Siem Reap: Temples, Temples, Temples

After visiting all the Wats in Thailand I wasn't expecting today to be much different. Good thing Suzy planned our adventures!! The temples we saw were amazing. We got up before sunrise and went to see Srah Srang. It was beautiful. The temple itself was sort of small, but the sunrise over the water was great to see. We also met a ton of the small children who lived right there. Unfortunately they didn't start school until 7am so we were stuck with them asking us to buy their stuff for over two hours. Coffee, books, bracelets, books, scarfs, books. haha. They get pretty angry with you when you decline, but how many books can we really purchase on this trip.

After that we went to Ta Prohm. Probably the most beautiful place yet. It was covered with huge trees that wrapped around the broken down temple. We jumped all over the place, bouldering up the crumbled sections only to realize we were in a completely different section that was just as massive as the one before. It was a maze of nature and temple. Anyone that is thinking about a trip over to this part of the world should definitely make it a point to stop by this temple!!!

We did a bunch of the smaller temples inside Angkor Thom... and then finished our day at the huge Angkor Wat temple. It was very beautiful, surrounded by a huge moat. It is pretty much an entire city within itself.

Cambodia: Siem Reap: Night one ;)

We made it!
6 hour bus ride through the beautiful lush fields of of Cambodia.
AND... Suzy ate a spider on one of our stops along the way!!! A tarantula at that. Ok, so it was only the legs, but still. I am super impressed with her ability to hold down the creepy crawler legs.

We are in a good hostel tonight. No mice. From now on that is our one demand.




We learned some good Cambodian words tonight from our bartender friend:
hello: suisa-die
goodbye: leah-sunhi
cheers: jol kaouh muin

(these are all our interpretations, so i am sure they are misspelled)

Mice 1, Suzy and Alana 0

Worst Hostel Ever. Don't ever stay at the Green Lake Hostel!! Even though Angelina Jolie supposedly stays there when she's adopting Cambodian orphans. Yeah right. Our room ended up having some guests we weren't expecting...mice! The little critters in the walls of this crap-tastic place squeaked all night long and were running around the floor every once in a while, needless to say we freaked out a bit and tried to get a new room around 1:30 am. No luck, all booked up for the night. It was either sleep in the rodent infested room or risk getting mugged looking for a new hostel to stay in. So instead of a new room the guy at the front desk gives us a massive can of mosquito repellent...to make the mice go away? Well, we gave it a shot and sprayed a nearly lethal dose of the stuff in the room. It did not work, weird. Being the brave adults we are, we pulled our beds together in the middle of the room, kept the lights on and passed out from the fumes.

After running out that place as soon as dawn broke we found a new, rodent-less place to stay and were able to start our day of adventures much happier. We tuk-tuked it out to the killing fields where thousands of Cambodians were murdered during Pol Pot's regime. Not a very large place, but really sad to see. After that we went to one of the prisons that was used as well. Really unbelievable this all happened in the mid 70's and is still to this day somewhat largely ignored on the world stage even though roughly 2 million innocent people were killed. We then headed down to the river and to what seems to be a newer, nicer area of the city.This is a pretty interesting place with the mix of old, crumbling buildinds and actually quite a few new buildings and construction happening too. Also swung by the Royal Palace, I think they used the same architect as the Thai's did to build their palace as they looked and were set up very similarily.

Heading to Siam Reap early in the am! 6 hour bus ride up north. Should be a great time!!

The day Alana made a new small friend

We made it to Cambodia!!!
20 minute flight and a 5 minute Tuk Tuk drive and we are at our new home for a few days. Alana has already been talked into buying a book from one of the local children that run the streets. Hard to deny them with their hope filled eyes and precious smiles.

Our new room has big gaps in the floor boards... lets hope no crazy animals or bugs make their way in tonight.

Our last night in Bangkok and it was election day the next day. Apparently they don't serve alcohol 24 hours prior to the election. We ended up having to jump from bar to bar trying to find places that hadn't been caught serving by the cops. It was quite an adventure.

BUT, we met our first friend... Tom! He has actually been on our exact trip just opposite of how we are doing it. He had a lot of insight for us. And the more fun things he had to say the more excited we got for the next few months (not like we aren't thrilled to be doing it already).

Off to Cambodia!!!!

Day 2: Bangkok

Exhausted!
Today we walked. From about 10-5 we walked around Bangkok exploring. It was great. We made it to The Grand Palace, down along the Chao Phraya River and all the way to the National Stadium where the Thai Boxing is held.

The Palace was amazing. It was built in 1782 for King Rama I’s because he was unhappy with his current palace. There is gold everywhere. The buildings, the Buddahs, even some of the statues. Most of the buildings were a mosaic of gold with little bits of color throughout. There were walls with huge scenes of the Ramakien (mostly battles and wars lead by the king). We got to see some of the artists working on them today. Such detail, they must have taken years to finish.

Definitely a site to see. Side note… you don’t have to wear long pants or a long sleeve shirt unless you want to sweat to death like we did. Flip flops, tee shirt and a calf length skirt would be a much better idea.

We walked down through China town along the river to catch the Chao Phraya Express. While we obviously stood out, people were very friendly and very helpful with directions. After yesterday we are still a bit skeptical when we get information from people. But we made it to the river and took the express boat down.

After our boat ride we decided we should take advantage of the cheap massages here in town. 1 hour for 10 dollars and that was a more expensive spa. The massage was very interesting. A little more like a trainer stretching you out for a big game. It was great though. Rejuvinated us for the next part of our walk.

We walked through a huge beautiful park. It was a great change of scenery since the majority of our day was spent walking on the crowded streets with all the car fumes blowing in our faces. There was some dancing and some yoga and some synchronized sword fighting going on.
Finally we made our way to the stadium. The cost to get in was a little more pricey than we had decided we would spend and since neither of us are really interested in boxing, we decided seeing the stadium was enough.

YAY for the Gators! Our Buddah bell must have done the trick... or else we are just the best in the nation :) We caught some highlights on the internet midday. Hope all you Gator fans got some good partying in for us!!!

Bangkok: Day 1

Happy Thursday!

Our first real day of the trip. Bangkok is a crazy city. Kinda like Downtown LA mixed with New York City. Shops stores and people everywhere. Cats and dogs too. It is just packed.

For us today was full of scams. From one Tuk Tuk driver to the next and every one of them seemed to have a sister who married an American and now lives in San Fran or Seattle or Chicago. After we got that story a few times we realized we were in for it. Of course we fell for the “Buddist holiday” scam. Our plan was to go and see some temples today and since it was a Buddist holiday, we got into all of them for free. It wasn’t until we talked to some monks at the last temple did we find out that it was not a buddist holiday and the temples are always open. OH WELL! We got to see them all anyway and had quite an adventure along the way.

The four temples we saw today were the Lucky Buddah, the Old Buddha (this is where we met the guy whos sister lives in San Fran and they own a Thai restaurant called Phuket… anyone been there?), the Standing Buddah, and The Golden Mountain.






The Golden Mountain was our favorite. We had to walk up about 400 stairs to get to the top but the whole way up was full of waterfalls and greenery.
This is also where we met our new monk friends. They practiced their English on us and we got to find out some cool stuff about them. And of course get a picture.





We also donated some money for a golden bell that was placed on one of the smaller blessing temples beside the main buddah. We got to write on the bell for good luck. If you can’t guess what we wished for I will give you a hint…
GO GATORS. We definitely sent some good luck to the Gators for tomorrows game. The bell will ring in their name for years to come.










We ended the night with some delicious Pad Thai for dinner (which ran about $3 each) and then walked around the city for a bit. We came across a perfect street for Suzy. At 9pm we are already exhausted and ready for some good rest.