Relaxing in Ream Beach

Happy Saturday everyone!!  I was very happy to sleep in for a bit this morning before taking a Yoga for Runners workshop at my studio.  The workshop was just ok, and I left the studio wishing that I had just stayed in bed instead... oh well!

Earlier in the week, I did a recap of the days I spent in Siem Reap last month.  I wanted to pick up where I left off to tell you guys about the beach that we went to!!  We flew from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville and then headed to our guesthouse at Ream Beach.  It was late afternoon when we arrived, so we dropped our bags and had the guesthouse owner show us around.

View from the room

Back porch where we ate all of our meals

I spent TONS of time on this dock

This was my first time staying in guesthouse, and I have to say - I absolutely loved it!  The owner of the guesthouse, Marco, was super hospitable, and the food was delicious.  Although there were other restaurants up the road that we could have gone to, we ended up eating all of our meals at Marco's because it was just so good!

We arrived just in time for sunset

So beautiful

Our first night was pretty relaxed.  In fact, the whole time we spent at Ream Beach was incredibly laid back. We were originally only booked to stay for two nights, but once we got there, we decided pretty quickly that we should just stay there an extra night and cut out any other cities.  It was bliss.

On day two, we spent the day swimming and sunbathing under a gorgeous sunny sky.

Perched on the dock for sunset

Another thing that I loved about the guesthouse was that we became pretty friendly with the other guests that were staying there.  I guess the small accommodations make you more chatty with others?  Anyway, after dinner, we all ended up going down the road for what we thought was just some sort of festival at a temple.  As it turned out, there was a pagoda that had just been built, and the dedication of the pagoda was happening that night!

Tons of people were there.. but we were the only tourists.

They had lots of these set up around the corners of the pagoda.  You drop in some money into the square part, and then you tug on the rope.  I think it's for good luck?  Or a long life?  Or blessings?  Not sure, but it was kind of neat to see.

Inside the pagoda was a spectacle of people and colors

Outside the pagoda, a monk played with his smartphone :)

Our third day at the beach, basically everyone staying the guesthouse rented a day boat to take us out to some of the neighboring islands!

So beautiful

Before we had left, Marco had drawn us a map to let us know where there were places on the beach where we could get food and drinks.  Funny story - there was a place owned by an American couple and, next to it, a place owned by a French couple.  We stopped into the American place (Ten 103) and had a snack, some milkshakes, and a lovely chat with the girl who was working there (she's from Seattle!).  After a while, we figured we should go check out the other place, so we walked over to the French place.  We walked in, and it seemed like everyone just looked at us and then turned the other way.  We stood there for a couple of minutes, then decided that we clearly weren't welcome, so we just went back to the American place! Some would say that is pretty representative of the French haha...

The American bungalow

It was a gorgeous day

Beautiful bungalow but not very friendly.. the French place

It was so peaceful and beautiful.  I could've stayed there all day.  But after a while, we headed out into another cove so that we could do some snorkeling before heading back to the guesthouse for sunset.

Our last sunset in Ream Beach

All in all, it was an amazing couple of days at the beach.  Just what I needed to decompress and just relax!!  There is definitely something to be said about simplifying life...

The only downside to the guesthouse and the simple life was that we didn't have hot water, so I hadn't had a hot shower in days!  So you can imagine that I was very much looking forward to checking into our hotel in Phnom Penh and finally feeling clean :)  I'll post some pictures from that next time, as I think it's nice to end this post with such a peaceful picture.. hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend.

World Sleep Day

Hello all!  It is almost Friday!!  Did you know that this Friday is World Sleep Day?  It is one of the many things I learned on the internet this week!

(Among things that I did not learn on the internet this week... how to find a plane...)

Anyway, I'm always trying to figure out how to feel more rested.  It seems that I am constantly tired.  I actually had coffee with a new friend this afternoon who has just relocated to Singapore within the past few months, and she was mentioning that she feels like she is a lot more exhausted in Singapore than she ever was back in London.  So it's not just me!!

Some of you may recall that I've mentioned using the Sleep Cycle iPhone app before.  I have still been using it off and on, but I also recently picked up a new FitBit which also tracks my sleep.  I thought it would be interesting to see how the two match up?

Sleep Cycle

FitBit

So I guess it would make sense that both devices register the points at which I got restless during the night.  Sleep Cycle's "sleep quality" score of 88% seems like it is a pretty good night of sleep, but then when I look at FitBit's stats indicating that I was restless 16 times during the night, it doesn't seem so great.  I will say that I had a terrible time getting up this morning.  I actually ended up snoozing a bit longer after I shut off both of these apps!!  I'm blaming residual jet lag for now, but hopefully I will get a better night's rest tonight in honor of World Sleep Day!

The second time around Siem Reap

Many of you probably know that the beginning of the calendar year is the busiest time of work for me.  In Singapore, the dynamics are a little bit different, so work eases up a little earlier (beginning of February rather than late February), but it picks back up again in March and stays fairly (but not crazy) busy through the end of June.  I didn't really know this last year, so the timing of some things I did weren't ideal, but now that I have had one year under my belt, I took advantage of this late February lull to do a quick getaway!

I spent a week trotting through Cambodia.  Even though I had already been to Siem Reap before, I was happy to get back there again.  I love how certain places don't seem to get old, no matter how many times you visit.

We stood a bit farther back this time so a lot of our views were blocked by people with cameras.

Closer to sunrise, we moved in for a bit of a better view

Crowds of people still at the edge of the reflecting pond

Sunrise!

We had a different driver/guide this time (I highly recommend having a guide at Angkor Wat!!), so we went straight into the temple after the sun was up.  We spent a lot more time at Angkor Wat this time, and it was really great to hear so much more about the history of the temple and especially about the significance of so many things within the temple.

I just like the way this photo looks

Love the hallways

Bas relief on the lower floor - such intricate details

More hallways

After Angkor Wat, we hit a bunch of the other temples - Angkor Thom (Bayon), Te Keo, Ta Prohm, and Sras Srang.  Most of them I had seen last time, but a few were new to me.  And it was good to have a different guide in order to hear new stories and have new photo spots!

Our guide told us that the stairs were steep because the kings believed that people had to work hard to get to heaven.

 Our guide had told us all day long about how many of the temples we visited were built with a type of sandstone that was brought down from a mountain.  The mountain is about 90 minutes outside of the city, so we woke up early again the next morning in order to drive out to the mountain.

There is a river that flows only at the top of the mountain, not at the bottom.

The river bed has thousands of stone carvings.. can you see the shape of the lotus flower?  It's crazy that the carvings haven't been eroded by the water!

We stopped at a pond where the water bubbles up from the earth in a milky fashion.  This water is supposed to healing and very pure.

Our guide stopped for a blessing, and we were treated to some fresh papaya!

We went around another side of the mountain and saw where a monk lives in a nook of the stone.

We went to climb up towards a temple, so this little girl offered to watch our shoes while we went in.. for a price of course :)

A reclining Buddha statue was carved into the top of the mountain

We wandered back down the mountain to get to the highlight of the trip - a waterfall!!

Small waterfall at one edge

Big waterfall for swimming!!

Woohoo!!

Our timing was perfect, as we were the only ones at the waterfall when we arrived.  These pictures really doesn't do it justice.  It was massive!!  I had been getting a little cold on the way to the waterfall so was feeling a bit indifferent about going for a swim, but as soon as we came up to it, "I am definitely ready for a swim!"

We took turns sitting under the base of the waterfall.  I could only sit there for about a minute though - the velocity of the water is incredible!!  Another cool thing about this area was that when you stood up in the water, little fish would come and bite your ankles and feet, just like those fish spas that you commonly see in Asia!  Really cool experience.  We spent quite a bit of time just swimming around the waterfall and enjoying the atmosphere before it was time to leave.  On our way out, we spotted a large group of teenagers (on some sort of school trip?) coming down to the waterfall, so I was very happy that our timing worked out so well!

After leaving the mountain, our guide took us to the hostel to pick up our bags, and then we were off to the airport to fly to Sihanoukville!  I think this post is long enough already, so I will save the beach recap for another time!

Happy hump day everyone :)

Bear with me

Hello all!  Sorry for my long hiatus, but I have been all over the place the past few weeks!  I just returned from a quick trip to the US early Monday morning.  The flight back was pretty brutal, and my body is feeling incredibly stiff.

A lot has happened in the past few weeks, and I promise that I will a photo heavy recap of my trip to Cambodia, but Google+ is not uploading my photos very well right now, so that will just have to wait!  Sorry for my delinquent blogging, but I'm doing the best I can to balance everything right now.

Hope everyone is having a good week so far!!