Before I start this story I want to preface by saying, I had dreamed of seeing Angkor Wat in person for so long and I was psyched to get there.
We landed in Siem Reap at golden hour (magic) and got our Cambodia visas upon arrival and met our tuktuk driver in the terminal. I had really high hopes for this part of my Southeast Asia trip. We puttered along as the sunset over the city and we arrived at our hotel and booked a sunrise tour because I’d made it my mission to make the most of Angkor Wat no matter WAT.
Miraculously, we woke up early and met our driver and we set off to Angkor Wat. On the drive, we hit a bump and my camera lens cap fell out of my hands and off into the distance.
I should’ve taken this as the first sign of things to come.
We got our tickets and went to the Angkor Archeological Park to nab some spots for what was promised to be the best view of the ruins.
…aaaand cue the clouds covering the sky and no sunrise to be seen.
and that’s when I really started questioning everything.
We had until 9am before our driver was going to pick us up and the time was now… 7.30am. good.
However the whole experience of walking around the ancient ruins was surreal. Have you ever seen Indiana Jones? Because I was Harrison Ford in that moment. I was trying to soak it in, capturing as much footage as possible, until the sun started to get higher in the sky and boy it was getting hot, and I was sweating like a hot mess, Illusion ruined, I bet Indiana Jones didn’t get this sweaty.
We met our driver and he took us to the next temple, Angkor Thom. He was just as cool as the first one and my inner archeologist was overjoyed. However, I was starting to get super dehydrated and my body was not happy with that. I tried to endure as much as I could, but eventually, I just had to give up. I had no idea how HUGE the entire park was, so we walked back to our driver and told him we might want to skip the last few spots on the tour. I grabbed a bottle of water out of the cooler in the tuk-tuk and while it had plastic over the cap, the seal was broken. Normally I’d be a bit more suspicious of this, but I was legitimately dying from lack of water in my body and went ahead and drank the bottle. The next few stops we went to, the temples all looked the same so my partner and I agreed that we could probably head back early.
We got back to the hotel and the first sign of nausea set in. As we sat at the restaurant, no food sounded good to me,
then it happened, my stomach started gurgling. and if you’ve ever been overseas and had that happen to you, you know what’s next.
You’re probably thinking ‘oh no food poisoning’ but wait there’s MORE.
We got back to the room and as I undressed, all the bug bites I hadn’t noticed before started to appear. They were ALL over my body. Apparently, the bug repellent I bought didn’t work at all and somehow bugs got up inside my pants and shirt. Alongside the welts were my favorite kind of bite as well; the lovely kind that turns into a gross bubble that you have to pop to make go away. The itching started and the multiple trips to the bathroom as well. I was in hell.
My body had officially betrayed me and I was in misery.
Oh yes, and then, AND THEN.
What followed was possibly the worst night’s sleep having to haul my ass to the bathroom, thanks to that good ol’ trusty water bottle. I won’t go into detail, but, if you know, you know.
The next morning, I woke up still not feeling great and in such pain from my bites. But I was determined to still make this the best experience, despite my stomach falling out of my butt and my skin being almost on fire (it’s fine!!!!)
I hate to admit it but in the middle of Vietnam all I wanted was a burger so we went to the one place that felt right… the Hard Rock Cafe (I regret nothing) Sure, it was way overpriced, but I needed a burger in my stomach.
We then walked around for a bit and I found a fish massage place, which I’ve always wanted to try. I stuck my feet in the water and for the 15 minutes I sat there, my pain went away as I laughed and giggled at the fish chomping away at my feet (later I would read that they starve the fish to make them want to nibble on you, and felt really bad that I contributed to animal cruelty).
However none of this helped at all because my body was not feeling much better, so we went back to the hotel where I came down with a bad fever and needed to wrap myself up in a blanket to try to sleep away the illness meanwhile it was 30 degrees Celsius and humid, but hey.
Thankfully we were leaving the next day. My Angkor Wat trip really turned into more of a ‘Wat the heck was that?!’ The next morning, we had an early tuk-tuk ride to the airport, and thankfully my stomach had chilled enough for me not to need to be near a bathroom constantly, but I still did not feel like a normal human, which made the flight extremely uncomfortable.
So lessons here folks:
- Always buy water with a sealed cap (no matter HOW dehydrated you are)
- Buy insect repellent that works (maybe pack some before you leave)
- Sometimes, you just need a damn burger.