Month: January 2017

December 21st, 2016

Day 267: Antarctic Cruise Day 3 – Puerto Montt

Today was our first port of call: Puerto Montt, Chile! While technically in the Lake District of Chile, this area is on the border of Chilean Patagonia (we saw many hotels and shops calling themselves “Patagonia-this” and “Patagonia-that,” in order to attract tourists). We had originally booked a trekking tour with the cruise ship for today, but had to cancel it as Igor’s toe still hadn’t recovered enough for him to wear boots. We needed to keep our activities for the day sandal-friendly, so we decided to just explore the area on our own.

We also had a few errands to run: after several days of trying to organize a 4×4 car rental in Argentina for our upcoming road trip down Route 40, Igor got so frustrated with the lack of information, high costs and ridiculous insurance policies of Argentinean companies that he decided it would be easier to rent a car in Chile. Instead of driving down from Buenos Aires in a manual RV, we would now be returning to Puerto Montt and picking up a fully insured automatic 4×4 and driving it over the border into Argentina! (Ugh! We didn’t need to take a driving lesson after all!) The rental agency needed a copy of our driver’s licenses and passports for the border permit, so we decided to walk over and take care of the paperwork in person.

While we were at the rental agency, we decided to see if they had any cars available for the day – turns out the agency across the street not only had plenty of sedans free, they also had one with a manual transmission! Even though we were no longer limited to a manual car for our road trip, we decided to take one for a test drive anyways, just to see how difficult it would be for us – after all, it would be pretty cool to come back from this year-long trip with a new skill. We survived the day driving a stick shift (and even more importantly, so did the rental car!), but it got really stressful at the end of the day when rush hour traffic and fatigue set in – maybe we’ll stick with the automatic after all…

 

The clouds part as we come up to the shores of Puerto Montt

 

Catching a tender to shore

 

Chilean customs are very strict about bringing in foreign foods, so even though we just came from a Chilean port, we are not allowed to bring any snacks or a packed lunch off the boat – looks like we are skipping lunch again!

 

Walking across the downtown area of Puerto Montt

 

Instead of paying for an overpriced tour and sitting in a minibus with several dozen cruisers, we decide to rent a car and explore the area ourselves. We asked if the rental agency had any manual transmission vehicles so we could continue to practice the stick-shift skills we acquired in Bangkok…we decided to treat today as a dress rehearhsal for our Argentinean road trip next month

 

It’s a beautiful day for a Patagonian road trip! We get an almost clear shot of Volcan Osorno as we drive around Lake Llanquihue

 

When we stop for a photo op of Volcan Osorno, we notice a llama farm across the street – that’s what so great about independent travel, if you want to get out and feed the llamas, you can!

 

These llamas are so cute! They totally distract us from the yawning doggie in the background – poor guy…

Our ship was docked at Puerto Montt for a good 10 hours, so we had plenty of time to drive around and explore the area. The tour we were originally supposed to go on included a visit to the Petrohue Rapids – when we looked at the driving time, it turned out the park was only an hour away, so we decided to head over there on our own. We took it easy, exploring all the flat walking trails, so that Igor’s foot could continue to recover. Afterwards, we still had several hours before we needed to be back on the ship, so we decided to take the long way back to Puerto Montt, circumnavigating Lake Llanquihue and passing through the scenic towns of Frutillar and Puerto Varas.

 

When we get to the Petrohue Rapids, we find the park overrun with bright orange Seabourn jackets – we caught up with the USD $184/pp cruise tour! Gotta admit, we’re patting ourselves on the back for finding a much cheaper alternative to the organized tour

 

The Petrohue Rapids in Puerto Montt Chile – the crystal clear, bright blue waters remind us so much of the Hokitika Gorge in the South Island of New Zealand

 

Igor admires the raw beauty of nature

 

“Lover’s Creek” – a calm, quiet little pool of water along the forest path

 

Lindsay is spellbound by the abundant moss growing on the trees in the forest

 

A clear, sunny view of Lake Llanquihue, framed by wildflowers

 

The sunshine can disappear at any time in Patagonia – as we continue our way around the lake, it starts to rain

 

The GPS on Igor’s phone has been on the fritz ever since we arrived in Chile (for some reason it keeps thinking we are in St. Petersburg, RUSSIA?!? Is this Putin’s doing?!?!), so we are trying to navigate ourselves the old fashioned way: looking at road signs and a paper map! We misjudge the distance and end up taking a gravel road detour. Luckily, it’s impossible for us to get truly lost (as long as we keep the lake on our left hand side, we’ll eventually make our way back to the road to Puerto Montt), so we decide to drive slow and enjoy the scenic route

 

Exploring the Lake Llanquihue area via self drive

 

We stop in Frutillar for a short walk along the lake front – on a clear day there is a spectacular view of Volcan Osorno on the other side of the lake, but the rain storm we passed through during our drive has now reached the mountain and blocked the view

 

We have about an hour left before we need to get back on the ship, but we foolishly decide to make a quick stop in the pretty town of Puerto Varas on our way back – there is a beautiful red and white church, Iglesia del Sagrado Corazon de Jesus, that we want to try and see. We’re only 20min away from Puerto Montt after all, and we see lots of orange-clad cruisers walking around the street, so we know we won’t miss the ship. Unfortunately, rush hour traffic has started to clog the streets by this time, and poor Igor is so tired he is forgetting how to shift gears. After we get lost and stall the engine about half a dozen times, we decide a close-up of the church isn’t worth the trouble

 

Catching our tender back to The Quest

Once we were back on the ship, we hurried over to the theater to catch the matinee show before getting ready for another excellent dinner at the ship’s white-tablecloth restaurant. Bon appetite!

 

A Chilean dance troop comes onboard to demonstrate several versions of Chile’s national dance: the cueca

 

The performers wrap up the show by inviting guests to dance the waltz – even though Igor’s foot is still recovering and he has to wear flip flops, we can’t resist getting on the dance floor!

 

When we return to our room, we discover we have a visitor on our balcony! Luckily she doesn’t seem too badly injured (looks like she might have flown into the side of the ship), and she wobbles away after resting for a few minutes. We’re still at port, so there are no worries about her getting safely back to land, but we learn later that “bird strikes” will become a big ecological concern as we start to head out into open waters – apparently birds can get confused by the ship’s lights on stormy nights and can get stranded at sea if they accidently land on the boat and get carried out into the Drake Passage

 

Whew! It’s getting windy! Igor nearly gets blown over as we walk arcoss deck on our way to dinner

 

Lindsay finally breaks her vegetarian streak as DUCK is on the menu tonight! Igor remains pescatarian…for now..

December 19th – 20th, 2016

Days 265 – 266: Antarctic Cruise Days 1 & 2 – Valpariso & Sea Cruising

Today we embarked on the most ridiculously extravagant portion of our-long trip: a 24-day luxury cruise from Chile to Antarctica to Argentina! I mean, we knew a grown-up gap year was a financially stupid idea to begin with, but no amount of YOLO-ing can justify this expenditure. We acknowledge that we are incredibly blessed to be able to afford this, and we can only hope that we are still young enough to replenish our retirement savings. J

Navigating Santiago’s metro system and bus terminal was a breeze, so we arrived in the coastal city of Valpariso a good hour before the ship started boarding. The only down side was we couldn’t really ditch our luggage and explore the city – Lindsay had the lucky chance to visit once before during a business trip, but poor Igor missed out on the artsy, bohemian charm of Valpariso’s San Franciscan hilly streets and graffiti-covered buildings. However, his disappointment was soon forgotten once we were onboard and served glass after glass after glass of complimentary champagne.

 

Catching a bus from the Pajaritos metro station in Santiago to Valpariso

 

We are among the first passengers to check-in and board the ship

 

Let the endless food and booze begin!!! We enjoy the first of MANY buffet lunches on the deck of the Seabourn Quest, with a view of the Valpariso harbor

 

When we enter our suite, we find a complimentary bottle of champagne…not only is it *true* champagne, it is Nicolas Feuillatte – THE SAME CHAMPAGNE WE SERVED AT OUR WEDDING. This is the HOUSE CHAMPAGNE on board the ship.

 

Trying on our bright orange parkas – stylin’!

 

Sailing away from Valpariso and heading south

Our first full day onboard the Quest was an at-sea day, which gave us plenty of time to explore the ship. While we’d both been on cruise ships before, the Quest was the smallest ship we’ve sailed. On our previous trips we’ve always booked interior staterooms (just a bedroom and bathroom – no windows) as those are the least expensive and we don’t plan to spend much time in our room anyways. The Quest, however, wasn’t big enough for interior rooms – all the rooms had either windows or balconies. As if that wasn’t exciting enough for us, turns out the Quest also doesn’t do basic bedrooms – all guest cabins are suites, and when we were booking, there was just enough vacancy that Seabourne offered to upgrade us from a window to a veranda at no extra cost.

The only downside to our lovely, spacious room, was the location. As we knew from our ferry experiences in Thailand, the top and front of a boat are the rockiest locations when passing through choppy waters – if one is prone to seasickness, the bottom and rear of the boat is the steadiest place to be. Since we got a “free” upgrade, our cabin was #502 – right at the very front of the ship. And boy!, once we got into open waters we could *feel* it! On previous cruises, the rocking of the boat as we went to bed was always gentle and soothing – like laying down in a hammock or a train ride – and lulled us right to sleep. During our first night on the Quest, however, the bow of the ship would sometimes pitch up and down so much our bodies would lift off the matress and catch a little air before thunking down! And this is only 30KM off shore! We were more than a little worried what the conditions would be like a week from now, when we sail through the Drake Passage – “the most turblent waters on earth”! Good thing we stocked up on Dramamine in Thailand…

While we couldn’t stomach sitting in our cabin for long periods of the day, the majority of the public areas on the ship are located in the aft (smart move!), so we spent the day attending presentations on the ports of call, the history of Chilean Patagonia, and an introduction to photography, as well as an intro to playing Bridge and a visit to the ship’s Bridge – you’d think days at sea would be very lazy, but we were kept surprisingly busy!

 

We wake up to a foggy, cloudy day for our first all-day at sea

 

Exploring the ship, and attending info seminars on the upcoming ports of call

 

A small tour visiting the bridge

 

Checking out the ship’s autopilot (we’re 30KM off shore, so…nothing really the bump into out here), and the captain’s whale-spotting cheat-sheet

That evening, we had our first formal night – after 6PM, jeans are banned in all public areas of the ship, and men are required to wear a jacket to dinner. It’s so fun to people watch on these nights – some ladies get really decked out with prom-like formal dresses, covered in sequins, and even the men can get rather flamboyant (although nothing will ever top the pimpin’ red suit and top hat we saw a guy sporting on a Carnival Caribbean cruise a few years back!). We, however, were pushing the envelope on what could be considered “formal” – does a dark blue suit count as “black tie”? And will anyone notice that Lindsay is wearing sandals and a bikini top instead of a bra under her backless bargain-store black dress?

 

Our first formal night! Igor sports his new suit and used shoes (unfortunately, they aggravate his injured toe – poor guy!), while Lindsay gets dolled up in her USD $10 Bangkok dress and Indian pashmina – bring on the wine, bubbles and caviar, baby!

December 16th – 18th, 2016

Days 262 – 264: Bangkok to Santiago

Getting from southeast Asia to Chile is a BITCH. We could not find a single nonstop flight from Bangkok to Santiago. Our final itinerary was a whopping 4-city marathon: Bangkok to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to NYC, NYC to Lima, and finally Lima to Santiago. We left at 8:30AM local time and arrived at 1:30PM local time the next day – all told, it was 40 hours from first take-off to final landing, crossing 11 time zones! The Premier Pass gained us access to two airport lounges, unfortunately, both were at the very beginning of the journey, so we weren’t that tired yet. Sadly, we were in the wrong terminal in JFK and we weren’t allowed off the plane in Lima, so we were absolutely exhausted when we finally arrived in Santiago.

 

Getting ready for the longest flight of our lives. Lindsay is going to need A LOT of coffee

 

The first of many breakfasts in the Bangkok Executive Lounge

 

Lunch in the Executive Lounge in Hong Kong

 

Igor’s parents come all the way out to the airport just to see us for 15min as we change terminals in JFK – I think they missed him…

 

Descending into Santiago at last!

 

Our “hotel” in Santiago – even though we found it on Booking.com, it felt like an AirBnB apartment rental – but at USD $50/night in the city center, the place was a steal!

Despite the jetlag, we had dinner plans for the evening. After working with Concha y Toro for the past 5 years, Lindsay had quite a few former colleauges in Santiago – so we took full advantage of Chilean hospitality to get our fill of fine wine, delicious seafood, and catch up on a year’s worth of office gossip! While we expected to be jetlagged, we had enough energy to destroy 4 bottles of Italo’s wine stash and didn’t notice how late it was getting until 1AM – since we hadn’t adjusted to the 11-hour timezone differece, and the change in hemispheres meant sunset was deceptively late, we completely lost track of the time! Luckily for all three of us, it was a Saturday so we could all recover the lost sleep the next day.

Seriously…we literally did nothing but sleep the next day. No pictures.

 

View of Santiago from Italo’s balcony

 

Italo treats us to fresh oysters and several bottles of *exquisite* Chilean chardonnay

 

Enjoying a fantastic evening with Chile’s best wine ambassador

December 14th – 15th, 2016

Days 260 – 261: Bangkok – Part III

Our short trip to Cambodia was awesome – we if could do it all again, we’d stay there a lot longer and explore outside of Siem Reap. Unfortunately, the “Asia portion” of our trip was coming to an end, and we had to return to Bangkok to wrap up a few things before our long journey to South America.

Our flight back to Bangkok was short and easy, but as it was scheduled for the middle of the day, it limited our ability to do any sightseeing. Instead, we made plans to meet up with Pim – a former Best Cellars colleague of Lindsay’s – and have a little dinner party in our hotel suite! Even though traffic from the airport was practically gridlock, we had just enough time to run to the tailor for Igor’s final suit fitting and pick up some groceries before 7PM. We spent the rest of the evening catching up on the last *seven* years since we had seen Pim, and getting an insider’s introduction to the world of Muey Thai kickboxing.

 

Grabbing lunch and getting some work down in the Executive Lounge in the Siem Reap Airport


Farewell, Cambodia!

 

So glad to be back in the Oriental Residence in Bangkok! It feels so much like home, Lindsay decides to play hostess and invites a friend over for a little dinner party!

Our last day in Bangkok was busy with last-minute errands before our South America trip. We had decided to take a road trip to Patagonia when we go to Argentina, but when we looked for a rental car, we discovered the only 4×4 vehicles available were manual transmission. While flying down to Patagonia was an option, the route down to southern Argentina was supposed to be breathtakingly beautiful – we didn’t want to miss it!

How hard could it be to drive a stick shift anyways? Igor found an English-speaking driving school in Bangkok, and asked about lessons – the instructor suggested we could learn the basics in 4 hours – DONE! We took the metro to the end of the line and caught a taxi to the driving school (we were about an hour late for our appointment as we stopped to shop for shoes and got horribly lost due to Google Maps’ wildly inaccurate directions) – sure enough, after 3 hours of practicing in the school’s closed course, Igor was able to hold his own in Bangkok traffic! Sure, he stalled the engine about half a dozen times, but he recovered quick enough – bring it on Argentina!

 

Taking the Bangkok Metro, as traffic in the city is a nightmare

 

SHOES! We get distracted by a store selling second-hand dress shoes for men – only USD $3! *Exactly* what Igor needs for our upcoming cruise’s formal nights – now he can wear one of his new suits, and we don’t have to bother shipping the shoes back to the States

 

Driving around an obstacle course for about 4 hours, learning how to drive a stick shift

 

Our instructor was a “tiger-lady” teacher – she kept screaming at Igor in broken English, “Put clutch down ALL the way! You stall car! Put in first gear! You stall car again!” Basically, she showed Igor how to shift, drove around the course once, then switched seats and made him do it. After riding with us for about 15min, she gets out of the car, saying, “I go teach someone else now. You practice. Don’t drive too fast.”

So, back when we were in Krabi, Igor got two cuts on his right foot when he stepped on some sharp shells and rocks on Railay Beach. Two weeks later, the cuts still hadn’t healed and were looking pretty nasty. Igor was convinced they were infected (Lindsay told him he was overreacting, and that he just needed to stop suffectating the wounds with bandaids and let them air out so they could scab over). He looked up the cost of visiting the ship doctor when we get on our cruise next week – not cheap. If there *was* a problem with his foot, he figured it would be less expensive to visit a doctor in Bangkok, so after we picked up Igor’s completed suits and dress shirts, we walked a few blocks over to Bumrungrad International Hospital to see how long/expensive an appointment would be.

Guys…this hospital…was AMAZING. After this experience we can totally see why medical tourism is a thing, and (God forbid) if we ever get seriously sick, we are totally coming back to Thailand for treatment. Let’s start with the hospital building itself – the place looked more like an upscale hotel than a medical center. The receptionist in the lobby greeted us with a smile and told us we first needed to visit the 10th floor to register as a new patient in order to get an estimate on wait time and price estimate. We were a little wary of the multi-step process, figuring this was going to be a huge waste of time, but it turned out to be extremely efficient – we took a queue number for the next representative (just like if we were at Zabar’s cheese counter!), and when two guys tried to cut in front of us in line, the hospital rep took no time telling the guys that we were next and they had to go take a number (I swear – Thailand is the anti-China!).

After Igor was registered (he got an ID bracelet and everything!), we went directly up to orthopedic surgery (yeah – totel overkill for a little cut on his foot, but the hospital rep said it would be cheaper to see a specialist as we would get charged for each doctor visited) – estimated wait time was 15min and price range was anywhere from USD $30 – USD $150, plus cost of medication. Just…take a second to let that sink in. Can you IMAGINE walking into a doctor’s office without an appointment or an emergency room in the USA and getting this kind of service? Oh, and the waiting room had complimentary bottled water, juice and tea.

By the time the doctor saw Igor, we got our bill, bandages and paid, we had been in the Bumrungrad hospital for just under and hour. The total cost of the visit was USD $60 (when we get home we’re going to try and get our travel insurance to reimburse us J). What was the diagnosis? Not infected – stop wearing bandaids and let it dry out and scab over. THANK YOU, DOCTOR LINDSAY.

 

Friendly, informed, and efficient service at the Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok

We returned to the Oriental Residence around 7PM for our final night in Thailand. While Lindsay repacked our bags and cooked our last quesadilla dinner, Igor ran out into the city one last time to pick up some cheap camera accessories for our upcoming dive trip in South America. Thailand – you have been the easiest, safest, and friendliest country in our southeast Asia adventures – we can’t wait to come back!

 

MBK Center – the mall that has it all! Igor finds all the odds and ends on his shopping list while Lindsay packs our bags and makes our last quesdailla & guac dinner

December 13th, 2016

Day 259: Kampong Plouk

We only had one activity planned for today, so we were able to sleep in and get a later start. After stuffing ourselves with omelets, waffles, muesli, fresh fruit and several types of pastries at the FABULOUS buffet breakfast, we met up with our driver and headed out to the fishing village of Kampong Plouk.

Siem Reap is located 50km from Tonle Sap Lake – along with the Mekong Delta, this body of water is the main life-sustaining food source of the country, providing irrigation water for rice fields and, of course, lots of fish. There are several floating villages in the area, where everything from the homes to the stores are on boats that move around the area depending on the season. When we asked our driver for recommendations as to which one was the most scenic to visit, he suggested we skip the floating villages and go to Kampong Plouk instead – a pastoral Venice, where the entire village is built on towering stilts within the river.

 

Buying our tour tickets to visit the fishing village of Kampong Plouk

 

Rice fields flank the riverbanks

 

The river is the only way to access the village, as the roads can disappear completely depending on the water level – at one point we pass a true “Bridge from Nowhere to Nowhere”

 

Lindsay & Igor riding down river in a Cambodian longboat

 

Driving down “main street” of Kampong Plouk – a fishing village of about 3,000 residences

 

Unlike the “floating villages,” Kampong Plouk is a permanent settlement where the buildings are built on stilts

 

All the houses tower above the river on stilts – some up to 10m high!

A colorful neighborhood in Kampong Plouk

A very important building in the village: both the school and fishery office are located here

 

Unsurprisingly there is an ornate Buddhist temple sitting on a riverbank hillside, but the village also has a Christian church on stilts

 

Our driver points out cages floating the river that are full of small crocodiles. Given the many leather stores in Siem Reap, we’re guessing these are farm-raised for meat and leather

 

Flooded mangrove forests surround the area

 

During the rainy season, these women make their living fishing in the mangroves. But in the off season, they make additional income by paddling tourists through the trees

 

Leaving our motorized longboat for a slow, quiet tour through the mangrove forest

 

Here’s our floating market! A half dozen boats wait for us in the mangroves to try and sell us snacks and drinks. We bought some bananas to be polite, but passed on the drinks (our tour tickets actually included a free drink each, that we still hadn’t opened as we weren’t really thirsty). However, once we made one purchase, the woman seemed to think she had a chance to upsell us, and started suggesting we buy USD $3 candies or a USD $1 soda as a gift for our driver – we decline as we are pretty sure the driver isn’t going to actually eat or drink anything we buy her, but is more likely to return the gift to the floating market and split the profit. Instead, we give her an unopened can of Coke and a cash tip at the end of the tour – she reluctantly took the Coke, but her eyes lit up at the dollar bill!

 

Breaking out of the dense mangrove forest to the open waters of Lake Tonle Sap

 

The lake is massive, at 6,000 sq mi it looks more like a bay than a lake – we can’t even see the opposite shore!

 

We are visited by another floating minimart as we float in Tonle Sap Lake

 

We return to the resort for a relaxing afternoon in our room


Filling up on snacks and bubbles during Happy Hour

So, the night before, we had some rather noisy neighbors check-in upstairs (they sounded like giants, with ridiculously loud, thumping footsteps and for some reason, they kept dragging furniture all around their room). We were so exhausted from our full day of activities, that we didn’t have the energy to complain, and quickly passed out despite the noise. Tonight, however, we knew the annoyance would keep us up, so we asked our concierge if there was another room available that we could switch to. As a result, we got upgraded to a bigger “Sunset Suite” on the top floor! Seriously, we’re losing track of how many “second honeymoons” we’ve had at this point.

 

Living it up in the lap of luxury in Cambodia

December 12th, 2016

Day 258: Angkor Wat

Hope you’re ready for a monster post, because day was a LONG day. We set our alarm for a 4:45AM wake-up call – one of the most popular to-dos in Siem Reap is to visit the main Angkor Wat temple at sunrise, so we had to be out of the hotel by 5AM to go buy our tickets and try to snag a good viewing spot.

 

Buying our tickets to Angkor Wat at 5:15AM

Angkor Wat – the “Temple City” – is the heart & soul of Cambodia (a silhouette of the monument is on their national flag). Built in the 12th century by King Suryavarman II during Cambodia’s Golden Age, Angkor Wat is still to this day the largest religious complex on earth. When it was built, the Khmer Empire was the most powerful kingdom on earth – while London was still a small port city of 50,000 people, Angkor was a thriving metropolis of over a million residents. The main temple was designed as a representation of the Hindu heaven, Mount Meru, and was dedicated to Vishnu (although nowadays it is used as a place for Buddhist worship).

 

As the sky slowly starts to brighten, we see the outline of Angkor Wat emerge from the darkness

 

There are two ponds in front of the temple, behind which the crowds of tourists gather to try and capture Angkor Wat’s reflection as the sun rises. While it’s tough jockeying for a good spot, and the atmosphere in person is anything but tranquil, the water landscaping helps to keep everyone’s shots relatively clear from photobombers, giving us several Instagram-worthy pics

 

Once sun is up, Lindsay and Igor walk forward to enter the Angkor Wat temple

 

The galleries within the temple have stone carvings illustrating stories from Hindu mythology – the walls are in incredibly good condition

 

Unlike many of the other temples surrounding the area, Angkor Wat has been in continuous use since it was built over 800 years ago, so it is in great condition. Some sections – like the giant naga heads at the entrance – have been restored over the years

Angkor Wat – the pride of Cambodia

 

Once the sun came up, a troop of mischievous macaques woke up and started digging through the trash cans. Many tourists had brought a packed breakfast to snack on during the sunrise, so the monkeys have a fresh delivery of scraps to eat

After a quick stop at the hotel for breakfast, our temple-tour continued. There are over 50 temples that make up the ancient city of Angkor, but there are three that stand out as particularly famous must-sees. After Angkor Wat, our second (and favorite!) temple was Ta Prohm – AKA the “Indiana Jones Temple.” Unlike Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm was abandoned for centuries after the fall of the Khmer Empire and has since become overgrown by the surrounding jungle. Huge, gnarly, twisting trees grow out of the moss-covered ruins – it’s a majestic example of Mother Nature destroying manmade civilization.

 

Feeling like Indiana Jones as we explore Ta Prohm – the “Tree Temple” (actual filming location for both “Tomb Raider” movies: Indiana Jones and Laura Croft)

 

The roots of this enormous tree spill over the crumbling temple ruins

 

Throughout the Ta Prohm temple, Nature is reclaiming the grounds

 

Piles of rubble lay all over the place – conservation efforts at Ta Prohm are a careful balancing act of maintaining the “look of neglect” while making sure the jungle doesn’t encroach on the temple further

 

The moss-covered outer walls and inner sanctuary of Ta Prohm

 

While Angkor Wat was originally a Hindu temple, Ta Prohm was built as a Buddhist monastery by King Jayavarman VII

 

The mighty, towering trees of Ta Prohm

The ancient ruins of the Ta Prohm Temple

The final of the Big 3 Angkor temples was the “great city” of Angkor Thom, also commissioned by Jayavarman VII as the new capital of the Khmer Empire in the 12th century. While there were are several buildings within the complex, the most stunning temple was the iconic Bayon temple – an emormous structure with over 50 four-sided towers, each bearing giant stone faces that smile serenely down at us as we explore.

 

The giant, smiling faces of Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom

 

Bayon has 216 giant stone faces, watching over the temples’s visitors

 

Unlike all the other Khmer kings, Jayavarman VII was the only one to convert to Buddhism, although many of the stone carvings still show a lot of Hindu influences

 

We pass a small troop of macaques as we leave Bayon – we watch as one clever monkey figures out how to unscrew the cap of a water bottle (no doubt stolen from an unsuspecting tourist)

 

We walk over to Baphuon – another Aztec-like temple within Angkor Thom. As we leave the temple, we can see that the retaining wall in the rear was altered to look like a reclining Buddha

 

Walking down the Terrace of the Elephants – a long walkway where the king would hold public parades

 

The Terrace of the Leper King (legend has it that as least one of the Khmer kings had leprosy) decorated with beautifully carved apsaras (Buddhist angels)

Since we had such an early start to the day, we were finished with the major Angkor temples by noon. We wanted to make the most out of our all-inclusive package & all-day driver, so we needed more places to visit! Unfortunately for us, the resort’s chauffer deal did not include locations that were more than 20KM outside the city, meaning we would have to pay DOUBLE if we wanted to visit Banteay Srei (the pretty pink-stone temple) and Beng Mealea (another overgrown, Indiana Jones-esque location).

Our driver could tell we were disappointed when we discovered the extra cost, so when we started suggesting other alternatives, he suggested, “If you stay silent, I’ll stay silent,” and only asked us to pitch in USD $5 for the extra gas so his boss wouldn’t know we bent the rules! We were able to squeeze in visits to the Cambodia Landmine Museum and the Angkor Butterfly Center, before wrapping up the afternoon at two smaller temples. We would have stayed out for sunset, but the sky was so overcast and dull, we decided the photos wouldn’t be worth the wait.

 

The Cambodia Landmine Museum – founded by former child soldier Aki Ra, who has spent his entire adult life locating and deactivating live landmines throughout Cambodia. The museum started as his personal collection of landmines that he had found – over the years, tourists kept coming by his house to see the huge collection, prompting him to put the weapons on display

 

None of these bombs were replicas, but they were supposedly certified as “safe”. Sadly, the USA was responsible for a huge percentage of the landmines dropped on Cambodia (part of Kissinger’s mass carpet-bombing of the Ho Chi Min Trail during the Vietnam War…seriously, how was this not a war crime? He indiscriminatly dropped bombs on civilians in a country we were NOT at war with!), although we learned that Russia, China, Vietnam and Thailand had also contributed significantly to the bloodshed. As a result of foreign interference, Cambodia’s countryside was litered with hundreds of thousands of landmines – every year (even to this day!!!) hundreds of farmers and children are killed or maimed by stepping on anti-personal mines, although thanks to the efforts of Aki Ra and many other organizations, the number of victims is dropping every year

 

Igor listening to the audio guide as we tour the museum

 

After a sobering visiting to the war museum, we head over to the Butterfly Center for a more lighthearted activity

 

So many pretty butterflies!

 

Dozens of cacoons are organized and hung up in a protected cabinet – everyday they have to open the doors so newly hatched butterflies can fly out

 

Bright and fuzzy caterpillars munch away at leaves, next door to some GINORMOUS stick bugs!

 

Our driver takes us to two smaller, less visited temples before returning to the hotel. When we arrive at Banteay Samre, we have the complex all to ourselves!

 

Exploring the stone carvings, shrines, and empty galleries of Banteay Samre

 

Our final temple, Pre Rup, is supposed to be a great location for sunset – on a clear day, the sandstone towers will glow orange as the sun goes down

 

Since the sky is overcast by now, we decide not to stay for sunset (another 3-hour wait) – we just climb to the top to check out the view…where Lindsay can see some dogs running around on the ground! She hurries down the steep stone steps to play with a sweet little puppy

Since our all-inclusive package included unlimited Happy Hour appetizers and drinks, we decided to stay in for dinner tonight. We asked our driver if he could stop at a grocery store on the way back. We are shocked at the AMAZING selection of food at the store: cheese, baguettes, avocados, and a HUGE wine selection! (Not that we needed to buy any wine for tonight, but still, Lindsay likes to know her options…) Bon appetite!

 

We pick up some groceries and have a delicious picnic dinner in our hotel room after filling up on endless canapes

December 10th – 11th, 2016

Days 256 – 257: Bangkok to Siem Reap

We spent the next two days travelling – first returning our rental car to Bangkok, then heading to the airport our flight to Cambodia. The road trip back to Bangkok was easy, but uneventful – just taking turns driving for about 10hrs.

 

No offense, but we do not dig Thai music (everything on radio was putting us to sleep), so we busted out our MP3 thumb drive from our Africa road trip for the long haul back to Bangkok

 

Driving in Thailand is super easy and tourist friendly – the roads are in such great condition, we feel like we are in the USA (especially when we pass tacky alligator statues – is this the Orient or Orlando?). Even the police check points are a breeze – we passed about four on our way down, and the cops mostly just wave us through. One had us pull over, but after asking where we were coming from and where we were going, he immediately let us go…which was a tad odd when we thought about it: after all we were two foreigners driving from the Golden Triangle (a drug producing hotspot) to Bangkok in one day – you’d think they’d at least ask to look in the truck before waving us off?

 

Easy-to-read bilingual road signs makes driving in Thailand really simple – many areas even include photos of the nearby attractions to help tourists find their way

 

Our airport hotel – only USD $30/night for a decent room which was surprisingly well insulated (A bus load of Chinese tourists were checking in just after us – even though there were are least 150 of them, for once we didn’t hear any noise in the hallways nor smell anyone smoking cigarettes! We have a feeling that Thai tour guides may go to extra lengths to make sure Chinese tourists are aware of the proper etiquette in this country, as they seem far better behaved in Thailand than they are in China)

 

Regardless of the Chinese tourists’ improve manners, we still didn’t want to fight a rush of over 100 guests at the hotel restaurant for dinner, so we went to Burger King, which was within walking distance. We were a little bummed as it looked inevitable that we would have to break our vegetarian streak (going on two months without meat!), but we were delighted to discover that Burger King now has a veggie burger option! Not sure if this available in the States too, but it was pretty good!

Since we had originally picked up the rental car at 8AM when we first got it in Chiang Mai, we had to return it first thing in the morning to the airport in Bangkok. Our flight to Cambodia wasn’t until 1PM, but we figured we’d just camp out in the DMK Executive Lounge again. What we didn’t realize, however, is that our Priority Pass only got us into the lounge in the *domestic* terminal – we had nuthin’ in the international wing! So instead of grazing a loaded breakfast buffet and loading up on free coffee, we had to content ourselves with the slim pickings of the various fast-food chains in the terminal and hunker down next to an outlet to charge our devices. Oh well, at least the airport had free Wifi.

 

Since we were denied a breakfast buffet, we gorge ourselves on sugar-coated lard masquerading as donuts (GOD, I love Kristy Kreme)

 

Airport lunch at Micky D’s. After compiling all these photos I now realize that we ate A LOT of fast food in a short period of time. Granted, it’s not like we had many alternatives, and it was kinda nice to try out all the new veggie items that chains are starting to offer

 

Taking a cheap, cramped (but thankfully short) AirAsia flight to Cambodia

We were expecting Immigration in Cambodia to be a mess, but it was surprisingly efficient! US citizens can pay for an on-arrival visa (luckily we brought spare passport photos with us which helped speed up the process) – there were about a dozen government agents working behind the visa counter, passing each new passport to the next agent like a fireman’s brigade – we were in and out in about 5min! Well done, Cambodia.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in our swanky resort, planning our sight-seeing itinerary for the next two days. The hotel offered an all-inclusive package for an additional USD $60/day which would get us a driver for the day plus unlimited mini bar and Happy Hour drinks and appetizers – while we could certainly have visited the sights cheaper had we hired an outside taxi or tuktuk driver, we decided to splurge. Once again we had a lot to see and very little time, so the convenience factor was worth it (plus, a hotel chauffer was not going to drag us to souvenir shops or restaurants where he gets a kick-back).

 

The dollar can go *really* far with accommodations in Cambodia, so we booked an extra special room in Siem Reap – the “Privilege Floor” is a hotel within a hotel, and boy was it fancy! Welcome flowers (garlands of fresh-cut jasmine!), welcome drink, welcome fruit, and even a welcome jellycake wrapped in a banana leaf

 

After we check in to our spacious room, we head up to the restaurant for free cocktails and canapes (even though our all-inclusive package didn’t technically start until tomorrow, our concierge gave us a little *nudgenudgewinkwink* and told us to help ourselves)

 

We decide to go into downtown Siem Reap for dinner, so we take a USD $2 tuktuk to the lively Pub Street, which is packed with restaurants, bars and Western tourists. The majority of the restaurants are Western (a lot of Italian and Mexican places) – it feels like a backpacker Disneyland and strongly reminds us of the Thamel neighborhood in Kathmandu

 

Walking through the night market along the river

 

Grabbing dinner at the only Cambodian-food restaurant we can find on the Pub Street strip

 

There are lots of tuktuks rolling around (some for them pretty pimped out!), so we have no trouble getting a ride back to the hotel (although the fare has mysteriously gone up in price by a dollar…)

December 9th, 2016

Day 255: The Golden Triangle

We finally reached the end of the trail in our journey of northern Thailand – the tripoint border of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos in a spot called the Golden Triangle.

The Golden Triangle is not only a geopolitical landmark, it is also home to one of the largest opium-producing regions in the world (only recently surpassed by Afghanistan in terms of drug production). We started out the day with a visit to Thailand’s “Hall of Opium” museum to learn about the history of the area – we spent a good two and a half hours there and time just flew by! (No, not because they were giving out free samples.)

 

Buffet breakfast in our mountain resort

 

Visiting the Opium Museum for a little “edu-tainment.” Helpful hint: we arrived right around 9AM when the museum opened…along with three school groups and a large group of orange robe-clad monks – when we left at noon, the place was deserted. It doesn’t pay to go to the museum early.

 

Rad school buses, kids! To be fair, even though we were sharing the museum with at least 500 school kids, they were pretty well behaved (even Thai children are polite!). Had we been in an American museum with the same number of ankle biters? Forget it! Understandably, the kids weren’t as interested in reading all the plaques as we were, so whenever a group came into the same room we were in, all we had to do was stand aside and wait for about 5min for the group to pass, then we would have the exhibit to ourselves again

 

The entrance to the Hall of Opium – photos weren’t technically allowed here, but the hallway was so spooky we just had to document it! The walls were covered in haunting sculptures – as if the victims of heroin abuse were trying to warn visitors about the dangers of drugs (Kids – Just Say NO!)

 

A small plot of poppies grows in the atrium of the museum entrance. Once we enter, we learn about the history of opium trade in Southeast Asia. Long story short: the British are drug dealers who get the Chinese so addicted to crack that they are able to swidle the Middle Kingdom out of ownership of Hong Kong for the next 99 years. Gangsta.

 

OK, I have no idea why there was a freaky wax statue of a little Chinese girl in the corridor of the museum – there was no explanatory plaque, she didn’t seem to be a part of the exhibit. Igor wanted Lindsay to sit next to her for a picture, but she refused as she was sure the thing would come to life at any second

 

Teddy bears and the soles of shoes – just some examples of the many ways people have tried to smuggle drugs from the Golden Triangle in the modern era

 

Contemplating words of wisdom and the effects of drugs in the museum’s “Hall of Reflection”

After learning about the historical Golden Triangle, we drove down the road to visit the physical Golden Triangle along the Mekong River. While Myanmar and Laos had a small scattering of buildings along the shore, both countries looked very sparsely inhabited compared to Thailand, which practically had a permanent street fair along the riverbank. In addition to the multiple Golden Triangle photo op locations, the border had several tour operators running boat rides along the river to skirt the edge of Myanmar and even step a toe into Laos – USD $30 and a one hour tour gets us an unofficial visit to another country (no stamp in the passport, tho).

 

The Sop Ruak – the dead center of the physical Golden Triangle, where three countries meet

 

The Golden Triangle is the meeting of three countries along the Mekong River: Thailand, Myanmar and Laos

 

While it won’t give us a stamp in our passports, when we find out we can take a 30min trip across the river to Laos, we can’t resist the temptation to visit yet another country! We bravely surrender our passports to the tour company (since we didn’t pay USD $100 for a Laotian tourist visa we are not allowed to go through Immigration and enter the country proper – we can only visit a tiny island in the Mekong River with a big souvenir market) – hey, this still counts!!!

 

Crossing the river into Laos

 

Our boat driver points out a Burmese casino upriver in Myanmar (the building with the big crown), before heading down to the Laotian island of Don Sao

 

WE IN LAOS! Just to prove it, we buy and mail a couple of postcards. Sadly, we only have two mailing addresses memorized, so y’all reading this probably didn’t get one.

 

We have about half an hour to window shop in the market in Laos before we have to return to our boat – we see a huge variety of violent-looking souvenirs (what’s with that?), and kick ourselves when we see the huge wine selection – we *just* bought a crappy USD $6 bottle of Thai “fruit wine” at the local 7-11, as we figured the 2PM-5PM ban on alcohol sales would leave us literally high & dry that night. Word of advice: if you are in the Golden Triangle, do your booze run in Laos! There is a bigger selection, better prices and no time restrictions!

 

Snake-marinated brandy – now that will put hair on your chest!

 

We stop in a local market on the way back to the hotel to see if we can find food to bring back to our room for dinner – while there is plenty of fresh seafood and veggies, there’s nothing we can prepare without a kitchen

 

Another awesome sunset in our remote mountain suite

 

When we inquire about the corkage fee for bringing our own cheap bottle of wine into the resort restaurant, we are appalled to find out it costs USD $9 just to open the screw-cap bottle! We want to boycott the restaurant purely on principle…but we also don’t want to drive anywhere for dinner. We compromise by ordering the CHEAPEST items on their room service menu – not only do we get to have our own beverages, we also avoid the 15min hike to the lobby – score!