Cambodia

Such an interesting place! Yesterday we were up bright and early for our trip to Angkor Wat, which (I hadn't realized) is a huge group of temples and mausoleums built between roughly the 11th and 13th centuries in the Cambodian jungle. They were "rediscovered" in the 1860s and, since many of them had been unused for so long, they are all in various states of disrepair and some have become reintegrated into the jungle.

We got to the main temple, Angkor Wat, at about 5:45am to see the sun rise over the temple, which was beautiful of course. Angkor Wat is considered to be the largest religious building in the world, which was surprising, but it really is enormous. We walked all around the temple and grounds - there were lots of tourists at first for the sunrise but then it quieted down a lot afterwards. Angkor Wat wasn't the most aesthetically impressive of the temples, but still so amazing because it is this huge and beautiful structure completely surrounded by jungle and it's amazing to imagine people somehow clearing the land to build this (as a shrine to the Hindu god Vishnu) and then what it must have been like for some explorer to stumble across it centuries later. The first explorers and "tourists" could only reach the temples by elephant! While we were walking around here, we ran into a big pack of monkeys who were playing around in the trees and on the lawn, and all of their little teeny baby monkeys! That was exciting - they are so funny and so human-like! I think that may have been my first wild monkey experience, and then we continued to see them a few times throughout the day in other places.

We had a really great tuk-tuk driver all day yesterday, though unfortunately we can't remember his name. The temples were all several kilometers apart, so it was great to have someone to drive us and wait at each of the sites. Even just the drives through the temples were really fun and beautiful, because they were along these little roads through the jungle and it was just so different from anywhere else I've ever been. Plus, it was extremely hot out again (of course) so the tuk-tuk rides were our only chance to get a little breeze and cool off for a bit.

Our other favorite temples were Bayon, which had dozens of faces carved into the stone towers, and Ta Prohm, the one that has been partially retaken by the jungle. What a cool thing to see!

By that point, we were pretty much templed out so we rode back to Siem Reap and our tuk-tuk driver gave us a little tour of some of the surrounding areas, which was really great. We rode out to a little village where you can take boats to the floating village, but it was a bit too expensive so we didn't do that. It was just so interesting and fun to see the countryside. All of the houses are on stilts because it floods during the rainy season, and all made out of thatched wood. One of my favorite things we saw were the hammock bars: big broad wooden decks with dozens of hammocks strung along them, where you can go to swing in the hammock and have a drink. Why don't we have those at home? Our driver stopped at one point in the little village and bought us a watermelon, which was so sweet of him, and we all sat for a while to eat those and talk. It was just really nice, especially after all of the sketchy people yesterday trying to scam everybody at the border.

We stopped at one point for gas for the tuk-tuk at this little roadside place where all different size drinking bottles have been refilled with fuel, and you can ask for a liter or half-liter or however much you want based on whether it's a Coke bottle, a large water bottle, etc. These little gas stations are all over the place - makes perfect sense when so many people are just driving little motos and scooters that'll never need more than a liter of fuel at a time!

Then we came back to town and wandered around the downtown area for a while, which is suprisingly hopping for what I had perceived as such a small and impoverished city. Lots of restaurants and music, a huge outdoor market area, lovely hotels. Sort of weird, but fun and really pretty. We walked around for a while but it was really just way too hot to be outside, so we spent a lot of the afternoon hanging around in cafes and back in our room, until it was cool enough to go out for dinner. We ate at a pretty place downtown and we had amok, a fish curry that is the national dish of Cambodia.

Can't believe it was my last night here! Today we have a 6-hour bus ride down to Phnom Penh, then some time to find a hostel for Ali and hopefully shower before my flight out at 11:30. Back to Seoul tomorrow!

Fun times!

Few days without internet and so much has happened!!

Our bus ride to Chiang Mai was pretty uneventful and we arrived in the city at about 5:30am on Tuesday. From our big bus, they loaded us onto little camions and drove us directly to some guesthouses to hear the whole marketing pitch there. Luckily we decided to walk around and choose our own place instead of staying there, and we found the lovely and wonderful J&J Guesthouse which really made the time in Chiang Mai nice. They had two little teeny puppies there, one month old! So we got to play with them, had a nice clean private room, and the hostess girl was so nice and really helped us out a lot. Highly recommended for about $12/night!

Chiang Mai is a fun little city. It's really small and feels so quiet and peaceful after the craziness of Bangkok; lots of personality, feels so safe and friendly, we really enjoyed it. We got to go out for a run along the canal and lay around on the huge beautiful veranda at our guesthouse... also a bit less hot than Bangkok, which was a welcome change! We rented bikes for a while in the afternoon and rode around town to check out the wats (what? wat?) and rode through some really charming little residential areas. Then we got pedicures (ouch!), sat on the veranda for a while, and went out to dinner at the coolest little Thai restaurant where we sat on pillows and ate spicy food. Fun day!

Wednesday morning started one of my favorite days of all time! We set out at about 9am on our 2-day trek with five other people: a couple from Korea, a British guy, and two German guys, all about our age. They were so great! We all got along really well and had so much fun together. We went to an orchid farm, then a snake farm place (yes, very touristy, but both fun) and then stopped at this horrible, awkward, completely miserably uncomfortable "village" to see women in the Thai long-neck tribes, where they use the rings to lengthen their necks. It was awful; complete tourist gaping and gawking and taking pictures like at a zoo. We were so uncomfortable and stayed there about 60 seconds before heading back to the bus. ugh.

Luckily, then things got so much better!! We stopped to have lunch and saw an elephant walking through the field across the river, then set out on our hike waayy up the mountain through the jungle to the village where we would stay overnight. It was a really hard hike, in lots of heat and humidity and smoke (time of year to burn the fields), but it was fun - it was the jungle!!! So beautiful. I know none of the pictures will do it justice at all. We got to the top in the mid-afternoon and it was the most wonderful little remote village; 150 inhabitants, wooden thatched houses on stilts for the rainy season, cows and pigs and chickens and children all over the place. We stayed overnight in one of those wooden buildings, slept on the floor under mosquito nets, sat around a fire on the porch for hours in the evening, just so much fun! It was really great; completely away from everything, surrounded on every side by the jungle, nobody spoke a word of English aside from our guide, and we all just had a great time.

In the morning, very sadly, Ali and I had to leave our new friends because we only signed up for the 2-day trek while they were all staying for 3-days :(. Very sad. But after morning coffees on the porch, we set out down the mountain with our guide, Sie, who also didn't speak English. It was so steep and scary on the way down and we hiked nonstop for about an hour, but it was so beautiful and Sie was very charming. He kept vanishing, and then popping up unexpectedly, smoking, to gaze for a few moments at a tree, then vanish again. But he made lots of little jokes and was very sweet - amazing how much you can communicate without any words at all! We stopped at a waterfall and met up with another trekking group for a few minutes - got to practice mon francais with some girls from Paris! - then set out again. We stopped a little bit later at a place to get drinks and got to practice our slingshot skills, then Sie got us a fresh pomelo that was growing along the trail and it was delicious and so refreshing, sort of like a grapefruit. Then we arrived at the elephant camp! So cool! We got to play around with the elephants a bit, then ride one around the little valley, and it was so much fun! They are so amazing, their little fingers on the end of their trunks, and that thick leathery skin all wrinkly, and big squishy feet. They were so amazing! Then we did some (easy) white-water rafting for an hour with two weird guides, then rode a really cool bamboo raft back to where we could meet Sie to take our camion back to Chiang Mai. So we're driving along and we come across another camion that was broken down, and it was the same group we'd met at the waterfall, so after about 40 minutes hanging around while they tried to fix the truck, we all ended up crammed into one truck all completely on top of each other and disgusting after two days in the jungle... the guides felt bad that we'd had to wait so long so they stopped and bought us some beers to share during the ride! So we rode the 90 minutes back to Chiang Mai squished in with this really fun group and had a great time.

Then, back to J&J to shower and see the puppies one more time, before our overnight bus back to Bangkok. So much in less than 12 hours!!! It was such a long and wonderful day. I think those two trekking days were two of my very favorite days of my life so far. I just loved being outside all day, and with such fun people, in such a beautiful place - it was all so fantastic, I just loved it.

This morning we got to BKK about 5am and waited for our 7am bus to Siem Reap in Cambodia, where we finally arrived at about 5:30pm after a horrible, awful travel day that I don't feel like going into much detail about now because the other days are more fun to remember. But it was a rough day; unfortunately it feels like it's really hard to trust anyone here, they all seem to be trying to run some kind of scam and take advantage at any turn, so it was all very frustrating to get our Cambodian visas and make it to Siem Reap without being completely ripped off a hundred times. And then I realized that either during our elephant ride or rafting yesterday, one of the guides stole about $200 worth of American and Thai money out of my wallet, which was pretty disenchanting, but I guess if they had to steal something, cash is the best thing to lose. They left all of my IDs and credit cards, thank god. So sort of an icky day after two great ones... not bad overall, I guess! And now we're safely in Siem Reap in another fabulous guesthouse (Mom's Guesthouse, of course) and about to head out for a Khmer dinner. Siem Reap so far is fascinating; so different from Thailand, so poor and ramshackle, then with jarringly out of place colonial buildings, and it's hard not to wonder about the things that have been experienced by every person who walks by. Pretty amazing that with the Khmer Rouge barely 10 years out of power, here we are as tourists walking around and feeling relatively safe. So many interesting things to ponder.

So that about summarizes the last few days. Tomorrow our tuk-tuk driver is picking us up at 5:15am for our personal tour of Angkor Wat for the day!!!!

Sawadeeka from Bangkok!

We finally made it to a nice, air-conditioned place with wireless where we can sit for a while; it's so nice to get out of the heat! Bangkok is a pretty cool city, it has so much personality! It doesn't seem like there's a lot to really do here, but it's fun to walk around and just see the sights. The only problem is it's so hot!!

Yesterday we got up early and set out. We were looking for Chinatown and the subway, so that we could go up to a huge weekend market, and the walk took a lot longer than we'd expected.

The combination of the heat and humidity, and our poor footwear choices, resulted in some tired and maybe a little grouchy ladies by the time we finally found the subway. But it was fun, too. The city is just really interesting and busy, though it doesn't feel congested, and we've felt totally safe as well. There are some demonstrations going on right now - something against the government, we can't quite get the full story - but it hasn't really affected us at all. The market was cool when we finally got there, but it's really mind-boggling how all of these endless kitschy touristy markets stay in operation. They were all throughout Chinatown, then this huge weekend one, then we ran into more that evening in the red light district - all with similar and unnecessary items, I just don't really understand how or why they're all there. And they're so big!

Today we've had a lovely lazy day so far. All that walking in the heat yesterday probably wasn't the wisest idea so today we're just taking it easy. This our third coffee/cafe/lounging stop of the day. We were going to try to get a boat to see the floating markets but then realized we didn't have time, because we're leaving at 5pm on an overnight bus to Chiang Mai. I'm really excited to get out of the city and see some of the country (and elephants!). There are tons of tourists here, though I guess somewhat fewer than usual because of the demonstrations.

Everything's great and really fun so far! I'm excited for the rest!

Seoul, South Korea

What a day! It feels like I've been traveling forever already, though I think it's actually been less than 36 hours. Had a lovely flight from LAX to Incheon in Seoul today - Asiana may be my new favorite airline. Mouthwash and nice hand lotion in the bathrooms and I swear it was somehow more spacious than usual on that airplane! I can even forgive the fact that almost all of the movies playing were in Korean.

I got to Seoul at about 6:45 this morning and had my first Dunkin of the day. It seems that Korea runs on Dunkin, too. Had a little bit of confusion regarding my luggage, which I really hope isn't lost forever, but decided there was nothing I could do about it this morning since my Korean isn't exactly up to par so I couldn't ask anyone to help, so I set out for downtown. Luckily the bus system was super duper easy and, for the very first time ever, my debit card actually worked on the first try at a foreign ATM. So I was off.

Why are airports always in the ugliest area of the country? I have noticed this several times before. You arrive somewhere, all excited and ready for remarkable sites, and then you ride through miles and miles of either industrial wasteland or swamps that have olive green fumes rising from them, before you arrive in the city from what must be the least flattering entry route possible. I thought about this today as we drove past both the wastelands and swamps. This makes me think of (a) Potemkin villages, which were fake villages - basically movie sets - Potemkin built to impress the Tsar and foreign kings boating through Russia; and (b) where were we, Athens? Where they had put new paint and prettied things up only on the sides of buildings facing the railroad tracks that led to Olympic Stadium, so it would look nicer than it actually was. Why don't they do that along the routes leading from airports? This is the first impression of the country! Might as well have some cardboard cutouts of pretty houses lining the road.

Anyway, I got off the bus right downtown at Anguk Station and wandered down Insadong. I was still a little bit early and none of the shops were open, so I made a beeline for the Starbucks and sat there for a little bit until everyone else in the city was awake (this happens at 10am). Then I browsed through all the shops and bought myself a pretty scarf, because it was about 20 degrees and I only brought clothing for the expected 98 degrees in Bangkok, so I was freeeeezing and felt like an idiot with my little crocs (and socks!). Then I walked up to Gyeongbokgung Palace and saw the changing of the guard, which was fun. Then I decided to head for Namdaemun Market, which looked like it would be a long walk on the map but I thought I had time, and probably would have had I not gotten lost. But that's ok - it is essential to get lost in every foreign city visited and I had been worried that it wouldn't happen, since I had a good map and only three hours, but luckily it worked out and I managed to lose myself somewhere on Namdaemun road. Having accomplished that, I came back to the airport and found free internet! I must also admit that, while I did make a good faith effort to eat Korean food for my lunch here, I couldn't figure out how to go about ordering said Korean food at any of the airport restaurants and so I had to settle for the Paris Baguette Cafe (sigh). At least I got to try bi bim bat on the airplane.

Based on my ridiculously short time in Seoul today, my superficial judgment is that it's not a particularly remarkable city. Sort of just seemed like any big city with lots of traffic. There was some pretty architecture and picturesque little side streets, but I didn't find it as charming as Beijing, for example. Just didn't seem as unique but of course it's entirely possible that I just didn't have time to find that uniqueness today.

I am heading out for Bangkok in another hour or so! Hopefully will see elephants in the streets!!