Hi Friends!
First we owe you an apology - we fell off the blog wagon for our last month of adventures. Call it travel fatigue, call it technology frustration, mostly we're just sorry we left you hanging.
We are back in the good ole US of A! It's great to be back, despite the fact that our travel hours logged since our return seem to have increased instead of decreased, and we are still living off the same set of tired summer clothes out of a bag.
At some point I would love to sit down and pen our last few weeks of wanderings. For now, I'll just pass on the link to some great Rajasthan pictures. My parents joined us for 10 days of a circuit tour of the hottest desert region of India. By our side they experienced the beauty of many forts and palaces, the aggravation of many touts bothering them to give money/buy silk/come to their shop, and the shock of a vacation for the most part devoid of meat and alcohol. We visited waterless lakes, saw the Taj Mahal, went on a tiger safari, and developed a new language with our buddy and faithful driver, Vinood. You can check out my dad's pro pictures here:
Rajasthan Pictures (http://picasaweb.google.com/kaarechristian/INDIA2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCKzW4cu4mfj77AE&feat=directlink#)
We're so excited to be back on the same soil as all our pals :)
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
This Old Beach
Well children, it's been awhile since I've penned my own post here at sarahandarliadventures.com. I'm a lazy blogger, what can I say. Arli is the motivated one, the 110-degree heat and constant blackouts here in Inde haven't slowed her down a bit.
So I'm here to write some belated prose regarding our "vacation" week on the island paradise that is Ko Pha-Ngan, off the southeastern coast of Thailand (oh how we mis you, Thailand!). We had a hell of a week on the little limestone mount of Ko Pha-Ngan, which is primarily known for the wacked-out Full Moon Parties (and Half Moon parties, and Black Moon, and Shiva Moon, and...), drugs, hippies, and a general party atmosphere. Oh yeah, and excellent beaches. Just a note: most of the phtos here are stolen from teh internet. I don't have access to our flash drive at the moment, so I'll do my best.
Our journey to the Ko began on a lovely bus from Bangkok. Small aside...we decided so late in the game that we wanted to go to Ko Phangan that all the trains AND buses were sold out the day we tried to make reservations. So we spent an extra day in Bangkok, and visited the Chatuchak market, also known as JJ Market.
Holy. Shit. Guys, if you think Angkor Wat blew my brain out, well, JJ blew my brain out TWICE. Talk about some serious onion-ing. That place is a nutfarm of shopping. It is a shopping mecca about the size of 257 football fields, where you can buy anything from preserved rat feet to ice cream on buns to old sneakers to baby squirrels. It's a miracle we made it out alive. We had an amazing afternoon, where even Arli got into the shopping spirit and blew several hundred baht on some wicked cool shared clothing.
The coolest photo I could find of Chatuchak- and quite appropriate, I believe. Side note- we went back again the next weekend...
Anyway, with our loads considerably heavier, it was on to the bus station to get to the Ko. It was an overnight bus, one of those posh double-decker, airbrushed affairs with blue LED undercarriage lighting. Upon arrival at the dock aproximately 11 hours later, a nice young man approached us and sold us on a night at his bungalows at Ao Srithanu (Ao means "bay". I think.) on the Ko. Since we didn't really know where we wanted to stay (just that we DIDN'T want to stay in Haad Rin, the center of all the partying), it was fine with us to make the commitment.
The place was called Laem Son (known to us as Lame Son the rest of the week), and we arrived there later on that morning after an exquisitely boring ferry ride. Well, well. To put it bluntly, folks, this place is the balls. A beautiful, quiet stretch of white sand and clear blue water to call our own. Yow. They showed us to our little bungalow, we said hi to the ants, and hopped into our swimmies and ran out the door to the beach. Ah yes. We had all sorts of grand plans for the week, but the sight of this slice of the heaven pie made us abandon most of them.
I nabbed this from some other blog, hence the sunset as opposed to daytime view. Nabbers can't be choosers.
The first day we just lazed around, swimming and sunning and eating panang curry. Later that night, we discovered that the beach is also perfect for heart-melting sunsets (see above). Sigh. We watched the sun disappear over a coldish beer at the Three Monkeys Bar at the end of the beach, the local hippie hangout. We watched several sunsets from there, and made lots of weird and wonderful friends.
The next day, as usual, was full of plans to do something or other, but we ended up hanging out with Tip the tattooer and his sweet Brit girlfriend at Bamboo Tattoo, and getting our first tattoos, traditional Thai bamboo style. They hurt a little, but the great thing about bamboo is that it doesn't bleed at all- no scab, so we could go swimming the next day. Nice! Here is a cheesy picture of mine that I sent to Mum n Dad, you'll have to wait for a picture of Arli's until we unpack the flash drive someday.
Welcome to the densely populated world of the tattooed! It's a racing pig. Dad-o made me a keychain just like it when I was a wee one, so it's special to me. Oh the tattoo with a secial meaning....Tip wanted to make it all tribal-y looking, but I was like, nope just that please.
So anyhow- the next few days were full of same-same swimming and lazing about. We did some sub-par snorkeling at the northern tip of the island, rented a motorbike and got lost several times, ate some mexican food, drank lots of beer with our new pals (howdy Eddie!), played with puppies, fought gigantic bugs, and generally chilled out. One night (the night of Half-Moon party, incidentally) we spent down in Haad-Rin, expanding our minds and observing the generally crazy and delightfully colorful atmosphere. One thing we refrained from that night was the consumption of one of these:
Ah, the bucket. A can of Coke, bottle of vodka, and bottle of M-150 (aka, Redbull). And some ice. They were selling these everywhere, with creative names such as "F**king Cheap Bucket" and "F**king Good Bucket". I'll stick to my shakes, thank you very much. We shared a truck back to the bungalow with some Half Moon partiers who looked like they'd had quite enough partying already, thank you very much, at the relatively early hour of 10PM. Shared our stories with Eddy over a beer, and got on to bed.
Our last full day on the island was spent on a boat tour of Ang Thong Marine National Park. We actually did some worthwhile snorkeling (who knew how much cooler LIVE coral was than DEAD coral!!), swam on a few lightly populated beaches, and got scared off a hiking trail by a band of maurading, rabid monkeys. I hate monkeys.
Not much else to report on our vacation week- it was the perfect break from our trip- just what we needed before we decended on India, which has been "incredible" (as the advertisements boast), but far from vacation-like, however. Ko Phanagan gets our vote for "Place Most Likely To Host a Sarah and Arli Mid-Life Crisis Bar Ownership On a Beach". As long as there are laws to be broken, and amputated limbs to be mended, we could very well end up there some day....
Anywho- back to the paneer. Ms. Arli will be updating you shortly on what we've been getting up to in Darjeeling and Varanasi. Namaste!
So I'm here to write some belated prose regarding our "vacation" week on the island paradise that is Ko Pha-Ngan, off the southeastern coast of Thailand (oh how we mis you, Thailand!). We had a hell of a week on the little limestone mount of Ko Pha-Ngan, which is primarily known for the wacked-out Full Moon Parties (and Half Moon parties, and Black Moon, and Shiva Moon, and...), drugs, hippies, and a general party atmosphere. Oh yeah, and excellent beaches. Just a note: most of the phtos here are stolen from teh internet. I don't have access to our flash drive at the moment, so I'll do my best.
Our journey to the Ko began on a lovely bus from Bangkok. Small aside...we decided so late in the game that we wanted to go to Ko Phangan that all the trains AND buses were sold out the day we tried to make reservations. So we spent an extra day in Bangkok, and visited the Chatuchak market, also known as JJ Market.
Holy. Shit. Guys, if you think Angkor Wat blew my brain out, well, JJ blew my brain out TWICE. Talk about some serious onion-ing. That place is a nutfarm of shopping. It is a shopping mecca about the size of 257 football fields, where you can buy anything from preserved rat feet to ice cream on buns to old sneakers to baby squirrels. It's a miracle we made it out alive. We had an amazing afternoon, where even Arli got into the shopping spirit and blew several hundred baht on some wicked cool shared clothing.
The coolest photo I could find of Chatuchak- and quite appropriate, I believe. Side note- we went back again the next weekend...
Anyway, with our loads considerably heavier, it was on to the bus station to get to the Ko. It was an overnight bus, one of those posh double-decker, airbrushed affairs with blue LED undercarriage lighting. Upon arrival at the dock aproximately 11 hours later, a nice young man approached us and sold us on a night at his bungalows at Ao Srithanu (Ao means "bay". I think.) on the Ko. Since we didn't really know where we wanted to stay (just that we DIDN'T want to stay in Haad Rin, the center of all the partying), it was fine with us to make the commitment.
The place was called Laem Son (known to us as Lame Son the rest of the week), and we arrived there later on that morning after an exquisitely boring ferry ride. Well, well. To put it bluntly, folks, this place is the balls. A beautiful, quiet stretch of white sand and clear blue water to call our own. Yow. They showed us to our little bungalow, we said hi to the ants, and hopped into our swimmies and ran out the door to the beach. Ah yes. We had all sorts of grand plans for the week, but the sight of this slice of the heaven pie made us abandon most of them.
I nabbed this from some other blog, hence the sunset as opposed to daytime view. Nabbers can't be choosers.
The first day we just lazed around, swimming and sunning and eating panang curry. Later that night, we discovered that the beach is also perfect for heart-melting sunsets (see above). Sigh. We watched the sun disappear over a coldish beer at the Three Monkeys Bar at the end of the beach, the local hippie hangout. We watched several sunsets from there, and made lots of weird and wonderful friends.
The next day, as usual, was full of plans to do something or other, but we ended up hanging out with Tip the tattooer and his sweet Brit girlfriend at Bamboo Tattoo, and getting our first tattoos, traditional Thai bamboo style. They hurt a little, but the great thing about bamboo is that it doesn't bleed at all- no scab, so we could go swimming the next day. Nice! Here is a cheesy picture of mine that I sent to Mum n Dad, you'll have to wait for a picture of Arli's until we unpack the flash drive someday.
Welcome to the densely populated world of the tattooed! It's a racing pig. Dad-o made me a keychain just like it when I was a wee one, so it's special to me. Oh the tattoo with a secial meaning....Tip wanted to make it all tribal-y looking, but I was like, nope just that please.
So anyhow- the next few days were full of same-same swimming and lazing about. We did some sub-par snorkeling at the northern tip of the island, rented a motorbike and got lost several times, ate some mexican food, drank lots of beer with our new pals (howdy Eddie!), played with puppies, fought gigantic bugs, and generally chilled out. One night (the night of Half-Moon party, incidentally) we spent down in Haad-Rin, expanding our minds and observing the generally crazy and delightfully colorful atmosphere. One thing we refrained from that night was the consumption of one of these:
Ah, the bucket. A can of Coke, bottle of vodka, and bottle of M-150 (aka, Redbull). And some ice. They were selling these everywhere, with creative names such as "F**king Cheap Bucket" and "F**king Good Bucket". I'll stick to my shakes, thank you very much. We shared a truck back to the bungalow with some Half Moon partiers who looked like they'd had quite enough partying already, thank you very much, at the relatively early hour of 10PM. Shared our stories with Eddy over a beer, and got on to bed.
Our last full day on the island was spent on a boat tour of Ang Thong Marine National Park. We actually did some worthwhile snorkeling (who knew how much cooler LIVE coral was than DEAD coral!!), swam on a few lightly populated beaches, and got scared off a hiking trail by a band of maurading, rabid monkeys. I hate monkeys.
Not much else to report on our vacation week- it was the perfect break from our trip- just what we needed before we decended on India, which has been "incredible" (as the advertisements boast), but far from vacation-like, however. Ko Phanagan gets our vote for "Place Most Likely To Host a Sarah and Arli Mid-Life Crisis Bar Ownership On a Beach". As long as there are laws to be broken, and amputated limbs to be mended, we could very well end up there some day....
Anywho- back to the paneer. Ms. Arli will be updating you shortly on what we've been getting up to in Darjeeling and Varanasi. Namaste!
Transformations and Reincarnations
More updates for you! We have temporarily skipped over our beautiful stay in the mountain town of Darjeeling to bring you fresher news - the past four days in Varanasi! Again I will narrate for you through pictures, as going through each of our days would take the rest of my trip, and besides you all need to get back to work soon and stop goofing around reading our blog!
We survived a long train journey to get to Varanasi, aided by several mud cups of "chai, chai, chai". These got tossed out the moving train's window. Fun!
We downgraded to sleeper car, the non-air conditioned, more crowded method of travel. The insides of our lungs got a nice coating of soot by morning, but otherwise our sleeping platforms suited us just fine.
A shout-out to all the nice Indian families who helped us through the journey. We always have helpers around, whether it is a family waiting to translate the announcement for which platform our train is arriving on, a young girl who helped me jump off at a stop to buy vegetarian briyani, or a crowd of men who literally chased away a sketchy old man who was paying us too much attention in the station. Thank you all!
We spent many hours looking at towns like this one fly by the train window.
After haggling with the auto-rickshaw drivers who only want to take you to hotels that give them commission, we finally arrived at one very dirty but nicely air conditioned room. (There is a heat wave in India currently, the hottest temperatures they've had in eight years, so we splurged on our first AC room since Laos.) I won't lie, we spent a good few hours of our first day doing our laundry, cleaning the bathroom floor, and even scrubbing some walls in that place. It looks great now, you're welcome next guest.
Varanasi immediately stole our hearts. For those of you non-Hindu's, it is one of the holiest cities in India. There are religious activities going on any which way you look, and especially along the very holy, if very polluted, Ganges river. We woke up at dawn one morning to take a boat ride along the river and see the sites. Besides for some of the coolest breezes we've felt here, we saw the bustle of early morning on the Ganges. Hoards of people come to bathe in the river.
Bathing is not simply to clean themselves, but is part of a religious ritual. After bathing they go up to temples and shrines located by the riverside for prayer.
Here is a father and son looking out on the activities of the river in the morning.
Nighttime is also a busy time along the Ganges. There are nightly religious ceremonies performed, and you cannot help but to run into some prayer, music or dancing going on.
Sarah and I also worked on perfect our 'India chic' style here. After a few shopping trips we are now starting to blend in more, resulting in somewhat fewer stares and unwanted attention.
But we refrained from entering this shop shown below, which sells some things you just don't want to have on your bed.
We survived a long train journey to get to Varanasi, aided by several mud cups of "chai, chai, chai". These got tossed out the moving train's window. Fun!
We downgraded to sleeper car, the non-air conditioned, more crowded method of travel. The insides of our lungs got a nice coating of soot by morning, but otherwise our sleeping platforms suited us just fine.
A shout-out to all the nice Indian families who helped us through the journey. We always have helpers around, whether it is a family waiting to translate the announcement for which platform our train is arriving on, a young girl who helped me jump off at a stop to buy vegetarian briyani, or a crowd of men who literally chased away a sketchy old man who was paying us too much attention in the station. Thank you all!
We spent many hours looking at towns like this one fly by the train window.
After haggling with the auto-rickshaw drivers who only want to take you to hotels that give them commission, we finally arrived at one very dirty but nicely air conditioned room. (There is a heat wave in India currently, the hottest temperatures they've had in eight years, so we splurged on our first AC room since Laos.) I won't lie, we spent a good few hours of our first day doing our laundry, cleaning the bathroom floor, and even scrubbing some walls in that place. It looks great now, you're welcome next guest.
Varanasi immediately stole our hearts. For those of you non-Hindu's, it is one of the holiest cities in India. There are religious activities going on any which way you look, and especially along the very holy, if very polluted, Ganges river. We woke up at dawn one morning to take a boat ride along the river and see the sites. Besides for some of the coolest breezes we've felt here, we saw the bustle of early morning on the Ganges. Hoards of people come to bathe in the river.
Bathing is not simply to clean themselves, but is part of a religious ritual. After bathing they go up to temples and shrines located by the riverside for prayer.
Here is a father and son looking out on the activities of the river in the morning.Nighttime is also a busy time along the Ganges. There are nightly religious ceremonies performed, and you cannot help but to run into some prayer, music or dancing going on.
And now a non picture-filled interlude, for there is an important part of Varanasi life that cannot be photographed. Varanasi is particularly holy because if you die here, according to Hindu beliefs, you achieve moksha, an escape from the cycle of reincarnation. Anyone who is able to bring their loved one to Varanasi for their funeral does so. Bodies are cremated along the river, in huge bonfires. Onlookers are invited to walk right up to these bonfires, see the torsos of the bodies sticking out from the fire, and watch as flesh melts away from their faces. It is a haunting experience. We learned so many interesting facts about the cremations - how much wood it takes to burn a body (250 kilos), how the first son of the deceased must light the fire and once he leaves the body he cannot look back so the spirit of that body does not follow him, how a man's chest and a woman's hip do not burn and are deposited into the Ganges, how Shiva makes sure that even through a rainstorm the fires will still burn, and much more. We returned a few times to observe this fascinating ritual, though could never stay for too long before our eyes started to burn from smoke.
The streets and alleys of Varanasi provided us with days more of entertainment. There was always some excitement going on. Here I am looking very excited.
The first thing you notice about the city is that it is overrun by several different factions - humans, of course, but mixed in are water buffalo herds, wandering cows, trash-eating goats, friendly dogs, and mischievous monkeys. We could put together a whole album of our animal shots, they are too funny.
As usual we did our share of baby stalking. We were haunted by the dark eye makeup applied to some small children, supposedly so that others cannot look into their eyes and steal their souls.
Sarah and I also worked on perfect our 'India chic' style here. After a few shopping trips we are now starting to blend in more, resulting in somewhat fewer stares and unwanted attention.
Speaking of shopping, that has been another favorite activity of ours. Great cheap clothing here! The shopkeepers are excellent salesman, and can lure even tough nuts like Sarah and I in to their stores to buy goods we didn't even know we wanted...
But we refrained from entering this shop shown below, which sells some things you just don't want to have on your bed.
Yes, the streets of Varanasi kept us quite entertained. We tried to capture some of the chaos of a bicycle rickshaw ride in the video clip below. Tonight we head out to Khajuraho, and then on to the Taj Mahal! Until soon.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Krazy Kolkata
Hey! We made it to India. Sarah will soon fill you in on our last week in Thailand on the beautiful island of Ko Phangan - unbelievably nice. But in the meantime I thought I'd throw in some pictures from our first few days in Kolkata. What a shock of a difference! India is just as hectic, dirty and crazy as they say.
Obey Traffic Rules. Words of advice that not many take to heart here.
The Indian Museum was full of weird artifacts, lots of taxidermy and bones, malformed preserved fetuses, and other fun stuff.
Bananas! This fruit market had more bananas and oranges than you thought existed in this world.
Sleeping cows, on the street.
A miniature tailor shop! All the stores are miniature here, tucked into little holes in the wall, and often split level so that one person is selling from the upper half and one squatted underneath.
Busy busy streets of Kolkata. Some use carts, some use trucks, and some just stick their goods on top of their heads. Sidenote - I got my foot run over by a bicycle cart! Luckily no goods on board, so I'm just fine. Lesson learned: look both ways before stepping off the sidewalk here.
Goat on the street.
Street-side kitchen. Yum.
Sarah and a gaggle of men staring at her. We are quite the hit here in Kolkata - often when walking down the street we are stopped to shake hands, and every move we make is most certainly being watched (and often laughed at) by a local. Celebrities!
Fruit market craziness.
Bathtime on the streets. Many people wash using the old-fashioned hand pumps on the streets here.
Our feast this afternoon. We also bought one for the sweet man and his wife and daughter who 'just needed a little help getting by'.
Fresh orange juice hand cranked.
We visited the Mother Teresa house and tomb. She was one impressive lady.
Hand-pulled rickshaws. We haven't had the heart yet to have one of these poor tough guys run us around the city.
Chai tea in little ceramic 'mud' cups - the caffeine of choice on the streets. They only use each cup once.
We are headed to Darjeeling soon, and can't wait to escape the heat (we haven't stopped sweating since we arrived here) and enjoy the cool mountains. Until soon!
Obey Traffic Rules. Words of advice that not many take to heart here.
The Indian Museum was full of weird artifacts, lots of taxidermy and bones, malformed preserved fetuses, and other fun stuff.
Bananas! This fruit market had more bananas and oranges than you thought existed in this world.
Sleeping cows, on the street.
A miniature tailor shop! All the stores are miniature here, tucked into little holes in the wall, and often split level so that one person is selling from the upper half and one squatted underneath.
Busy busy streets of Kolkata. Some use carts, some use trucks, and some just stick their goods on top of their heads. Sidenote - I got my foot run over by a bicycle cart! Luckily no goods on board, so I'm just fine. Lesson learned: look both ways before stepping off the sidewalk here.
Goat on the street.
Street-side kitchen. Yum.
Sarah and a gaggle of men staring at her. We are quite the hit here in Kolkata - often when walking down the street we are stopped to shake hands, and every move we make is most certainly being watched (and often laughed at) by a local. Celebrities!
Fruit market craziness.
Bathtime on the streets. Many people wash using the old-fashioned hand pumps on the streets here.
Our feast this afternoon. We also bought one for the sweet man and his wife and daughter who 'just needed a little help getting by'.
Fresh orange juice hand cranked.
We visited the Mother Teresa house and tomb. She was one impressive lady.
Hand-pulled rickshaws. We haven't had the heart yet to have one of these poor tough guys run us around the city.
Chai tea in little ceramic 'mud' cups - the caffeine of choice on the streets. They only use each cup once.
We are headed to Darjeeling soon, and can't wait to escape the heat (we haven't stopped sweating since we arrived here) and enjoy the cool mountains. Until soon!
Monday, May 3, 2010
Angkor, Amok, & Ang, Oh My!
Cambodia, Cambodia--What a weird and wonderful place. Arli and Sarah have already skipped ahead and given you a taste of the bizarro and endearing aspects of one of the poorest nations in SE Asia. We've only got more.
The experience began with an appropriately strange bus trip from Bangkok. We bought a ticket that combined the trip from Bangkok to the border with one to Siem Reap, gateway to Angkor Wat. The van to Cambodia was unbelievably air-conditioned and empty but for the four of us. Too good to be true? Pretty much. Less than an hour outside of Bangkok, an axle issue landed us at a roadside mechanic shop for five-- yep, FIVE-- hours. Our dopey driver kept saying "thirty minute, thirty minute!." We suspect he did not understand that it was an actual time measurement.
Thirty minutes/ five hours later, we were back on track and headed for the border. There is so very much to say about our four days in Siem Reap. Our first night, we got our first taste of the street kids of Cambodia when a small, dirty child jumped on Mich like a spider-monkey and wouldn't let go. She tried to pry him off and he just hung upside down with his legs locked around her middle.
The next day, good natured kid Ang drove us all over creation in his tuk tuk, beginning with the floating village. We weren't really sure what that was, but it turned out to be a total tourist trap, though still worth seeing. We hopped in a boat which proceeded to get stuck in a very muddy tributary of the Tonle Sap river/lake. Fashionable boat driver to the rescue! The young lad jumped right out with his punting oar, skinny jeans and all-- and so did Arli! Eventually we made it to the floating village-- significantly out in the lake, a village of displaced Vietnamese people live in stilted houses. We saw kids playing in floating wash basins, beggars approaching in canoes, and a very small pen full of a whole lot of big crocodiles.
We ended the day with a sunset visit to Angkor Wat, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Angkor is actually a whole park full of ruins, the jewel of which is a vast and magnificent temple, Angkor Wat proper. Sunset that night and sunrise the next day (at 5 a.m., things I am never doing again) meant our first impressions were of a haunting and serene architectural gem. It was so amazing, Sarah had some trouble calming down. "My mind is blown! It's an onion guys, AN ONION!!" Yes, Sarah, it had many layers. Other highlights of the approximately 172 hours we spent there were Bayon (with huge smug faces carved into the prangs), buildings completely violated by massive trees and morbidly obese monkeys. It was overwhelming and gorgeous.
Troopers that we all are, after a short nap we headed out on the town. We watched traditional apsara dancers over Khmer food (amok) before heading down the street to watch ladyboy apsara dancers over Cambodian beer. A night unlike any other, to be sure. We ended the night at the most exciting place of all: Hip Hop Club!! Our 21 year old driver Ang had told us about it, but insisted that it was "Cambodian only". But armed with our new friend Tong, who literally pulled us past the bouncers when they weren't looking, we were in! Beer flowed at a fraction of the tourist price, Cambodian music pumped, and we basically couldn't see anything cuz it was so dark. Success! The next day we told Ang where we'd gone and he was astounded and impressed. Rightly so.
The next day.... well, the next day we said our goodbyes and headed off to seek our fortunes, as you saw in the previous post. Meeting up with A&S in Asia was one of the best things we've ever done. Thanks for having us, friends!!-- or should I say Kop Kun Kah!
Here are some pics of the adventure. They're kind of out of order b/c Blogger is being grumpy.
Imagine yourself on an exotic vacation... lounging in this grimy, hot mechanic shop, fighting off dogs to go to the squat toilet. Heaven on earth-- for five long hours.
Arli preparing to jump into the water to save our ship from the shallow murky depths! How was the water? Arli said mucky and hot. Thank the construction happening on the banks. There is definitely no geologist taking soil samples here.
The experience began with an appropriately strange bus trip from Bangkok. We bought a ticket that combined the trip from Bangkok to the border with one to Siem Reap, gateway to Angkor Wat. The van to Cambodia was unbelievably air-conditioned and empty but for the four of us. Too good to be true? Pretty much. Less than an hour outside of Bangkok, an axle issue landed us at a roadside mechanic shop for five-- yep, FIVE-- hours. Our dopey driver kept saying "thirty minute, thirty minute!." We suspect he did not understand that it was an actual time measurement.
Thirty minutes/ five hours later, we were back on track and headed for the border. There is so very much to say about our four days in Siem Reap. Our first night, we got our first taste of the street kids of Cambodia when a small, dirty child jumped on Mich like a spider-monkey and wouldn't let go. She tried to pry him off and he just hung upside down with his legs locked around her middle.
The next day, good natured kid Ang drove us all over creation in his tuk tuk, beginning with the floating village. We weren't really sure what that was, but it turned out to be a total tourist trap, though still worth seeing. We hopped in a boat which proceeded to get stuck in a very muddy tributary of the Tonle Sap river/lake. Fashionable boat driver to the rescue! The young lad jumped right out with his punting oar, skinny jeans and all-- and so did Arli! Eventually we made it to the floating village-- significantly out in the lake, a village of displaced Vietnamese people live in stilted houses. We saw kids playing in floating wash basins, beggars approaching in canoes, and a very small pen full of a whole lot of big crocodiles.
We ended the day with a sunset visit to Angkor Wat, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Angkor is actually a whole park full of ruins, the jewel of which is a vast and magnificent temple, Angkor Wat proper. Sunset that night and sunrise the next day (at 5 a.m., things I am never doing again) meant our first impressions were of a haunting and serene architectural gem. It was so amazing, Sarah had some trouble calming down. "My mind is blown! It's an onion guys, AN ONION!!" Yes, Sarah, it had many layers. Other highlights of the approximately 172 hours we spent there were Bayon (with huge smug faces carved into the prangs), buildings completely violated by massive trees and morbidly obese monkeys. It was overwhelming and gorgeous.
Troopers that we all are, after a short nap we headed out on the town. We watched traditional apsara dancers over Khmer food (amok) before heading down the street to watch ladyboy apsara dancers over Cambodian beer. A night unlike any other, to be sure. We ended the night at the most exciting place of all: Hip Hop Club!! Our 21 year old driver Ang had told us about it, but insisted that it was "Cambodian only". But armed with our new friend Tong, who literally pulled us past the bouncers when they weren't looking, we were in! Beer flowed at a fraction of the tourist price, Cambodian music pumped, and we basically couldn't see anything cuz it was so dark. Success! The next day we told Ang where we'd gone and he was astounded and impressed. Rightly so.
The next day.... well, the next day we said our goodbyes and headed off to seek our fortunes, as you saw in the previous post. Meeting up with A&S in Asia was one of the best things we've ever done. Thanks for having us, friends!!-- or should I say Kop Kun Kah!
Here are some pics of the adventure. They're kind of out of order b/c Blogger is being grumpy.
Imagine yourself on an exotic vacation... lounging in this grimy, hot mechanic shop, fighting off dogs to go to the squat toilet. Heaven on earth-- for five long hours.Arli preparing to jump into the water to save our ship from the shallow murky depths! How was the water? Arli said mucky and hot. Thank the construction happening on the banks. There is definitely no geologist taking soil samples here.Inside the onion a little after dawn.
Angkor Wat is lined with amazing murals that tell stories like Chief Hanuman's monkey army going into battle, or The Churning of the Sea of Milk. This is some sort of battle on chariots and elephants, probably from the Ramayana.
Someone left the face out in the rain.
Nature wins!
Fashion shoot at the Elephant Terrace.
Everyone here drinks out of bags. I am not kidding.
Meggo and Mich at Angkor Wat.
Traditional apsara dancer.
Ladyboy apsara dancers.
Omg we got into Hip Hop Club! This is so much cooler than the Peach Pit! Looking sharp with our new Filipino/Singaporean friend Mark.
Ang took us to the airport in his sweet tuk-tuk. Good bye Ang! We'll miss you! Have fun at Hip Hop Club!
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