. We agreed on eight dollars for the entire day. His name was Savaht, and having been dragged all over by every tuk-tuk and cab driver that I’d encountered thus far, I was skeptical to hire someone for the whole day, but Erick and I both liked him, he had honest eyes, so we agreed, and he said he would meet us at the hotel early in the morning to take us. He was there when I woke up, I could see him from the balcony, and he sat there, very patiently, waiting for us until we came downstairs around 10:00 to set out for the day. He was exceptionally nice, spoke relatively good English, definitely good enough to communicate, and seemed like a very genuine, good person.

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