Our day started off at 5:00 am. Jess and I were sharing a room and Andrea and Tracy were sharing one across from ours. The team shampoo was in their room so I made my way over and went into their bathroom to use it. Tracy asked me “Ashley! What are you doing in there?!” I responded “Washing my bangs.” in such a matter of fact voice that it almost asked the question, “what else would I be doing?”
Half an hour later we were surrounded by darkness sitting in our purple seated tuk tuk, with a sign that said “World Race 05” on the back. Andrea whipped out her camera and we all take pictures of each other. Well we tried. Andrea couldn’t seem to keep her eyes open. Roaring laughter ensued.
We arrived at the toll booth and discovered that we needed to have a picture taken to put on our day passes. Unfortunately Andrea and I discussed how funny it would be to make ridiculous faces after we’d already gotten our pictures taken. Oh well. Guess we just had to settle for the “just woke up” look. That seemed to be a popular one.
You might be wondering where we were going at such an unearthly hour. Our response would have been Angkor Wat but the real reason we wanted to go was to ride an elephant. Although we never got to do the thing that brought us to Angkor Wat in the first place, our day seemed almost to be something out of a story book.
Angkor Wat was beautiful with the sun rising behind it casting golden rays and sultry shadows. Most of the morning I wandered around by myself and got to sit on a ledge in Angkor Wat watching the sun show its face while I listened to Beautiful by Phil Whickam. Later I sat on the steps of a little temple of sorts listening to Bon Iver gazing at the lily pad covered pond and Angkor Wat.
There were lots of other Wats in the area so we decided to move on and see a few more before we went on an elephant ride. Shortly after I’d said “I really hope we see some monkeys today!” We saw tons of them on the side of the road. Excitedly we asked our driver to stop and I ran across the street with my camera tightly grasped in my eager hands. Some other people were already there letting monkeys drink out of their water bottles. Frantically Andrea hollered at me, “Ashley! Quick! Take a picture!” I turned around and saw a monkey with its paws on Andreas leg drinking out of her water bottle. We all rushed around snapping pictures like the monkeys would disappear at any given moment. Not so. Screams pierced the air as Tracy was dive bombed by monkeys. Suddenly all the monkeys were having a party on Tracy’s back. Some hanging onto her leg, some on her purse, some on her back and some on her head. What was going on?! (Just a reminder we were out in the wild and not at a zoo.)
We stayed there for about an hour, the monkeys getting wilder by the minute. They even started jumping from one of our backs to the other. I had a monkey who kept rubbing and nibbling my leg. It even started playing with my anklet! We saw a huge on that was really old with flabby skin and even some babies! All of their shenanigans reminded me of a barrel of monkeys.
For the rest of the day we explored gorgeous crumbling, overgrown wats. We never ended up getting to ride an elephant because we had gotten there too late. I admit I was a little bummed but all I had to do was think about all those precious monkeys. When does that ever happen?! What a day.
P.s. Pictures coming soon!
