A Long Layover in Bangkok

We only had two nights in Bangkok before heading to London so there was not enough time to get out of the city and see more of Thailand.  We stayed in an amazing hotel in a great location and had a wonderful time exploring.  Raj’s sister, Su, had given us the number of a friend of hers near Bangkok who wanted to show us around for a few hours, so for our first day we were fortunate enough to have a wonderful tour guide. Mon took us to the Grand Palace (houses the Thai King, Parliament as well as the Emerald Buddha, among many other things), which we likely would have skipped had we been on our own because we had seen SO many palaces/temples and were feeling very done with the typical tourist sites.  However, Bangkok’s most famous palace was absolutely stunning and we were very glad to have seen it.  Each building had lovely architecture and beautiful detail.  The heat that day was again stifling so we spent a few hours inside before heading out to an early dinner at the waterfront – we went to a restaurant that we never would have found on our own, yet was a very nice local seafood restaurant with great views, and also a collection of strange amphibians (which they don’t eat).  We even got to see how they make dumplings.  Later we went to a night bazaar and spent an hour or so checking out the millions of options.  We picked up a few souvenirs but didn’t have time to work our way through the incredible maze and finish up.

Our last day in Bangkok, and technically our last day of the adventure portion of our trip (because London is all about family and it’s familiar), we decided it was about time to finish up our souvenir shopping.  After months of worrying about baggage restrictions, we were ready to weigh our bags down because we only had international flights left.  We spent hours weaving through the overwhelming traffic in the horrible humidity and crowded markets picking up item after item.  It was such a relief to finally buy things for family and friends that we had been seeing over and over again in Asia but unable to pack.  While we were out shopping we also got the chance to get some street food for a snack; we played it safe and bought a bag of fresh sliced mango and a chilled coconut to drink and it turned out to be the perfect refreshment for getting us through!  Later that night we packed up all our goodies into our bags that suddenly felt much heavier and took off for the airport for our midnight flight to London!!!

Charming Cambodia

After several travelers along the way suggested that we visit Cambodia, we were both excited to go there, but also had high expectations.  At this time of year, the most practical way to get there from Vietnam was to take a flight, but we also had to drive back to Ho Chin Minh City from Mui Ne.  Unfortunately, when I woke up the day we were leaving,  I realized right away that something was very very wrong with my stomach.  After a couple of hours of packing up yet getting no better, I was feeling panicked about the upcoming five hour car ride and subsequent three hours in an airport and on a plane.  Some combination of overdosing on Imodium and pure determination to not be sick while on the rode got me to Siem Reap, Cambodia and our hotel without incident – though it was not a pleasant journey for me.  However, within an hour of checking in, it became apparent that I was very ill.  Although in the end I seem to have either had food poisoning or some horrible 24 hour bug, I was sick enough that Raj was looking up details of Swine Flu symptoms and I was telling him to find the number for our travel insurance so that we could arrange to airlift me out of Cambodia – and I hadn’t even seen anything but the airport yet! By the way, we had a bit of scare at the airport in Siem Reap when we applied for our Visas on Arrival because my passport is FULL! There were NO blank pages that they could place my visa on! In the end, they made me pay an extra $10 so that they would stick the visa on top of other stamps in passport – so now my Cambodian visa hides my stamps from India and my passport is officially full, which I suppose means it is time to go home :)

Thankfully, by the next morning, the worst of my funk was over and we headed out for a very busy day exploring.  The night before we had commissioned our taxi driver to be our personal driver for the duration of our stay in Cambodia (a great tip other travelers gave us - much cheaper than arranging a private driver in advance of arriving, and it worked out beautifully).  More similarities with India assaulted us as we approached Angkor Wat, which is not so unlike the Taj Mahal in scale and impressiveness; were in not in ruins, it would certainly be as popular.  Surrounding the entrance were dozens of people, especially children, trying to sell souvenirs and such, something that we had not seen much of on this trip.   Despite the oppressive heat and humidity, we spent nearly two hours wandering around Angkor Wat and marveling at the scale of the former temple (built as a Hindu temple and later converted to Buddhist).  The grounds were lovely as well and were massive enough that for most of our time there, we felt completely alone in this wondrous place – often we looked around to find no humans, but sometimes a monkey or a stray dog.  The carvings throughout the buildings were beautiful and it must have been unbelievable before it was destroyed.  We also visited Angkor Wat again the next morning at sunrise, which was beautiful lighting to see it by and certainly less hot, but it was surprisingly packed with tourists at 5:30 in the morning!

After Angkor Wat, we went to another temple in ruins called Ta Prohm, which is where Lara Croft Tomb Raider was filmed.  It was much smaller and in terrible condition, but it was home to the most fantastic trees!  These trees were around 500 years old and grew through walls  with exposed roots – completely awing!   Later that day we also went through the South Gate to the Bayon Temple that is famous for all the faces carved into the stone as well as the Elephant Terrace.  Once again we were mesmerized by the carvings and scale of the places.  It was amazing and a complete maze to find our way around the hundreds of faces!  There was yet another temple we visited about 35 km away from Siem Reap called Banteay Srei, or Temple of the Lady,  which had some of the most intricately carved pieces we have seen. The color of the stone was a beautiful reddish color with some green as well, which must have been moss or mold, but was really lovely.

In Siem Reap we visited the Floating Village, and essentially drove through a very poor area to get there.  Each home we passed seemed to have at least one naked little toddler playing (there were babies EVERYWHERE in Cambodia).  The Floating Village, too, seemed to be very poor and the canals were so polluted, yet we saw kids swimming and playing and people drinking from the water at the same time as washing their clothes in it.  We saw tiny little homes with people chilling out with their monkey, goat and dog in their one room area on the water.  Though the poverty was obvious, what stood out the most was how content everyone seemed to be.  Though it was an appalling lifestyle by our standards, the kids played as if they had everything they wanted.

We got really lucky one night at dinner in the hotel because they was a performance that our table had a front row view of.  The way the girls danced was beautiful and I was particularly fascinated by the way they use their hands – so lovely (Dipali mum, Raj says he remembers you being able to do that and I want to see when we get to London!!!).

Perhaps the most adventurous few hours we had in Cambodia was the 5+ hour drive from Siem Reap to the capital of Phnom Penh.  Our driver timidly requested that we allow his family to make the drive with us (in a van) because his parents live in Phnom Penh and had not met his 10 month old daughter.  Though we knew this also meant his wife and two year old son would be coming as well, we felt he had been so sweet that we could handle a potentially packed van and crying kids – if nothing else, we could call it practice for the future!  Well, his wife and kids were beautiful and the kids hardly cried at all.  Along the way, Sothea, our driver, stopped to buy sticky rice from the side of the rode. This is essentially the equivalent of us stopping in the south for hot boiled peanuts, but instead is some combination of rice, coconut milk and black beans steamed in bamboo. It was delicious and was a perfect driving snack!  Not quite as tempting was when our driver stopped again for some more snacks for his family; this time, he was picking up fried spiders and cockroaches!!!  These spiders were HUGE and the whole family just munched on a confetti bag full of them – it was crazy!  We also saw a colorful sunset over the never-ending rice fields that was simply poetic; I doubt the picture does it justice.

We found Phnom Penh to be a relatively modern city with museums and a nice palace where the king and queen’s son lives alone while they live in Beijing.  Most notably, we visited the Killing Fields and the Genocide Museum which serve as memorials to the 3 million victims from 1975 to 1979 who were murdered by Pol Pot during the Khmer Rouge Regime.  While my parents recall hearing about the horrors that occurred, Raj and I were completely ignorant of the atrocities and I assume a large number of our generation are as well.  I’ve never visited the Holocaust museum but I would venture a guess that what we saw was similarly moving and no less baffling; how or why humans do such things absolutely mystifies me.  While I left the museum angry, sad and close to being sick, I am glad we took the time to get a better understanding of Cambodia’s history, especially because it is relatively recent and impacts the people there today.  

A couple of random things about Cambodia:   1) we discovered that US currency is used everywhere.  Though Cambodian Riel is also used, there was absolutely no place that US dollars wasn’t dominate – even when we got money from ATM, it gave us dollars! 2) Cambodian people  generally resemble Indian people; this might be because of their history, but we both noticed it several times. It’s a useless observation, but there you have it 3) everyone was so so nice and authentic 4) Our favorite sight in Cambodia may have been three monks on one motorcycle plus a driver :)

If you have never before considered traveling to Cambodia, we highly recommend you put it near the top of your list.  We were not disappointed at all despite our high expectations and we would love to return there someday. Hopefully, if not likely, it will remain as authentic and beautiful as we found it to be on this all too short trip there.

Vietnam – Land of 5 Million Scooters

When we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, we didn’t really know what to expect. Since we had decided relatively last minute to even go to Vietnam, we didn’t do much research.  Our hotel was only about 5 km from the airport, but with traffic, it took about 40 minutes to get there and the sun was set by the time we got there.   The drive was fascinating because there were so many motorcycles on the rode!  Our driver told us that Ho Chi Minh has 10 million people and 5 million motorcycles and we do not doubt it after driving there. It is hard to describe how all the different vehicles (buses, cars, motorcycles, scooters,  bicycles) cram in together and somehow don’t kill each other,  especially when you see 3 or 4 people on one scooter often with one or two kids and/or babies.   Also, we were struck by how much our first impressions of Vietnam reminded us of India – not just the driving situation, but also the housing and shops we passed along the way. There was certainly a clear contrast between the 1st and 2nd world countries we have been visiting and 3rd world Vietnam. 

Our hotel in Ho Chi Minh was absolutely lovely.  Our room was fantastic, the pool was refreshing and the restaurants were so good that it was hard to eat outside of the hotel, which we usually prefer to do.  We had ricotta pancakes for breakfast two days in a row and they were, without a doubt, the best darn pancakes either of us have ever had!  The lunch and dinners were splendid as well and we had Vietnamese dishes like spring rolls, green mango salad, and a crushed shrimp wrapped around sugar cane and grilled – SO yummy!  When we ventured out we went to a market that was overwhelming and stifling hot, but it was still a fun experience.

The drive to the beach in Mui Ne was about 4.5 hours but it was great to see the more rural areas.  We saw countless rice fields and also dragon fruit trees.  Dragon fruit was new to both us when we got to China but it is very nice.  It is pinkish-red on the outside and white on the inside with tiny black seeds like poppy.  It is similar to watermelon but milder in flavor and texture.  (Mom, you would like the way it looks in fruit salad).  The place where we stayed was a small resort town called Phan Thiet and we had a villa overlooking the beach.  They had two restaurants as part of the hotel; one was Vietnamese and the other was German (random, but good).  Their gardens were extensive and very well maintained.

For 3 full days and 4 nights we didn’t do a whole lot besides hang out on the beach and read our books, and then go out to dinner at night.  We ate lunch every day on the beach along with mojitos and I think I ate fresh spring rolls with every single meal (sorry to rub it in mama).  The sand was sugary and nice and it was very windy, so we watched a lot of people kite-surfing.  The sun was scorching so we stayed in the shade unless we were playing in the surf or going for walks on the beach.  We also noticed that there were millions of dragonflies! At times there would be almost swarms of them up in the trees!  One day we each enjoyed hot stone massages at the outrageous cost of $15 for an hour and they were fantastic massages – no doubt that was expensive because it was in a resort.  Our villa was nice although not luxurious.  While it was nice to be in a private villa, the downside was the mosquitoes.  Luckily, we had a very nice mosquito net, but unfortunately, we were constantly in our little cocoon hiding from the mosquitoes whenever we were in the villa.  Whenever one of us ventured out of bed the other heard a constant clapping as we tried to kill the buggers.  All in all, we enjoyed Vietnam very much and the R&R was wonderful.  We left there amazed that we had only 2 weeks left of our trip and ready to take advantage and explore Cambodia!