Photos! Angkor Wat

The 'approach'

Buddha meditating under protection of Naga (the snake)

GIANT!

Churning of the Ocean of Milk

Dancing Shiva!

Photos! Angkor: Sunset and Day 1

Sunset evening!!

Sarah at our first temple!

Inscription on the inside of a doorway

Tree in a temple. Blended. Lara Croft.

Siem Reap and Angkor

OK TAKE A SIT, GRAB A BEVERAGE AND GET READY cause this is a long one... Last I left you we hadn't quite gotten to Angkor to check it out yet. 3 days later that is a different story. Making use of our 3 day Angkor Archeological Park pass, we have TORCHED some temples over the past few days. That first day, we headed up to check out the sunset (which is 'free' included in a 3 day pass) with 9 million other tourists (Chinese New Year = tour groups EVERYWHERE). We arrived at around 5, with the park closing at 530, and hoofed it up a dirt path to check out the sunset at Phnom Bakheng - one of the two popular spots for sunset (the other being Angkor Wat). Unfortunately we didn't get up there in time to actually climb the temple, but we saw the sunset from the base and took some photos of our first Angkor temple!! We also people-watched for a while. GREAT place for it. Sarah has so many creepy shots of hilarious people. We ourselves actually got our photo taken by a few... foreigners are a THING here. Descending to the parking lot, we almost got run over by an elephant - I was admiring how dirty my feet were when Sarah jumped backward - I glanced up and saw an elephant RUNNING toward me, no warning from the rider whatsoever, just givin er through the most crowded parking lot ever. I thought it was hilarious. Heading back down to our chariot (tuktuk) we went back into town and ended up meeting up with a couple people we met on our marathon bus ride here, two brothers from Britain, and their American friend who is living in Siem Reap. She knows the secrets! Staying out one of our latest nights in a while (usually its laying star-shaped on the bed doing crosswords and bed at 10pm = we're getting OLD) we tucked in around midnight (!!) to prepare for the next day. Our first 'real' day at the temples we took a tuk-tuk at around 830 am. We explored about half of the 'Grand Circuit' tour (excluding Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom) and saw about 5 or 6 temples, which happened to be some of the smaller ones, but were still giant! We for some reason got pretty tired around noon and decided to call it a day at the park... can't handle those late nights. Coming back into town we had a delicious lunch (MILKSHAKES?) and decided to hit up the Angkor National Museum to learn some things! I am SO glad that we did! We learnt about the symbolism and the stories that we'd be seeing the next day; The Hindu gods Bhrama, Vishnu and Shiva and their reincarnations, tokens, animals and stories... The Buddhist symbols and what some of the different Buddha positions mean (don't quiz me...). Afternoon spent absorbing information was great! We walked back to our hotel and headed out for dinner and to meet up with our friends one more time, as they were headed out of town. Not quite as late of a night though because we had a BIG day ahead of us!! Day number 2 we got up nice and early, found and rented some $1 bikes (with gears!!) and began our journey back to the park. Day 2 was solely dedicated to Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom!! We began with Angkor Wat and it was AMAZING. Over a kilometre per side, its probably about 3-4 square kilometres in size.... everything enclosed within the moat I mean. The temple itself is GIANT - we were there for over 2 hours!! We checked out the outer walls a bit before heading to a lineup to actually go UP the main tower. Once we reached the front of the line and ascended in our rented t-shirts (scarves weren't good enough), we realized how GIANT it actaully is! In photos it looks like 3 towers - one big one in the middle and 2 smaller ones on either side. The truth is there is one big one in the middle surrounded by 4 smaller ones creating a square around the big one! There was a seriously good sized level up there - hallways and courtyards, all intricately carved and decorated! Took a million photos (to come!). Exploring upstairs amidst tons of tour groups was enough... we headed back down to check out the main wall around the temple (not the big wall that goes all the way around, the midway wall!) which we had learned were almost 600m long and showed 'stories' from left to right all along the way. One in particular we wanted to see was 'The Churning of the Ocean of Milk' which is essentially a fight between the demons and the gods that lasted 1000 years, each side trying to attain the Amita (sp?) or elixir of immortality. They used a snake to churn the ocean and there are a bunch of things that came from it... a white elephant, the elixir, a horse, one of the gods etc. The mural is SO LONG. It shows either side pulling on a snake, like a tug of war, with a dancing god in the middle, standing ontop of a turtle (a reincarnation of Vishnu). I KNOW ALL ABOUT IT OF COURSE. Haha but really that's the one in particular we wanted to see! Continuing around the walls we saw murals of heaven, earth and hell, of wars, and of everyday life. So much detail. And its so straight and particular. Don't even know how! Alright sorry for that rant.... moving onto Angkor Thom after a delicious lunch of veggie and meat filled egg pancakes (that you make into lettuce wraps) for only $3.50 (can't you tell I love the food?), we checked out Bayon, the main temple inside Angkor Thom city and the one known for the giant faces!! It was really cool and so different from Angkor Wat!! It was much rounder and had so many different routes rather than so square. At the museum we actually learned that those two - Angkor Wat and Bayon - are classified as two different buildig and decoration styles. Next was a mountain temple (perfect - SWEATING) called Baphuon - it was beside what used to be the little enclosed royal residence back in the day. Hardest thing I've had to climb. World's tiniest and steepest stairs in the heat of the day AND they made us put scarves on. NO. The view from the top was great though!! We appreciated it while melting into pillars. The mountain temples usually have elephant statues at the 4 bottom corners though so that was cool to see too! The back of this particular temple was a giant laying own Buddha... made from the bricks! At first glance it just looks like the wall is gonna collapse but then NO its shaped like a Buddha! Very cool. Moving on to the royal palace and Phimeanakas, another mountain temple. We discovered the royal palace actually isn't there anymore... but its on the map. Wild goose chase. We saw a few more small temples (looked like we were in Temple of Doom) and started our bike journey back!!! Arriving back, we wrote some postcards / journal entries and headed for DINNER! Went for a change and indulged in some MEXICAN! There is EVERY type of food here in Siem Reap... Indian, Western, Thai, French, Sushi, also local of course. Tucked in SUPER EARLY. BECAUSE... we were up at 445 this morning! We dragged our butts out of bed nice and early to go check out sunrise at Angkor Wat! GOTTA do it. Weather turned out perfect - cloudy and cool(er) for our exploration days, and sunny for sunrise day!! So great! Arriving at the park at 530am, we walked into the outside wall of Angkor Wat to see the sunrise. Finding a spot on some stairs to a smaller temple, we watched the sun come up for about an hour, wandering around for some different views! It was so nice!! Very busy though. Indulging in some expensive $3 pancakes, we fueled up at a stand beside Angkor Wat for some more temple viewing! We saw about 4 more major temples, completing our 3-day 'Grand Circuit' of the park. Compared to yesterday, the temples we saw today were so nice and quiet, tourist wise! This morning we saw Preah Kan, Neak Prean, Ta Som and East Mebon, all North of the main Angkor centres. Finishing our tour at around 1030am, we headed back to town for some lunch with the girl from Denver (who is living here) and some housekeeping before we head back to Bangkok (and then South) tomorrow!! BRAVO if you got through this essay... I felt I had to make up for the shorties I wrote quickly before :) Photos are next!!

Photos! Treetops

Lunch day 1!! Free for all

View from the treehouse.. kind of

So ready. Serious harnesses

Secretly I am on the side of a cliff!

Waterfall - view from the main eating area in the trees!

How are we in Cambodia?

Just gonna keep things going here - racking up the internet cafe bill but I gotta catch up. Bussing down on a maybe-sketchy half local minivan (only because we slept in and missed the 8am regular bus...) got us to Don Det, 4000 Islands, still in Laos!! We arrived on the roadless-carless-tuktukless island at around 5pm... apparently bad timing because EVERYWHERE was full. People vacation during Chinese New Year, who knew?? Walking around for about an hour and a half with our giant backpacks, failing to find somewhere to stay, led us to the end of the guesthouses and the beginning of farms... not good. We paused for a minute to get out the trusty lonely planet when someone working at the Veggie Patch (an organic farm we had stopped in front of) came over and asked if we needed help. NICEST people. He lent me his bike to jet around to see if we could find anything... after a while, with good news, I returned back to collect my bags and Sarah to begin the 45-minute walk (in the dark) to our place. NOPE! I came back with news of a place but no need! While I was gone, the Veggie Patch's neighbour, John from Australia who was starting a guesthouse-teepee business, had offered for us to stay on his property, in his tent, for basically free. Um YES. walking 30 seconds instead of 45 minutes with giant bags? AND get a delicious dinner? YUP. So, we camped for 2 nights on Don Det! Hello farm animals. But this is why we had no power / internet access. There IS internet on the Island but its the WORST. Our one day there we rented bikes and scooted around Don Det and Don Khon, the neighbouring island, checking out waterfalls and dolphins... ok we didn't see any but we tried!!! Anyways - cheap + great camping in Laos!! Short stay though - very chill and relaxed - lonely planet says 'near flatline of calm' on the islands - I can see why!! Really it helped break up our journey to Siem Reap, where we are now!! Yesterday we left the Island at 8am and bussed about 1 hour to the Cambodian border... Sarah and I avoided the hassles and 'helpers' and just did our Visas oursleves.. ended up paying a little less than those who got someone to do it for them, but had the peace of mind of having our passports in our own hands. The border crossing went way better than we though - we were expecting the worst. So that was good! Done - in the country - relax for the 12 hour bus ride!!! Delayed at every stop, however, we arrived in Siem Reap at about midnight... with no place booked. We followed 2 British brothers we met on the bus to their hostel to see if there were rooms... no dice. The nicest tuk-tuk driver drove us around until about 1 in the morning until we found somewhere - for $17!!! NO. But we had to. First thing this morning we checked out and got a way better priced place, closer to town!! Housekeeping day. Tonight at 430 we are headed to ANGKOR WAT for sunset!! Free, apparently! and to buy our 3 day passes so secretly not free. DEFINITELY will update you after a look around here - hope all is well!!!

It's been a while...

But ONLY BECAUSE we haven't had access to (decent) internet for the last few days! But we'll get to that... Last I left you we were in Pakse sitting out a rainstorm in the internet cafe... well not much happened that day! Basically a giant nap after our night bus during a rainy afternoon, then a delicious Indian dinner. Oh but WAIT. We also booked a tour for 2 days in Pakse that involved ziplining, hiking, climbing, and staying in treehouses!! Amazing! On a whim, we booked it for the day following our arrival, figuring it would be much more exciting than the town! We started our journey at 8 in the morning, leaving Pakse for the Bolaven Plateau with 6 other people in our tour. The first day, we hiked (nice and easy) for a few hours, stopping for lunch at a waterfall! We had a Lao lunch of sticky rice formed into balls and dipped in various dishes... pretty tasty! After lunch we traveled the rest of the way to the treehouses over 8 ziplines! After 1 or 2 ziplines down, it began to DOWNpour. Fashioning a makeshift bag cover out of my giant emergency poncho I managed to keep my things mostly dry - myself, not so much. I'd say my raincoat is more water resistant than waterproof. Regardless of the rain, ziplining was awesome! We arrived at our treetop camp around 4pm - time to change into semi-dry clothes, hang everything else on a drying line, and snatch a spot by the fire. Strategically placed shoes and clothes were the decorations for the night. Dinner, served at the main platform, was fresh veggie rolls (amazing), chicken, steamed rice and veggies. Devoured. Everyone tucked in pretty early to their zipline-only accessible treehouses (outfitted with running water?) in preparation for the next day! Keeping warm, we slept in ALL our clothes, raincoats included. Slept GREAT in the outdoors! Next day we hopped over to the main building for some delicious breakfast in front of the waterfall in the SUN!! Yay! Our morning activity was a little but of a walk down into the canyon from where we were staying for a couple ziplines, then a visit to a waterfall. However, after everyone experienced the 450m long (endless!) zipline, we all opted to do it again; you can swim in a waterfall ANY day!! Morning was sweet. A quick trek back up to the main house (sweating) brought us to lunchtime after a quick rinse in the (closeby) waterfall! So good! Wanted to permanently keep my face in it.. After fuelling up we had an afternoon of serious vertical ahead of us... trekking up (like 60 degrees - using your hands) for about an hour (by then we were convinced it was raining again but NOPE that is sweat dripping off my nose), we reached the u-bolt climbing wall that would get us up to the top of the waterfall!! Some serious vertical here too - coolest views! Just don't look straight down!! Short pit stop at the top of the waterfall and we had some more hiking to do - a little more hands and feet hiking, then some more chill normal walking back to the village where we were picked up. A ride back to Pakse left us seriously stoked for a shower (and need to do laundry again asap) - we were not that adventurous and hit up the delicious Indian food place again, sharing dinner and stories with an Irish couple we met on the trip!! So, our view of Pakse was very limited but activities around it were AWESOME! We didn't stick around for more - gotta get moving! Next stop - 4000 Islands!

Moving South means getting WARMER

I now that's just what you guys at home want to hear - but I don't mean nice warm, I mean permanently SWEATING warm. Leaving Luang Prabang, we took a 6 hour bus ride south to the town of Vang Vieng; the two could NOT be more different! Vang Vieng is a tourist TIME. Saw way more tourists than locals for sure - so different from Luang Prabang! Only stayed a few nights there, we stayed at the Fairmont Vang Vieng - not actually but pretty much. Amazing sleeps. And so much room for activities. Cartwheels. Anyways, the first night we just hung out and saw the town, booked a tour for the next day, and got organized for later in the trip. In the morning we woke up nice and early, grabbed a sandwich from the road stand (because the restaurant people were moving at serious Laos pace and we had places to BE) and headed out for our half day of caving! Very cool. We saw 4 caves; Elephant Cave (named after an elephant shaped stalagmite), cave #2 (I forget and also it was in Lao), Snail Cave (you know why) and last but not least the water cave! The Elephant Cave was essentially a temple built into a cave - one such that you had to remove your shoes before entering. Cave #2 and Snail Cave were giant - Snail Cave, 4KM LONG, we barely scratched the surface. We walked in, armed with headlamps, for about 600m, (ENDLESS) then had to turn around to save time for the water cave. So spooky when you know it is giant but can't really see.... Chamber of Secrets style. Our last cave was the water cave, which we explored in inner tubes, pulling ourselves along ropes attachedto the cave walls! Quite creepy (I thought) because of mystery creatures that definitely saw us... but we didn't see them. Just after noon, our caving experience over, we headed back to town on the lovely Laos roads - paved intermittently and sprinkled with serious potholes - no eating snacks / reading while bussing! After a quiet lunch of noodle soup and reader's digest asia (we are old) we checked out the famed 'tubing' of Vang Vieng (you are an outsider in town if not decked out in 'in the tubing' gear) however because it was already 330 and we didn't feel like paying to rent a tube, we just got a ride up the river and discovered why the town was so empty - because EVERYONE is on the river. Back in town, we had a dinner of pad thai (which I never order) which was delicious - so full I couldn't move. We met up with Sara Haberlin (!!) and her friend Laura at dinner and discovered we will be seeing them along the way, as they are seemingly on the same schedule as us but one day behind! With intent to bus all the way to Hue in Vietnam, we got up nice and early the next day to book a ticket for the painful 25 hour bus ride - only to discover that Vietnam has the same new year as China and is JUST beginning the intensive celebration - which means we can't land border cross into Vietnam until the 31 of Jan. Which doesn't work. So, going with the flow, we booked a bus down south in Laos and arrived in Pakse this morning! Just going with it. Good thing we don't book things much ahead or we'd be hoopied.... Gonna maybe check out some waterfalls and a serious coffee plantation close to here tomorrow (Bolaven Plateau) and then head even further South to 4000 Islands, right on the Cambodian border! Plans are working out - so far so good with the decision to come to Pakse (just waited out a serious rainstorm in this internet cafe - perfect timing) More photos soon when I am organized and bring my camera cord :)