Without a tour planned, I decided to just explore the local area of Siem Reap. I visited a nice little cafe, where I ate a tasty breakfast bagel. Although I mainly went there for their coffee, I found the food better than the coffee. I've yet to find a great cup of coffee here. For lunch, I found a Mexican place. I had the birria tacos and a mango juice. Overall, the meal was fairly decent but not like the birria tacos back home in Austin.
Feeling a bit weak, I found a decent gym nearby. It had everything I needed to do a powerlifting-style workout, and wasn't crowded at all. The day pass cost $5, which was well worth it. It even had a blazing hot sauna upstairs that was running at 94 C or about 201 F. There was also a soft padded zone that allowed me to practice my free-standing handstand pushups.
In the early afternoon, I diagnosed myself with Traveler's Diarrhea and took 500 mg of Azithromycin after I'd had enough of the trips to the toilet, even with taking Imodium. By the evening, about 4 hours later, I was already feeling much better. With a more stable tummy, I decided to take my first tuk tuk ride to a highly-rated restaurant here in Siem Reap called Haven. The mission at Haven is to help disadvantaged young adults escape poor living conditions by teaching them important life skills free of charge. At the end of the 16-month program, Haven helps these young adults find meaningful employment. It's the "teach a man to fish" philosophy. Aside from the noble mission, the food here was excellent. My dinner was one of the best I've had in my 11 days in Southeast Asia. I started off with a lightly fried calamari with a mayonnaise dipping sauce.
For my main dish, I had to try one of the national dishes of Cambodia, fish amok. This is a curry dish with chopped up bits of some type of white fish. The dish also came with a bed of rice and what I think was a sweet and sour tamarind sauce.
I quite liked the sauce on the rice. To finish off the meal, I had bananas in coconut milk. The milk was pleasantly warm and the bananas tasted almost caramelized. It was a delicious way to finish an already great meal.
After dinner, I briefly walked through the markets here, not finding much. It was an early bedtime for me, since I had to awake at 4 AM to catch the sunrise Angkor Wat tour the next morning.
Other notes:
The WiFi internet speeds are frustratingly slow at this hostel. I'm better off just using my eSIM and hotspot.