Catching up

We've been lazy or unmotivated and this blog has been left untouched for several weeks. Let me tell you what you missed.

Siem Reap

After Phnom Penh we took yet another bus ride to Siem Reap. The town is right next to the coolest historical ruins which is the Angkor Wat complex. We started at a wonderful guesthouse (The Best Western Guesthouse) next to the night market. It is run by a friendly Aussie, has large clean rooms with AC. We were happy with this recommendation from Yasha and Yulya. At this point we truly miss their company and their good finds!

On the first day we explored the town with our friendly Canadians, David and Lena. The town is amazingly touristy but also very cute and convenient. It features several markets (night and day ones so that tourists can spend their money at any time of day), cute restaurants, bars, coffee shops and pleasant streets. Levka was the designated tour guide for the day. Which means that he held the map and the rest of us could blame him anytime he got us lost. In this manner we covered most of town. In the late afternoon we split the tuk-tuk to watch the sunset at Angkor Wat. The ruins were stunning. The sunset was iffy as it became overcast in the afternoon.

A few words about Angkor:

It's a complex of ruins that are over one thousand years old. It used to be a capital city with a population of one million. The town was left and forgotten for one thousand years. It was covered by a jungle and was discovered in the 1900s. Recently it became the most visited site in all of Southeast Asia with millions of tourists every year. I recommend reading about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat

On the second day we hired another tuk-tuk and a tour guide from the hotel to go for a full day of exploration at Angkor Wat. The guide came highly recommended and was a huge disappointment. He talked a lot about himself and his own accomplishments. One of those was his work as an interpreter during the filming of "Tomb Raider". Not sure how much work he actually did for the film but he spent most of the tour telling us where Angelina Jolie walked, how she looked, how he had a crush on her, etc etc. I'm pretty sure that if I wanted Hollywood gossip I could have stayed in US.

Regardless, the ruins were impressive. Our favorite was the "jungle temple", 1000 year old trees that grew through the temple walls. At this point the roots hold the stones together and look like this:

And yes, this temple was featured in Tomb Raider :-)

In the evening we got some good food and almost got in a bar fight at "Angkor What?", a local bar.

The following day we took another very long ride to Bangkok.

2011.12.14 Siem Reap

Bangkok

The ride was very long but went pretty smoothly including the border crossing (stamp in, stamp out - we are quite used to the whole process by now). In Thailand we boarded a mini bus which kept stopping for bathroom and snack breaks every hour. As a result we arrived to Bangkok after dark and 2 hours later than we expected. The hostel that we liked before was booked and we ended up using the lonely planet recommendation and staying at another hostel near by. It was very basic with beds as hard as the floor, no towels, no wifi, barely any light. It was run by a sweet old grandma who spoke no English and made us take our shoes off before entering the house.

That evening we ate at our favorite restaurant one last time. May Kadee's is the best place we have eaten at ever and we visited it about a dozen times over the three stays in Bangkok.

The rest of the evening we ran between different travel agencies trying to find the best way to get to Phangan island. We didn't do enough research about South America and were not ready to head there. So we decided to spend a couple more weeks (including New Years) at our favorite island while we order tickets to the next destination. We chose the most expensive and most convenient way of flying the next morning.

Now as I reflect on Bangkok, I can say that it had gone through quite a transformation in my mind. The first time it seemed huge, smelly and noisy. After visiting Vietnam, Bangkok seemed quite tame and nice and even green and quiet. Even Levka had changed his opinion and we both left Bangkok remembering it fondly.

Phangan

It is worth mentioning our trip to Phangan. It involved a shuttle to the airport, plane from Bangkok to Sura Thani, bus transfer from airport to ferry terminal, ferry to Phangan island and a tuk-tuk ride to the Fanta Bungalows. All in all a full day of travel which was still much more pleasant than the overnight bus alternative. 

The most memorable was the ferry ride. When we entered the boat, we were handed little plastic bags. Levka joked and asked whether they expected the ride to be that bad. And they replied with a definitive "YES!" That region was still experiencing the end of the monsoon and the waves ride was quite choppy. About five minutes into the ride, Levka turned completely white, then green and then ran to the bathroom and locked himself there for the rest of the trip. The only other bathroom was lined with passengers desperate to get in. In the meantime, I sat with a hood, headphones, eyes closed, trying to ignore everything that was going around me. In 1 hour, the boat stopped at Koh Samui for 5 minutes. Levka got out of the bathroom and looked like he just jumped into the water. As soon as the boat started to move, he ran back into the bathroom and stayed there for the rest of the trip.

At Fanta, we were met by the friendly faces of Yasha and Yulya (our last leg of the journey together). And of course we made it to Zhaba that same night to say hello our friends from the previous trip.

The rest of the time we spent our time idly. The weather wasn't as good as we hoped, mostly overcast with some rain and high waves. So swimming was limited. But there was plenty of reading and socializing. 

Another thing about Phangan was that it was completely full with Russians. It seems like you're not allowed on the island without a Russian passport during the months of Dec and Jan. 

After much research, we found out that it was a significant savings to fly to Central America through U.S. So we said goodbye to our friends at Zhaba a few days early and made it home just in time for New Years!