Holiday in Cambodia: one week at Angkor

Ahhh, Cambodia... The name Cambodia in recent history hasn't exactly evoked images of a vacationers paradise, but there have been some big changes in Kampuchea over the past few years, resulting in a lush, travel-friendly environment that left all of us simply wanting more. I am imagining that Siem Reap (the small town outside the ruins at Angkor Wat) is just now experiencing some the rapid development that was typical in Thailand 20 years ago; the locals here are still quite friendly to travelers and seemingly haven't yet let their lives be dominated by the quest for the all-mighty tourist buck.

Our experience at the airport and the "visa on arrival" procedure was far less arduous than we had all expected; it involved no more than forking over 20 dollars and standing in front of a panel of stone-faced immigration officials... Once outside, we easily found our driver from the Golden Banana, the posh boutique hotel we had booked well in advance of our arrival... He whisked us in an air conditioned minivan to the property, one of our last encounters with aircon (outside the hotel) during the entire week. Temperatures here remained just as high as those in northern Thailand, with unrelenting sunshine through most of the day...

The Golden Banana proved to be one of the very best hotels we've experienced during this trip: super friendly staff, amazing location, and fantastic rooms all surrounding a tropical garden and huge saline swimming pool, complete with a waterfall feature... I've never been in a saline swimming pool before and let me tell you: it is so much better than a conventional chlorine pool... Not only does the saline kill bacteria, not sting the eyes, and allow one to float much easier, it also deters mosquitoes! We all spent the first 2 days just settling in at the GB, bumming around the Old Market area of Siem Reap, and catching up on our beauty sleep...

By the third day, we were ready for big, bad Angkor Wat. Johnna and I decided that the best course of action (being on the constant heat contingency plan) would be to head out at about 5am (which is the opening time of the park) and try to be back to the hotel by about 11am, before the extremely hot midday sun takes over... This turned out to in fact be our plan for the next few days. We purchased a 3-day pass to the ruins, enabling us to travel back and forth for 3 consecutive days for the same price as a standard 2-day entry. The day before, we had commissioned a good-natured tuk-tuk driver named Sopahl to be our driver for the morning; he ended up becoming our driver for most of the week! Sopahl was waiting for us when we stumbled, bleary eyed, out of the hotel at 5am: we slugged back a few cans of cold Nescafe on our 20-minute, open-air journey past rambling shanty houses, dense jungle, and finally the manicured entrance to the Angkor national park. We arrived to the front gates of Angkor Wat, the largest of the temple structures spread around the area, just as the sun was coming up.

There are no words to properly describe this type of experience. I remember the feeling that overwhelmed both me and Tre standing before the Taj Mahal during sunrise; this is the only memory to which I can compare sunrise at Angkor Wat. I had an intense feeling of stepping into another time, one in which the modern world plays no part whatsoever... there were no familiar aspects to my immediate surroundings that reminded me of life on earth as I know it... The stillness and almost eeriness of the the dark ancient stone and perfect symmetry of the architecture... There is nothing quite like it anywhere in the world... except maybe a few kilometers away at some of the other amazing ruins left behind by the Khmer empire some 1000 years ago.

We spent the next few days exploring not only Angkor Wat, but the ruins at the Bayon and Ta Phrom, as well as the walls of the Leper King and the Elephants... Truly amazing stuff. The detail of the carvings throughout Angkor (and the fact that it has all been so well preserved) is unbelievable. There is are more to see here than just a few days allows...

Paul's 45th birthday was on 21 April and we celebrated in grand style with the staff at the hotel: the Pina Coladas flowed like water and Paul seemed very pleased with his strange and funny gifts... Nat, one of the nice hotel staff, helped me to find a bakery that would create a personalized birthday cake, complete with candles, for the occasion... Riding home on the back of Nat's motorbike, swerving through traffic while balancing a huge birthday cake on my lap, was one of the highlights of my Cambodian experience...

Both our Mums and Christina have all safely arrived back at their respective homes... We are sad to see them all go, but also excited about the upcoming weeks of our trip. We are heading now to the Gulf of Thailand coast for a few weeks on the island of Ko Tao, plus a trip to the Khao Sok National Park, a preserved jungle wilderness with waterfalls, trekking, and several eco-friendly options for lodgings... Access to phone and internet in the jungle will be pretty limited, so I'll update once back in Bangkok.

More soon! x Jason

Hello, Thailand!

Welcome to Thailand! Coming back to Southeast Asia, I remember exactly why I absolutely fell in love with Thailand back in 1999: the friendly people, gorgeous cuisine, remarkable sophistication and style amongst a backdrop of pollution and chaos... I always knew that I'd be back, and am surprised it took me 8 years to make it happen!

After our HORRIBLE experience at the Beijing airport (involving a cancelled flight and a nasty shoving match at the Cathay Pacific ticket counter) we made it to Bangkok very late at night... We came immediately to our friend Saz's apartment here in Sathorn, very close to the beautiful Lupini Park.... A very relaxing week with Saz, chilling out by the pool and eating copious amounts of noodles at the local curry house Om Yim's, before our Mums both arrived on the morning of April 03...

Rachel has been to Thailand and the far east before, so she pretty much knew what to expect when she stepped off the plane... but Johnna, on the other hand, has had very little experience traveling overseas and found Bangkok to live up to its reputation as one of the busiest, loudest, and most exciting cities in the world... "wide-eyed" doesn't even begin to describe her initial reaction to the scenes of daily life taking place outside our hotel, on Soi Wattinasin in the little neighborhood of Pratunam... Her first few days were largely spent sleeping off a massive case of jet lag in the sub-zero air conditioning, although we did manage to squeeze in a full morning of sightseeing at the Grand Palace: an absolute must for any visitor to Thailand. The weather has been consistently BOILING: Alas, this is the hot season and temperatures have not disappointed, often reaching 110F (43C) by mid-afternoon. We celebrated my 37th birthday with the staff at Om Yims, complete with pressies and and cake with candles... all thanks to Paul!

On the 7th, Paul's sister Christina arrived from Israel and early the following morning we took off for the ancient capital city of Ayutthaya... I pre-booked our accommodation at a fantastic guesthouse, the Old Palace Resort, where we soon met the owner Mr. Ott and his helper, an adorable little old Thai man that we soon dubbed "Mr. Ott's Dad." The setting was like a rain forest, the rooms impeccable, and our interactions with Mr. Ott and his "Dad" were truly hysterical and unforgettable. During our stay, we visited the ruins of the old capital, had a fantastic Thai full body massage, chowed down on Tom Yum Goong, survived a torrential thunderstorm (complete with an electrical blackout), and hired a river boat driver named Eekmarion for a cruise to an elephant camp... Johnna had never been so close to an elephant, but eventually recovered from her apprehensions enough to pet and feed a few of the big guys... She absolutely loved it.

After a few days, we headed even further north by train towards the littel provincial town of Phitsanulok and the ancient ruined cities of Sukothai and Si Sichanilai... This time around, we stayed in a massive, posh hotel complex called the La Paloma that we unanimously agreed was one of the weirdest hotel experiences of our lives!

When we checked in, the lobby and restaurant were completely deserted, and although it was mid-afternoon, there were no lights on in the hotel at all: the long hallways, bar area, cafe, and grand lobby were lit only by indirect sunlight, adding to the feeling of complete abandonment. We were assigned 3 rooms on the top floor of the hotel, and after 4 days of further inspection of the property, we concluded that this was the only floor that was even being used... The huge pool area included massive marble changing rooms that had been boarded up; the second floor was full of billiard and gaming rooms that apparently hadn't been used in years... This place is CREEPY to say the very least, like something out of a post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi movie!

Not wanting to hang around what we now called "the Shining hotel," we spent our days out exploring the area. Not many people speak English in Phitsanulok, which made for many memorable experiences attempting to order food from all-Thai language menus and trying to navigate around city and it's surroundings.... All in all, we loved it and had quite a good laugh. The ruins at Sukothai and Si Sichanilai are truly breathtaking, and although the heat got the best of us in the end, we still had a fantastic four day stay here. Highlights include: the amazing shishkebabs at the riverside food fair (we went twice); shopping for dresses with Johnna in the back-alley garment district; listening to terrible outdoor karaoke; pouring water on Buddha images outside the Wat Demichai.

On April 13th, we boarded an early morning train (5am!) for the 8-hour ride to Chiang Mai, just in time for the Thai New Year and water festival, Songkran. Songkran in Chiang Mai is a crazy and MASSIVE event, drawing hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over Thailand and around the world. The water festival could be more accurately described as the "water-throwing"festival, as crowds of soaked and screaming revelers line the city streets chucking buckets of water at cars, motorbikes, bystanders: basically anything passing by! It all makes for a very wet and wild experience... We spent the next 3 days dodging a constant barrage of water guns, shopping the famous Night Bazaar, and lounging in the air conditioning as sizzling temperatures persisted throughout the rest of our holiday in northern Thailand. By the way, Paul and I will be heading back to Chiang Mai for a full month, starting on or about the 24th of May... I am so looking forward to having much more time explore this amazing city.

NEXT ENTRY: Holiday in Cambodia! More soon! x Jason

Beijing Part 2: The Ming Tombs and Great Wall

Groggy from our super-early wake up call, we re-boarded the tour bus ("How'd Y'all sleep?") for the second amazing day of our whirlwind Beijing tour... We were happy to have Eileen, Will and Angela with us again for the day as we set off towards the Ming Tombs, the burial place of 13 of the 16 emperors of the Ming Dynasty, located about 40km outside Beijing. The main buildings were pretty impressive, complete with Ming pottery and a giant bronze statue of a nameless emperor surrounded by a giant pile of money... I honestly thought some of the hungrier-looking tourists were about to make a dive for it.

The tombs were pretty cool, but we were all itching to get our first glimpse of the Great Wall, which was initially delayed by lunch and then again by a side trip to a stupid jade factory: a thinly disguised attempt to hard-sell jade trinkets to a very captive audience. I was pretty upset at the fact that a normally reliable travel agency like Trailfinders (the company in London that booked us) would sub-contract tours with vendors that force unscheduled shopping stopovers... ahem, I mean "educational visits..." to factory outlets. Oh well.

Finally, there it was: the Great Wall of China, clinging to the side of the mountainous terrain, directly beside the freeway. It seemed completely incongruous to first see this awesome and ancient thing in the same view with billboard advertisements and a roadside 7-11, but hey: this is China. We continued to follow the length of the wall for about 20 more minutes until we finally arrived at the Badaling section, our final destination. Although the Badaling section of the wall isn't the oldest, it is one of the most picturesque (and one of the most visited).

Upon arriving, our tour guide attempted to give us a brief introduction to the overall history of the place, but we were practically running towards the entry gates. Once inside, we noticed that most of the tourists were heading up the hill to our right; we instinctively headed left towards an apparently shorter and less dramatic section with far fewer people... This was without a doubt the smartest decision of the day. The moment we walked up and over the short section of wall directly in front of us, we saw a vast, empty stretch of the wall in front of us, snaking across the hillside towards the horizon... The day was again bright and clear with no haze (or crowds of people) obstructing the view of the surrounding mountains. We walked around lazily for about 2 hours, taking tons of photos and soaking up the clean, fresh air. Absolutely amazing. I had psyched myself into thinking that the Great Wall would be a disappointment, and boy, was I dead wrong. One of the most amazing travel experiences of my life.

A final note: The postcard and souvenir vendors that stakeout the Great Wall are some the most aggressive and persistent that either of us have ever encountered... giving the taxi drivers in India a run for their money in the award for the world's most obnoxious touts. Anecdotes of their wild attempts to make a sale are legendary amongst all visitors to the Great Wall. The photo of the Chinese man with his hand to his face is in my opinion, one of the best photos I've ever taken: this was his exhausted expression after he initiated a long interaction with Paul, which completely revolved around his desperate attempts to sell a rather weather-beaten book of old postcards. It makes me laugh.

We are now in Bangkok, relaxing at our good friend Saz's modern condo, basking in the swelter of the sub-tropical heat... The Moms both arrive in Thailand later today, so much more to write about in the very near future.

x Jason

Chinese Lunch

Jason eats lunch in Beijing, March 2007