And, of course, it’s cold and rainy. Didn’t miss that…

In the next few days I’ll be posting some trip pics to my flickr site. Have to get rid of the jetlag first, plus get through all of the unpacking, laundering of my soggy luggage contents (it wasn’t *that* humid over there, was it??), and otherwise catching up on other matters after having been gone for three weeks. Shouldn’t be long, though.

Finally, a huge thanks to my wonderful wife Nell for singlehandedly planning our wonderful trip. She did a super job in setting up all of the travel, lodging, and activities for all of our Far East destinations. Given the number of hops and stops on our three week trip, nearly of all of which went flawlessly, she deserves a huge public hug and thank you from me. I had an awesome time, and the credit is all yours, Nell!

To her credit, had I been allowed to help in the planning, we’d have gone to Montreal instead, and diving and beaches would have been replaced by skiing and NHL. Maybe next year…

Ordinarily we would be winding down our visit by walking around, but doing so here is a royal pain.  Nearly each and every taxi driver and shop owner tries to stop you and sell you something.  A popular T-shirt for sale here states boldly on the front “No, I don’t want a tuk tuk, a suit, or a f*cking massage!!”. 

Our last night in Patong was relatively uneventful.  We did some strolling earlier in the day, then stayed in our room for the night and watched a fantastic tropical lightning storm soak the surrounding area.  Actually we had little choice, as the heavy rains and cloud cover had killed the satellite TV signal for our hotel.  After leaving Koh Lanta, this part of the trip only seemed like a long layover, so the mellow low-key night was not unexpected.

And so comes to the end of this blog, excepting one last post to let all interested parties know that we’ve arrived home safely.  We hope that you’ve enjoyed our interactive holiday postcard.  Once we get settled, we’ll post some of our own pictures on Flickr.

 Our lodging is a nice little bungalow with a (remote) ocean view from our small but not tiny front porch.  The room has a nice poster bed that is decorated in Thai orchids each morning by the cleaning staff.  The bathroom is one of the nicer ones we’ve had on the trip – an open shower with sea rocks embedded halfway up the concrete walls, with imprints from large sea plant leaves on the upper half.  While certainly rustic, the bungalow is also, comfortable, clean, and quiet.  The perfect surroundings after nearly two weeks of air, land, and sea trekking around Southeast Asia.

So far, we’ve mostly been relaxing with walks on the beach or sitting and reading wherever we can find some shade.  We did, however, do a few excursions so far as well. Yesterday morning, we did an hour-long elephant ride through the mid-island jungle, the middle of which featured a steep uphill ascent (pretty hairy when on top of an elephant) that culminated in a very nice view of the surrounding valley.  Following that, we did a two-hour long jungle hike and cave exploration expedition.  Koh Lanta National Park features a cave that consists of a number of underground passages of all sizes, some the size of old bank lobbies, and some that you really had to squeeze to get through.  Luckily, we managed to fit through the smallest of passages presented, so the diet appears to be going well. 

Tonight we are taking a Thai cooking class where we will prepare, then eat, our own Thai meal featuring green curry and fresh spring rolls, along with a few other treats.  Then tomorrow, our last full day here before returning to Patong Beach in Phuket, we are planning to do some kayaking through jungle streams to the sea.

That’s all for now… we hope your 2008 is off to a great start!

We had spectacular weather for most of the trip, making for some great diving for Nell and good topside reading and tanning weather for me. I did manage to do a bit of snorkeling and saw some cool stuff, including a school of about three dozen barracuda meandering just beyond arm’s reach. Nell saw quite a lot of interesting sea life including a one-meter long shark (non-threatening), a ray or two, and lots of other critters.

The food on the boat was plentiful and awesome-tasting, and the rest of the 16 guests were mostly quite nice. Our quarters was surprisingly roomy – as roomy and actually nicer than the guest house from the night before our departure. We are both looking forward to another live-aboard trip, though next time I *will* have my dive certification.

Next stop is Koh Lanta, an island off the east central coast of Thailand, for a few days of relaxation in the honeymoon suite of a beachside resort. Great way to wind down a very busy vacation.

Hope that all of you had a safe and happy holiday season. Please drop a line or post a comment to let us know how you celebrated Christmas and New Years Eve!

Thankfully we only had to spend one night here.  Later today, we board a dive boat to spend four days at sea.  Nell will be diving, and I’ll be reading, tanning, watching movies and TV on my iPod, and hopefully surfing the net, as the boat supposedly has internet access.

Just in case, Happy New Year to all, and here’s to a wonderful time no matter where you are or how you enjoy the holiday!

Greetings from Siem Reap!

 

We’ve had a wonderful few days here in Siem Reap.  We’ve been getting up early each morning to explore the Angkor Wat temples, before the hot sun overwhelms pale, sun-adverse little me.  The first morning we hired a guide and explored the two main temple complexes, Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom.  Our guide was fairly new and although he was full of details about the mythology and background of the carvings (which were local derivations of Indian Hindu mythology combined with local events and battles), he wasn’t as interested in telling us about the practical stuff, such as how the temples were made (the blocks of sandstone and lighter igneous rock all have small holes where ropes were attached and they were dragged up the temples by elephants using a pulley system) and why they each had a moat (both for agricultural/drinking water and to keep the sandstone from drying out).  Our driver and guide the first day were both too interested in taking us to see another site for ‘little more money’ (for which we later learned they got a kickback) so we found a new driver the next two days who was much better.  He gave us much more background during the drive between temples and we were able to wander and explore on our own. 

 

The next morning we went to Angkor Wat early to watch the sun rise over the main towers – a beautiful sight.  The monkeys (at recent addition to the area, apparently) were also up looking for leftovers for breakfast, which is always amusing.  We watched a standoff between one of the larger males and a stray dog (which are everywhere); the monkey won easily.  After sunrise we visited the more remote Ta Prohm temple, where parts of the movie Tomb Raider were filmed.  The temple has not had much restoration work done and looks in imminent danger of collapse, with huge trees growing on top of the walls with immense root systems engulfing the break as it reaches the ground.  The rest of the smaller temples were in worse shape, with only basic restoration work having been completed.  It’s easy to see why the temples are listed among the world’s most vulnerable monuments.  By 10:00 am each morning huge numbers of tour groups were crowding the small temples, creating traffic jams on the narrow roads.  There is nothing preventing people from touching many of the carvings or leaning against the unstable walls.

 

Since it quickly became too hot and crowded to enjoy the temples, we retreated to our hotel in the afternoons.  Our hotel is wonderful – it includes a hospitality institute that trains people from rural areas to work in the hotel industry here (a booming industry).  The service has been wonderful and everyone very helpful.  The hotel has a spa, as well (John read that it was recently voted the second best spa in Southeast Asia, and it was the ‘featured hotel’ in the Thai Airways travel magazine), so we’ve taken advantage of the massage and spa services in addition to relaxing by the pool. I had a heavenly 2.5 hour cinnamon, capsaicin and chocolate body scrub followed by a hot oil massage yesterday.  On Christmas, the hotel prepared a nice dinner for all of the guests, complete with bad covers of Christmas music, and ‘Santa’ left us each a wrapped present from the hotel and a card signed by all the staff.

 

We leave in a few hours for Phuket.  The dive boat picks us up tomorrow afternoon for 5 days in the Andaman Sea .  They claim to have internet access, but I’m skeptical that we’ll actually have access so far from the mainland.  We’ll see.  John bought a little computer to use which promptly died as soon as we got here.  So if you don’t hear from us, have a happy new year and we’ll write again on our return to Phuket!

  Note (IUP guys, pay attention) that while Nell was getting her spa treatment, I was touring Pub Street.  I did not have a full body wrap with cucumber, lilac, and cinnamon, or whatever she got.  Her skin *was* much smoother than mine at the end of the day, though.

We visited Pre Rup, East Mebon, Neak Pean, and Preah Khan, two vanity temples, an ancient hospital, and a university, respectively.  The last two were slightly more interesting, driving us to imagine seeking health care or education in such a setting, but the vanity temples pre-dated Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, and were thus less impressive – back in the day, the kings would one-up each other by building taller, more sprawling temples than their predecessor.

Nell had an afternoon spa treatment while I had an in-depth look at some of the establishments on Pub Street (exactly what it sounds like it is), then we were off for a floating viliage tour, sunset cruise, and dinner on the Tara Boat, where we were the guest of the owner, an Aussie expat, and got the inside scoop on doing business in Cambodia.  We retired with a nitecap at the hotel bar, then to sleep for another travel day tomorrow – Phuket via Bangkok.

All in all, Cambodia is great for a vacation spot, and will continue to get better, especially Siem Reap, where the 250 hotels is not enough to meet current demand.

Food was another point of contention; our guide books told us that the food was ordinary and unremarkable. Perhaps that is partially true, because the cuisine borrows heavily from Thai and Vietnamese influences, which are now well-known in the west. However, we’ve stuck to the Khmer selections on our various dining excursions, and have yet to be disappointed. Had we taken the guidebook’s description of Khmer cuisine to be 100% accurate, we may have been subsisting solely on happy herb pizza, which has been widely available in both cities on our trip (though we did not inhale…err…swallow).

Fish amok is considered by some to be the national dish of Cambodia. It is fish in a sweet and not-too-spicy green curry sauce, served with rice. It is very similar to Thai green curry dishes, but lacking the spicy kick (which can be added back in upon request). Lok lak, stir-fried beef with onions and whole peppercorns, has been another favorite. Perhaps the best of the bunch is kuyteav, a broth-based soup with rice noodles, meat (usually pork or beef), greens, sprouts, and cilantro. Very similar to pho, chile sauce or chile oil is added to give it as much of a kick as desired by the diner.

All aforementioned dishes taste even better when washed down by a $1 mug of locally-brewed Angkor draught beer.

Our driver met us promptly at 5am and proceeded to take us to the temple. Almost immediately we could tell something was different from the driver and guide from the previous day. He was chatty, enthusiastic, outgoing, and though he only spoke English for two years, was a much better communicator. It also turned out that he owned the tour business and employed the two guys from yesterday, but we didn’t rat them out.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat was amazing. When we arrived, it was still dark, but with the full moon shining bright, you could see the silhouettes of the 5 towers in the night sky. Then, as the sun started to creep up, the reflection on the lake began to show. Every few minutes as the sky continued to brighten, more details became apparent. The temple is an amazing sight as is, but having it unveiled in this manner was beyond words.

After the sun began to crest over the horizon, we left to hit as many other sites as possible before the temperature and crowds became unpleasant. Next on the trip Ta Prohm. This is where Tomb Raider was filmed. As Angkor Wat was immense and grand, Ta Prohm was more modest, sprawling but without the tall towers. Rather, it had many smaller towers in which statues of the Buddha in various positions used to be kept until looters got to them. One of the amazing traits of this site was the trees that were growing from the top of the ruins down over the walls, with their massive root system exposed. Great backdrop for a creepy action film.

From there, on to a few smaller temples, then back to the hotel for breakfast and a quick nap. We got more done before 9am than most tourists got to do all day.

Had a couples’ massage in the afternoon, and now off in search of some more cheap local beer.

Merry Christmas!!!

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