Cambodia

We had an amazing time in Cambodia this weekend. We spent Friday and Saturday in the city of Siem Reap. There we were able to see the Angkor ruins, which is the largest religious compound in the world. Every temple we saw was breathtaking in size and beauty.  Words can't do this place justice, so prepare yourself for a lot of your pictures (we took over 500 this weekend, so this is just the tip of the iceberg). I'm still working on getting our pictures online. When I do, you should see a link over on the right called "photos." Then you can peruse all of the other pictures we haven't been posting.

This temple is at the top of a hill and we hiked up here for a view of the sunset (which we never actually saw because it was overcast). We spent awhile on the roof enjoying the view.

We had our own personal tuk-tuk driver (kind of like a carriage hooked to the back of a motorbike) and he was great, usually singing or whistling as he drove us.

For dinner, we went to Pub Street and ate at a place that let us barbeque our own meat. This is me cooking the snake and crocodile (which we ate in addition to beef and shrimp that included, much to my disgust, the head, tail, and legs.

The food was good and the atmosphere was really fun--there were tv's all over that were showing the World Cup.

We got up at about 4:30 to see the sunrise behind Angkor Wat. As you can see, it was worth it.

Angkor Wat

Another shot of Angkor Wat

After the sun rose, we explored the temple. It was huge.

Another famous structure here is Ta Prohm, which is overgrown with giant trees.

This temple is called Bayon. If you look closely, you can see faces on all of the towers.

The temple walls were covered with carved murals. We each took turns making up stories.

This building was once a Buddhist monastery and university.

On our way to Phnom Penh we ate bugs. A great way to end such a cultural experience.

Yet another link for wedding pictures

We have now received the final installment of our wedding pictures. These are the family photos. We've included a few of our favorites on our blog, but for all of them and at a better quality, click on the link. Enjoy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25017151@N06/sets/72157624145128216/

Pretty Scarlett in her pretty dress with her pretty shoes and her pretty flower.

I personally think this perfectly captures the serenity that always surrounds MacPherson families.

We love how Cory and Canyon look just like old men. Does this look more like a funeral than a wedding? When looking through the pictures, watch Cory's face. It's priceless.

Ben's flower broke in half as soon as we got out of the temple. Luckily his mom was there to correct the error I made when pinning it on.

This one is probably our favorite. No other caption necessary.

The Grand Palace

We went to the Grand Palace this weekend in downtown Thailand. People have been telling us all along that this was one place we needed to visit while in Bangkok. It was a fun day trip. I'm also working on putting all of our pictures on photobucket.com. I've been having a hard time deciding which pictures to post, and this way we can have them all up for everyone to see.

We rode a boat downtown with Lynette and Alaina, but it was just Ben, Alaina and I at the Grand Palace.

I didn't notice anyone else staring, so maybe this is normal. Alaina said he was probably fishing for trash. Not hard to find in this river.

Inside the compound of the Grand Palace.

These structures were all very ornate. This is Alaina demonstrating to me how people pull off the squares of gold.

The Emerald Buddha. He's actually made of jade and wears a different gold outfit depending on what season it is. This is his summer season attire. They didn't allow pictures inside the temple, this was taken through a window outside.

During most of our visit, Alaina was most interested in playing with the bees, which are supposed to have no stingers.  Buddhists believe this is because of the sacredness of the Emerald Buddha.  Alaina's theory is that "they were just born that way."

In front of the Grand Palace

The three of us leaving the compound

The temples behind us

Visa Run

It's been a little while since we've written anything, so I thought it would be a good idea to update our avid readers on our recent visa run. When traveling to Thailand, tourists don't have to buy a visa to enter, but they are only allowed to stay a certain time before leaving and getting your passport stamped again. For stamps in airports it's every 30 days and for stamps at the border it's 15 days. Our 30 days were up, so we had to leave the country. The cheapest and quickest way we found (with the help of Pi Maam at Ben's work) was to wake up at 3:30 in the morning so we could catch a 5:00 bus to the Cambodian border. It was a double decker bus that was taking a bunch of Thai people to the casinos on the border. Neither Thailand nor Cambodia allows gambling, but they have an agreement to allow casinos between their borders. We had been warned of the likelihood that officials would try to trick us into spending way more money than necessary. Right as we stepped off the bus, we were taken by someone to an office to fill out some paperwork. When we took it up to the window, the man tried to charge us twice as much as we knew we should pay. When we told him we knew what the price was, he became furious and stormed out of his office and started yelling (in English) at the man who had brought us over, saying he should settle on a price first. That was quite an experience. Shortly after that we made our way through the Thai border and over to the Cambodian one. We also had to argue with the officer there because he kept increasing his price. But we held out. All in all it wasn't too much of a hassle. We then had all day to kill because the bus we came on didn't leave until 3 that day. We spent about an hour walking into Cambodia. It was an extremely hot, dusty road, but it was interesting to see the differences between Cambodia and Thailand. It is obviously much poorer. We bought some water there (so Ben could officially say we'd been in Cambodia) and then when we turned around to head back to the border, a man offered to give us a ride on his bike. We then spent the rest of that day in a casino in the middle land between Cambodia and Thailand. We ate some free lunch, I got a foot massage, and we watched people gamble. We actually had fun with that, trying to figure out how the games worked and what people's strategies were. To end this adventurous day, we got to walk back to Thailand through pouring rain in order to catch our bus on time. All in all, it was quite an exhausting day. But we enjoyed ourselves, and we'll be headed back there in about a week and a half for a real trip to Angkor Wat and Phnom Penh.