On the home stretch

Now that I'm back in the land of free internet, I can tell you I made it out of Phuket alive and well. After one afternoon of rain we had great weather to lay on the beach and enjoy the sun. My only complaint is I think my back is tight from laying on the beach too long. Although there were tons of people at a few of the beaches we went to we managed to find a quieter beach the third day by chartering a boat to one of the islands. The last day we walked down the road a found a hidden beach, well almost hidden beach, and enjoyed some quiet before we headed to the airport. Unfortunately that's where our luck ran out. The airline we used had recently been switched to another airport in Bangkok b/c of the flooding, so they have no priority in open gates, so our flight was delayed by 3hrs or so. I had a 2nd flight from Bangkok to Chang Mai, but they couldn't check me all the way through, so i missed my connection flight before I even left Phuket. They put me on the later 8pm flight. When we landed in Bangkok I was met on the run way by a very frantic employee with a shuttle van just for Ms. Lisa. He whisked me over to my next plane and ensured me my luggage would make it. Well it did...but unfortunately so did Y's luggage. She stopped in Bangkok, but her bag didnt. Hopefully they sent it back to Bangkok in time for her 730am flight home this morning. But Y, if you're reading this and you need me to look for your bag when I land in Bangkok, just give me the word.

Im off to see a few more temples and what not here in Chang Mai. I will report back on my findings...but the only thing to report so far is it's much cooler. My suntanned legs are not used to this higher elevation cooler air. I guess it's a good transition for my cold future come Thursday. Oh, and this hotel DOES have a coi pond. Y and I were led to believe our hotel in the Mekong delta would have a koi pond, but in fact it was just a planter filled with water...but this hotel actually has fish. It's nice to end in style.

We made it to Phuket this morning after a short and easy plane trip from Bangkok. After a short walk on the beach and some unidentified booze out or a fresh coconut, it started to rain. And not they type of rain you can wait out and swim through...it was 'take cover and get another drink' rain. Hopefully this isn't the norm for the upcoming weekend, but the weather report does say chance of rain each day.

But on a brighter note, you'll be happy to hear Phuket is also a hot destination for the russians! So don't worry folks, I wont be without my sunbathing companions. Im pretty sure Y & I are the only two in the resort that don't speak russian. Maybe it's about time we learn, and with 4 days of rain, it looks like we may have time.

Sorry it's been a while, but Bangkok is keeping us busy. We got here Monday afternoon from Siem Reap. I've been avoiding telling you that Y and I threw in the white flag (just a minor white flag) when it came to another long, overland journey. Looking at another 8-10 hr bus ride from Cambodia to Bangkok, still not fully recovered from our previous treks, we decided we couldn't roll like we used to and bought a plan ticket. Apparently we aren't as tough as we used to be, but we are both perfectly fine with that and able to sleep peacefully with our decision.

Bangkok is pretty wild, especially coming from Cambodia, but we're keeping pace. After settling into our strange, institutional hotel in the middle of little Aussie, we immediately set out for some shopping. Since i was a tad under the weather, I don't feel like I was able to give it my all, but maybe today I will redeem myself. Yesterday we spent the day visiting the grand palace and a few temples (which were both amazing)...but mostly we spent the day walking in hot weather. We both underestimated the distances on the crappy map we have and as a result ended up walking for hours...it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the constant exhaust, loud traffic & lack of sidewalks that dump you into oncoming traffic. It's not a pleasant morning stroll in any sense. Luckily I'm still in the land of cheap massages, so an hour foot massage at the end of the day surely helps.

Not sure what we're doing today-- we may check out chinatown & a different part of the old city and then off to Phuket tomorrow til Monday. With 4 days of beach in our future I should be able to push through one more day of hard core touring.

Cambodia is not the Swiss Alps of SE Asia.

We survived our morning bike ride without any major incidences. It was a bit hot & dusty, but the roads were completely flat. We spent about 4 hrs biking around small roads and dirt lanes and stopping at few places. We first stopped at a market in a small town so our guide could buy snacks and then stopped at (what I figured was someones house) to eat in their front yard. After another 10km we turned onto a small lane on top of a damn where our guide pointed out a killing field discovered in the 90s. We stopped to visit a family that was boiling down palm sap to make palm sugar-- which smells and looks just like maple syrup. All and all it was a good time, maybe minus the Swiss Family Robinson of 4 we ended up with. They were very HM and a bunch of pansies that kept stopping for water or pictures, and then to clean wounds when the father fell in the sandy road. The impatient Americans (read: us) were putting up with the shenanigans until they started handing out money to the kids they took pictures of at the market & houses we stopped at. We had to eventually walk away it made us so uncomfortable, and even our guide kept apologizing for them. But besides our tour-mates, the bike ride was great & we finally got a little exercise to break up our lazy days of laying by the pool & meandering around town. We have one more day here in Siem Reap, so I think we'll spend tomorrow visiting more temples. We spent the rest of the afternoon today laying by the pool, so I think we can manage another hot day of temple hopping before setting off to Bangkok.

slow boat to china

Well, really it was a slow boat to Siem Reap, Cambodia, but it felt like we should have made it to china in the long 6 hrs. After the long bus ride the day before Y and I decided to opt for the more expensive ($35 vs. $7) boat ride over the bus ride. Although it was 5x the price, it was an hr shorter, and it wasn't a bus. We also opted to ride on the roof of the boat instead of inside so we could sight-see at the same time. It was risky b/c we didn't really know how fast it was going to go, but when a crew of college kids from HI and the old french couple plopped down next to us, we figured they would fly off first and give us good warning. It was a nice way to spend a few hours watching the fishermen cast nets, waving to the kids, and looking at the floating houses & villages up the river. Beyond the houses we could see the rice fields and farms since the land is very flat. It was all interesting for...about the first 3 hrs, but on the 4th hour we entered a huge lake and couldnt see land. With the strong sun and the constant wind of the speed boat, I think we both could have done without the last few hours. After an extremely dusty tuk tuk ride to our hotel, we were in rough shape. But the simply pleasant hotel was a nice relief. Thank god I spent the extra $5 for the hotel with the swanky lobby and pool.

We didn't do much after we cleaned ourselves up, but managed to drag ourselves to dinner and do a little trinket shopping. Sadly we were in bed by 9pm b/c we hired a tuk tuk and guide to pick us up at 5am to see the sunrise over the main temple of Angkor Wat. After 3 days of getting out of bed before 6am, we barely put on pants to get downstairs by 5. But we figured it was worth it b/c we pictured a peaceful, spiritual sunrise in the jungle over these beautiful temples...well, so did the other 100s of tourists that flocked in in bus loads. After waiting an hr and a half with the other hundred people, we snapped a few pictures and headed back to our hotel for breakfast. We agreed we could have missed the sunrise and welcomed a few more hours of sleep.

After breakfast our guide picked us up and shuttled us around to some of the hundreds of temples & ruins surrounding the city. Y and I were skeptical of our attention span, since we both admit we tire easily of seeing temple after temple and palace after palace, but these were pretty amazing. We powered through til 230 when we almost fainted into our lunch chairs. After lunch we saw a few more sites, but then the heat & exhaustion got the better of us. The pool had been calling my name since mid-morning. In true classy style we BYO white wine to the pool and spent the rest of the late afternoon swimming.

Tonight I think we're heading out to an open market area where there are several street BBQ places. But b/c we are glutton for punishment, we'll have to turn in early for another early wake up call. We signed up for a bike tour in the country for the morning with a 7am pick up (it's possible one of us was a little more enthusiastic about this tour choice). But since the area is almost all flat and the roads outside of the city seem pretty quite, or at least not deathly scary, I think we'll manage. Plus we'll be with a tour, so there are bound to be fat, lazy tourists that will get taken out by the bus loads of Korean tourists before Y and I. That's how we roll, as long as there are other tourists that are sure to bear the brunt first, we jump right in. Other american, and for sure british tourists are our vacation canaries in the coal mine. We just have to be careful not to mistake the Aussies for our gauge, they are much tougher and sportier than Y or I.
Hopefully we wont end up on an Australian bike tour tomorrow...Y will never forgive me.

Hitting our stride

Although Y and I were really dreading our 8 hr bus ride, it turned out to not be as painful as either of us expected. When we got to the bus station at 5am we thought we were in for it b/c we sat there and watched them jam box after box of cargo into the bottom of the bus and also through the back 4 windows...and the bus was only 10 rows long. We were convinced we would be riding on boxes holding chickens, but not the case at all. Yes, the back 1/3 of the bus was so full of smuggled cargo that im sure it dragged on the ground, but luckily many of the boxes were full of coffee, so the bus pleasantly smelled like coffee the entire way. It also helped that we sat in the first row and stopped every 3 hrs to eat or take a bathroom break.

Surprisingly Cambodia was markedly different as soon as we crossed the border -- maybe it was that we were in a rural area, but we passed many more bullock carts, rice paddies, and bicycles. Of course that didn't stop our bus driver from blowing his horn at every passing animal or person. After we arrived in Phnom Phem we made arrangements for our boat ride tomorrow morning to Siem Reap and then hoofed it around to the sights. Of course that included a roof top bar for a few glasses of wine-- we were overlooking the Mekong & city, so it totally counts as sightseeing. Plus, we are on vacation after all! Another nice treat was our first motor-rickshaw ride of the trip. Ya, there's tons of smog and staring, but there's nothing like a gaudy rickshaw to take you across the city for $2...especially after a few drinks.

farewell Vietnam

After leaving the rest of the crew, Y and I have fumbled our way to the Mekong delta where we spent last night and tonight. We got up early today and hired a small motor boat to take us up the river to visit the floating market where they buy and sell fruits/vegetables from boats. After being reassured the boat would actually make it, we spent the next few hours riding around the smaller canals. Our driver was a man of few, or actually zero, words so it was a pretty peaceful trip away from the Can Thao. After our boat trip we mostly spent the day running errands and trying to make arrangements for the next leg of our trip. The good part about not planning every detail is we have some flexibility, but we've come to realize we have to accept the drawbacks of spending time now talking to tour agents and maybe not being able to do everything we thought we could. Instead of taking a boat up the Mekong river into cambodia we have to settle for a bus ride. The boat left too early from a city it will take us 3-4 hrs to get to, so we're booked on a 530am bus tomorrow morning...ugh. But after that we can take a boat to the next city on Thursday, so hopefully I will be able to live out my fantasy of traveling around SE Asia by boat. Although with the small taste today, I don't know why I'm still grasping this fantasy-- after 3 hrs on a small, slow motor boat with hard benches, we were ready to call it quits.

Although we've had a few minor set backs, we've managed to jump right into managing our own trip and go cold turkey from the cushy digs we started out in. We even managed to squeeze in a manicure this afternoon to reward ourselves. Although Y somehow ended up with a 80s crackle paint job...we still considered it a victory. Our victory dance was short lived when we stumbled into a place for dinner. In an attempt to get out of the tourist area we wandered down some smaller streets and went into a place crowded with Vietnamese...isn't that what you're supposed to do when looking for a place to eat?? There were no menus and no one spoke english, but we understood there were three choices listed on the wall (all Pho soup). We rolled the dice and pointed to two choices-- and lost. big time. I don't consider myself picky eater, but I found my limits...and it's trying to eat noodles & broth while a pig's toe nail keeps bobbing up to the surface. I thought I could just avoid the boiled pigs foot & other mystery meats, but I was wrong. Y couldn't do it either, so we threw in the towel and headed next door to buy sandals instead. Luckily a nice pair of cheap sandals makes everything better.

I'll write more from Cambodia...if we survive the 8 hr bus ride tomorrow!