Back in Bangkok

Well, we caught a flight back to Thailand, and as I write, I'm sitting in an internet cafe on Suhkumvit Road. I think were here for a few days, but our plan was to come to Bangkok and make a plan. There's so much we still haven't done...full moon party in Koh Samui...snorkeling is Rai Lei...Not to mention responsible stuff like getting dental work done, and a screening for skin cancer.  I  got a job offer in Hong Kong that I'm considering, but I really don't want to delay the trip to China....like I said decisions decisions.

In the comments, you guys have been asking some questions about some of the little things, like food and prices, so I thought I would answer some of those questions here.  Hmmm... where to start? Sara asked "what was the most exotic things we've eaten?". Well, not being the most adventurous of eaters, I think it might be better to tell you what I didn't eat. BUGS, oh my god, there are carts full of roasted bugs to eat on the corner every night. The other night at California 2 I watched some of our friends happily eating grasshoppers out of a plastic bag. I didn't have any. While I'm on the subject of the street carts....they also sell a variety of seafood from them as well. There is dried squid, and fried squid, or perhaps you would like yours barbequed mmmmm then it looks like your eating sea horses. In Viet Nam we went to a restaurant that had like six or seven dishes that featured frog, or eel. I had chicken. 

Sage was asking about prices. Like "how to live like a king on 10 bucks a day".  I've seen how the Kings live around here, and it cost a bit more than 10 dollars a day. For those kind of prices its far more like living like a local. The more westernized things get the more it costs. In Siem Reap you could spend up to a thousand dollars a night for a hotel room(but it must be really nice). On the other hand if you want to a stay at a inexpensive guest house you could spend as little as twelve dollars. Food is generally pretty cheap. It's pretty easy to find a meal for under three dollars. Beer can get really cheap, in Viet Nam we were drinking beer at this little beer hoi that sold beer in one liter plastic jugs (it looked very similar to gasoline). It was good beer, and I think it was less than a dollar for a liter.  Clothes are really cheap, Tee shirts for a couple bucks, shorts for five dollars, and if you're adventurous there are tailors everywhere trying to get you to let them make you a suit, usually for around seventy five dollars(although I heard one say eighteen dollars). I have been warned about these guys scaming you once you're in their shop,  but I have no first hand experience....What do I want a suit for? So, you really could live one ten dollrs a day, but certainly not like a king.  I've found that living like a king costs around one hundred bucks a day, but it's good to be king.......

While I'm talking about clothes....before we left the states Harv and I got a bunch of these new shirts and shorts that are made from a new kind of fabric. It's a synthetic the call "dry-fit", or "stay-dry" something like that, and it's the best. Most everyone wears cotton, and once it gets wet, it just holds the heat inside your clothes. This new fabric wicks moisture to the outside where it evaporates, and cools you. I have one cotton tee shirt, and when I wear it I definitely feel the difference. You actually can see the difference, I've noticed a couple of times where other people have sweat stains on there shirts and are glistening with sweat, and Harv and I are dry. If you visit a humid environment I would definitely recomend getting this stuff. All the major sportswear brands have some variation of it.

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat!

So Harv and I flew out of Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. I love the sounds prop driven aircraft make….really, it’s pretty cool. Anyway it was a really short trip from Phnom Penh, maybe 45 minutes. We hooked up with a driver (Ian), who based on the description we gave him (mid priced, w/pool), took us to a hotel. So right now I’m at the Angkor Pich Hotel. I like it, but prices here are higher than most places here, cuz this is a major tourist attraction. When we arrived it was sunny, but as we checked in it got darker and darker soon there was a hell of a rainstorm with lightning and thunder going. Harv an I went out to dinner last night, and I was thinking this is gonna be difficult to see the temple in this weather, cuz it was still raining.

I woke up this morning and it was still raining, nonetheless we went off to Angkor Wat. The first thing I saw was the moat. I was so big I thought to ask “what river is this”? Angkor Wat is HUGE. The perimeter wall is something like a thousand meters on each side and the moat is around three hundred meters across. We had breakfast, across the street from the temple, and as we ate the weather cleared. After that, we went across the street to the temple, and it was amazing. The rain had soaked the sandstone so that there was color everywhere…greens and blacks from moss, reds and purples. This temple is a thousand years old, and shows what great craftsman and artists they were. It’s really difficult to grasp it all. It’s alive too. Buddha still lives here. As I waited to take a picture of the reclining Buddha, I watched this Khmer woman make her offering of incense and then walk up and caress the statue as if it were someone she loved very deeply.

After the trip to Angkor Wat our driver (Ian) suggested we go to this restaurant that has a dinner show with Khmer traditional dancing. Now I’m not one for the traditional dancing shows, but this was really quite charming. I was sad when it ended, and diner was really good too. So tomorrow we go Angkor Thom, the ancient city whose temple I just visited.

Angkor Thom
This was a city that once was home to as many as a million people. It’s impressive gate is flanked by is flanked by 54 god sculptures on the right and 54 demon sculptures on the left. The city is walled, and there are 5 gates like this. Inside is now mostly wilderness The homes were made of wood so they have all disappeared, what remains are the temples and public buildings that were made of stone. We visited Bayon temple first. It was used in the film Tomb Raider. It is a truly beautiful place. In addition to the architecture and sculpture, it has a patina of moss and lichen that give it really great color. I’m finding these trips difficult to describe in a way that does it justice. You’ll have to come and see for yourself. I only really spent time in Bayon, and on the Elephant terrace. You could easily spend a week or more here exploring, but that would be a hard week. The walking and climbing has me pretty tired just from two days, but it’s a good kind of tired…

Me with your toothbrushes at Angkor Wat.

Harv at Bayon

Me at Bayon.

Wall carving at Bayon Temple.

South gate at Anchor Thom.

Last weekend in Phenom Penh.

I really had only intended to Post some photos to the blog and not write anything, but after reading your comments I thought I should. First thanks for commenting. It's nice to hear from you guys. It's also nice to know you're keeping up with my posting.
 
It's a beautiful afternoon here in Phenom Penh. I'm sitting at the outdoor patio at FCC. to my left is a view up the Tonle Sab River, and to my right is a fork in the river where the Tonle Sab meets the Mekong. It's particularly beautiful today because the sky is blue, and it makes the rivers look as if they are blue and clear. They're not these rivers are carrying tons of silt so they are actually a creamy chocolate color.
 
Yesterday I went to the Royal Palace. It's an amazing display of how royalty lives. This is a poor country, but it still seem to be good to be King. This palace is not particularly old, less than one hundred years, but as opulent as it could be. there is so much decoration that it seems as if it can't be real, but it is all in tribute to the Kings and their power. It had a bit of a disney feel to it reflecting an ideal more than any kind of reality.
 
As I said in the title of this post. This is our last weekend in Phenom Penh We are going to go to Siamrieb on Monday to spend a few days at Angkor Wat. I know three days won't be enough to see the whole thing, but if we need to we can stay longer. Matt and his friends are planning a motorcycle trip,  to somewhere near Siamrieb, so I think were all gonna hook up and do a trip to some of the lesser known areas around Angkor Wat. It sounds like a lot of fun, so I'm really looking forward to it.
 
I'm gonna miss Phenom Penh. The food here is really good, and we have lots of friends here now. It's such a laid back town. In fact yesterday we went to this mexican restaurant, and after we finished, the owner (a Dennis Hopper lookalike) came and cleared the table off. Nothing strange about that except the whole time he did it there was a joint hanging out of his mouth. Only after that did I notice that he always had one burning. He was chain smoking joints as he worked. What a strange and wonderful place. I will miss it.

The Royal Palace Phenom Penh

See me at the top?

I think these are mausoleums.

The royal palace garden.

Phnom Penh...

Once again we stayed in this town long enough to decide to upgrade to a better hotel. Harvey and I have moved to one of the newest hotels in Phnom Penh. Billabong was finished about one month ago. It has a beautifully landscaped pool deck that leads to a restaurant bar area. The rooms are clean and well designed, and the air conditioning makes the rooms as cold as you wanna be. All for $25.00 per night. Staying at a hotel with a pool makes it easy to spend the entire day lounging, but we still manage to get out most every day for a trip somewhere. We are planning a trip to Siemreab to see Angkor Wat sometime this week. I’m really looking forward to photographing it. I’ve become pretty comfortable here so, it’s a little difficult to tear myself away for some exploring, but that is what I’m here for (I think).

One of our friends recommended the FCC to us. FCC stands for the Foreign Correspondence Club, it’s restaurant bar/lounge that has great food. The upstairs patio is an open-air bar and dining room that has a really nice view of the Tonle Sab River. The best part of it is they are an Internet hotspot, so we go there with the laptops, and go online while we eat. I ran a speed test on their connection, and it was pretty impressive how fast they are. I’m not sure if the Photos I posted last time I was there showed up on my web log, but if not I’ll put some on. My battery was pretty low the first time I went there, so I didn’t really get much done. Finally we’ve found a good Internet connection, and a cool place to hang out.

Last week was Matt’s Birthday. So Dave arranged for a boat to pick us up in front of the California 2, and take us downriver to this group of floating restaurant/bars. It was a surreal trip down the river in this brightly colored boat, and since it was July 5th we had fireworks. The sunset colored the water orange and red, plus the fireworks, and if that wasn’t enough further down the Mekong there was an electrical storm providing us with an impressive display of lightning.

One thing I never wrote about is how we get around in Phnom Penh. There are taxis, but the best way to get around is with a motodop. That’s a guy with a 100cc motorcycle with a really big back seat on it. There aren’t that many cars on the road, so this is how nearly everyone gets around. The most people we’ve seen on one is seven, but two of them were babies so really five. Five people on one of them is fairly common, but still pretty shocking. Anyway these guys will drive you around all day, and all night for like five dollars. They’re waiting outside all the bars at night, but I try to get one I know and keep him with me through all my travels. Although it doesn’t sound all that safe these guys are really good at negotiating the crazy traffic patterns, and they serve as the designated driver. I’ve really started to enjoy the ride between bars at night, because the cool air rushing over me is both cooling, and a good wake up.

Well I think that’s enough for now, I’m gonna try to post more now that I’ve found FCC.

Chau doc, Vietnam

Tonle Sab River

Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

It’s kinda strange that coming back to Phnom Penh would feel like coming home, but it does. Writing this I am back at the California 2 hotel, and it does feel far more like home than Saigon.

We stayed at the Orient Hotel in Saigon. It’s on a strip that is frequented by the Western backpacker types. The hotel was really quite nice. Meticulously maintained rooms with air conditioning (with good air coming out of them) all for $15.00. There was a café across the street that served fairly good food and beer, so it made a great meeting point. There was a strong nightlife around the area of the hotel. There are at least six bars within a half block of the hotel. It was fun for the first couple of nights, but if you want to go somewhere else you really have to know what’s open. Most of the bars are supposed to close at midnight. Eventually you end up back in that area where we stayed, because they keep those bars open late for the tourist (like me).

I never noticed that the Vietnamese were so loud before. There is a lot of yelling going on over there. It’s not that they’re angry they’re just loud. Not that it’s so wrong, some of my best friends are loud. I don’t know if it’s what they’ve been through as a people or not, but it’s one of my main impressions of them.

Harv and I went to the war museum. It’s a collection of some of the weapons and implements from the war and the French occupation. They also had various displays and photographs from the war. They had a a gruesome lookig guillotine that apparently killed 1900 people. It was all pretty depressing, but also rather one-sided, but hey it’s their country. The name of this city was changed after the war from Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City….If you win the war you get to write the history.

Saigon is a great place for shopping (if you’re into that), but I was happy to leave. Harvey realized that his phone had been stolen from his hotel room this morning. They took the charger too so he knew he hadn’t taken it out and lost it. He reported it stolen to the hotel, and they reviewed the surveillance cameras, and called the police. Lots of police came and arrested the guy who stole it. Harvey had to identify his phone from a whole bunch of stuff this guy was got caught with. All this was happening in the last two hours before we jumped on a plane back Phnom Penh. Yeah, we flew...no more Vietnamese minivans.