This YouTube travel vlog by Nate and Kara Buchanan documents one day of their Cambodia visit: they note poor Wi‑Fi affecting daily vlog uploads, eat local breakfast (including a coconut‑milk dessert), take a Tuk Tuk to the National Museum where they use an audio guide and spend roughly 1.5–2 hours learning about Khmer kings and temple history, dine on Pub Street (trying Cambodian-style Mexican food), buy a three-day Angkor Wat pass (noting that purchases after 5pm count toward the next day to gain an extra sunset), and visit Pre Rup/Angkor Wat at sunset where they can walk on and touch the temples. They reflect on temple age, cultural context (Hindu/Buddhist origins), and express excitement for exploring the temples over the coming days.
Questions this video answers
February 20, 2016
About 1.5–2 hours
They booked six nights
If you buy the ticket after 5pm it counts as the next day, effectively giving an extra sunset visit
They suggested temple activity may have started around 500 AD and Angkor Wat was built around the 11th or 12th century
Chapters
This is a public service announcement. This is the current state of the WI fi in Cambodia. The vlogs probably aren't going out on time this week. Don't worry. You'll get the daily vlogs eventually. It just might not be daily.
Ready for some breakfast?
To make your own coffee?
This morning I did it all by myself. Did you just find out?
Let's don't make this a habit.
But don't worry, it's still your job. You got a big old pancake.
This is, like, the thickest pancake I've ever seen.
I got an omelette. There's two things we have no idea what they are. Banana soup.
And the spicy fruit.
Very interesting. All right. Got it for us. Wonder how you eat it.
Nice.
That was a big bite. If you don't like it.
I have a hard thing in the middle. I don't know if I'm supposed to eat in the middle or not. Oh, God.
Probably not.
It looks like an almond.
Why don't you keep that to yourself?
It's like a nut. I feel like I could eat in the middle of it.
The outside was very good. The inside was confusing. It looks like a mix of bubble tea and oatmeal with some banana.
That is coconut milk.
I wonder. It was so good.
Nuts. Whatever the little clear jelly balls are. I'm not a huge fan of coconut milk.
I thought it was delicious.
Hey.
Yeah?
How do we get a Tuk Tuk to the museum? Sure.
We just arranged for a Tuk Tuk to pick us up and take us to the National Museum.
We're enjoying the Tuk Tuk experience.
Yeah, it's nice.
You're really, like, in action in a Tuk Tuk. It's nothing like riding in a taxi.
You get to experience the sounds and the smells and the dust. Yeah. We're not usually big museum people, but we feel like we'll really appreciate the next few days better if we know more about what it is.
And we're off in the Tuk Tuk.
That was bump. That was garbage.
I'm sure we'll get across this busy road no problem.
We went all out. I can say this is the first time that I've ever paid for an audio guide in a museum. I'm in a video until we get told not to.
I think we're listening to, like, number 30. We started skipping at 15.
So many.
Many. I think we've been here for maybe an hour and a half.
Never ends.
Some intense stuff. What have we been doing this whole time? I'm burnt out now.
Never ends. Carrie's moving pretty quickly through the museum at this point. I think we're both ready to eat.
I think we made it for two hours in there. It kind of reminded me of being in class. That was the first time I felt like I was gonna fall asleep learning something in a long time.
I feel like we learned a lot, but it was just about all of the kings who. The Khmer.
Khmer.
Khmer, Khmer.
It was just about all the kings that the Khmer people would worship as gods. And then they built these temples for them. And there' like a billion of them.
Pretty much like you would have to have a background in Hinduism or Buddhism in order to be able to really understand any of it. So here's what I've gathered. The temple started as Hindu temples. They were built to resemble some mountain cosmos, like a mythical thing. Ooh. And there's this, like, serpent named Naga. Some. Some people pulled on him and they stirred up the milk. La.
And then the ocean of milk.
The ocean of milk.
And they were turning it by pulling.
On the snake that created humanity, the cosmos.
This man was born out of his navel.
Oh, yeah, Vishnu. Some guy comes out of Vishnu's navel.
With foreheads created the universe.
Makes sense to me. I think maybe it started around 500 AD and Angkor Wat, which is like the main temple that everybody knows, was built around the 11th or 12th century. All of them are pretty much over, like a thousand years old.
They had a lot of statues in there. I don't really feel like there can be any left at the temples. There were so many in there.
I think there's gonna be plenty. All I know is we booked six nights here with the plan of exploring the temples. Most of the time, I think we might get tumbled out pretty quickly. Alright, now it's to do our favorite thing, find food. Remember the name of the street.
Pub Street.
Pub Street. We are heading to Pub Street.
Kara's put her foot down. She wants Mexican food.
We're getting Mexican.
I've mixed Mexican food so much.
If you ever wondered what chips and salsa looks like in Cambodia. These are interesting.
Guacamole is weird. It does not even taste like an avocado.
I don't know what it is. Also, this serving size isn't quite what we're used to in the US. No bottomless chips and salsa here. Kara, scale of 1 to 10, how is the Mexican food?
If you factor in the lack of chips and the guacamole, I would give it like a seven.
It's not bad for Cambodia.
I didn't hate it.
We are going to buy our tickets to visit Angkor Wat for the next three days.
Because if you buy your ticket, oh, my goodness. If you buy your ticket after 5pm that technically counts for the next day. So we're getting an extra sunset at Angkor Wat by going tonight and starting our three day ticket tomorrow.
We've been to a ton of temples before and we've never been able to touch them. And we're going to the top of that.
I cannot believe you're still allowed to walk on these things. My parents told me like.
30 years ago on their honeymoon that they got to walk on the big pyramids in Chichen Itza, which I just thought was absolutely crazy. Feel like whenever Kara and I finally have kids, this is gonna be that story that we're telling our kids. Like, remember when we went to Angkor Wat and we could walk on the temples?
This is so cool. Definitely the coolest temple experience I've ever had. Because usually you just look at it from forever away and you're like, oh, that's neat. We're like in it. We're touching it. This is where they were.
We just keep touching everything. Because you're allowed to come soon, people. I'm sure you won't be able to do this much longer.
Get here while you can.
We are going up those stairs.
Top 10 sunsets of my life.
Life. That's a lot. At least top five. It was like Lion King. Like, it just kept getting more orange. And he's saying we have to go.
Oh, oh, Getting kicked out. Apparently it's time to go, Kara. I'm pretty pumped about the next three days. I am. Like, I thought we might get templed out quickly, but that was really awesome. Look at that temple in the background. How cool? Cool is that?
Oh, we should take a picture.
We'll just screenshot it. Screenshot.
Oh, perfect. Play the number two.
Oh, my gosh.
Look at this mat. His mouth won't close.
I can't pull it. My mouth. My whip can't feel bad. Oh, look, he's going for the camera real quick. Maybe to get some frog legs.
No, it's a frog.
It's a whole frog. Maybe get some whole frogs. Headed to whole frogs foods.
Frogs. Here we go.
Now it just says upstream.
There's so many old white people walking through. This is unreal that you can walk around and touch all of this stuff. Look, you can just touch it. It's like an ancient artifact. These are like thousands of years old.
This is, like, a thousand years old. These were carved a thousand years ago.
I mean, just to think that they were, like, hanging out here, and we're just hanging out here.
These people must have been giants. These steps are huge. Good night.
You gotta do a full lunge.
Do not vlog and walk on this.
For some reason, Kara doesn't want me vlogging and walking by this edge right here.
You're gonna follow vlogging. Vlogging on the edge.
