Siem Reap - Day Six

First off, our hotel offered two kinds of breakfasts in the morning. The first was the Continental: three toasted pieces of bread served with peanut butter or jelly (if you wanted both, you had to request it). The second was the American: two eggs, bacon, baked beans, and one piece of toast. Interesting.

Mr. Han took us over to Angkor Wat first thing and we were given a tour by another man who's name I've forgotten. So sorry, Tour Guide. Your tour was lovely.

Angkor Wat is the largest and best preserved temple near Siem Reap, and still bears the title of largest religious structure in the world. The stones were meticulously fit together perfectly, the reason why so much of the structure remains intact.

The temple was built by Hindus in the early 11th century and, apparently, they liked to carve, because there are gorgeous carvings everywhere. And you don't have to strain to see anything, the carvings are still vivid and stunning, my favorites depicted the foundation stories of their religion.

When the area was conquered by Buddhists, the temple was left in tact, but many of the Hindu statues were removed and replaced with Buddhas which still remain. So temple is an interesting fusion of the two religions.

We were there on a perfect day, not too terribly hot. We got there early before hoards of people arrived and were even able to get a few photos without any other tourists. It's just a very cool, dare I say romantic, place.

We came out the back of the temple and spotted another reason why we were so struck by Angkor Wat on The Amazing Race, the wild monkeys. Like many wild animals near tourist destinations, these monkeys are not as fearful of people as they should be, and they stick around hoping to get a snack from amused tourists.

I sat on a group of boulders, careful to keep my distance from other people who didn't seem the least bit bothered by being surrounded by a group of wild monkeys as they tossed food at the creatures. I zoomed my unimpressive kit lens in all the way and tried to look as benign as possible. Then Hubs came up behind me and put his hand on my back. I looked over, 30 feet away at a group of monkeys in trees and my stomach dropped as I spotted Hubs near them, pointing at them with his camera.

Oh my god. I jumped up, the pressure still on my back, and then it was gone. Damn monkey had climbed on my back, and I had stood up, very suddenly, terrified. It could've easily bitten me, and it would've been all my fault. So, when it comes to monkeys, I'm just going to stay away from now on, and always watch my back. Monkeys are scary.

After walking around to the front of Angkor Wat, we headed to Bayon, another temple in Angkor Thom, the ancient city. It's hard not to be happy when in Bayon; you're surrounded by smiling faces and it just fills you with joy.

We sat in back of Bayon, eating lunch in the shade. We had a great view.

We walked along one of the sets of ruins in Angkor Thom. Honestly, they all blended together to me, so I can't comment on a particular one, but it was a great walk.

Angkor Thom has a depressed flat area in its center that reminded me of Circus Maximus in Rome, probably due to the red earth that looked like a track, and being surrounded by the higher temples on its sides.

That night we ate dinner at our hotel. Villa Siem Reap is owned by Australians and they do an all-you-can-eat Australian BBQ for $8, so we thought we'd try it. It's also open to those not staying at the hotel, and if you're tired of curry, this is a good option.

After dinner, we walked downtown down Pub Street, which faintly reminded me of the restaurant row in Brussels where the staff stands at the door trying to lure you in. Siem Reap is known for its night market, but really the whole town turns into a night market. You can't walk five feet without being asked if you want a massage or a tuk tuk.

Chiang Mai to Siem Reap - Day Five

Some final thoughts on Chiang Mai:

Chiang Mai has a very laid back, hippie vibe. The food is dirt cheap and delicious. Be there on Sunday night to experience the Walking Street Market. If you aren't going to have a day with elephants, I don't know if it's a must-see place in Thailand. The temples are plentiful, just depends how much you like temples. I'm so glad we went to Chiang Mai first, because we lost at least half a day due to jet lag, and I would've been heartbroken to lose any time anywhere else we went. All in all, for us, it was the perfect place to start our trip, but it's not a place to which we'll be daydreaming about returning.

We flew out from Chiang Mai to Siem Reap via Bangkok. Each flight was an hour.

When we arrived at Siem Reap, our tuk-tuk driver, Mr. Han, the man who would be our guide for our entire stay, was waiting for us with a beer for the ride back to the hotel (Angkor beer tastes worse than it smells). Not a bad way to start. Through our hotel package at The Villa Siem Reap, we basically had a driver at our call whenever we wished during the day. And at night, we were within walking distance from the downtown area.

I highly recommend The Villa Siam Reap. The hotel was clean, air conditioning was great, and the staff was very friendly. Perhaps we could've gotten a better deal elsewhere, but the convenience of booking everything we wanted to do through the hotel was worth paying extra for. Plus, the hotel had a nice bar and a good breakfast. And, most importantly, they employed Mr. Han.

After we checked in, Mr. Han gave us a quick tour around Siam Reap to get us acclimated. I immediately bought a bag made out of a Siam Co. cement sack. So much for shopping around, but I ended up not regretting the decision.

As we passed the  Children's Hospital, Mr. Han gushed at how great it was, how it was closed during the Khmer Rouge, and how glad grateful he is that it's open again. Down the road, he pulled into a cemetery where there was a display of skulls from a nearby killing field. This was the Cambodia I was nervous about putting a damper on our trip (and, yes, I realize how trite that sounds). But it turned out to be the Cambodia I needed to see. Mr. Han briefly told his story, the Khmer Rouge murdering many of his family members. The rawness of this event decades ago sitting just below the surface, tears still brimming at the retelling of its horror. Hearing his story, the resilience of all the beautiful people we met, the gorgeous country shone through. This war was so recent, not a single resident hasn't been affected by it.

Then we went to Angkor Wat to watch the sunset. The temple was beautiful, the temple of our dreams. We drank wine and ate cheese, the temple reflecting in the pond at our feet.

We ate a complimentary dinner at our hotel. Hubs had chicken and sour cabbage, which was great.

I had traditional Khmer curry (Cambodian curry is similar to Thai curry, but less spicy but still packed with flavor) served in a coconut. Fun! It was very good, not too rich.

And then it was time to sleep after a long, good, emotional day.

Wat Prathat Doi Suthep - Day Four

Everyone should have a monk garden gnome.

Today we went to Wat Prathat Doi Suthep, a beautiful golden temple on the top of hill, looking down on Chiang Mai. It's definitely worth the hour-long journey to get there. The cheapest option is the red truck, the public transportation system in Chiang Mai. There are red trucks driving up and down the busier streets all the time. You flag them, they pull over, you tell them where you want to go (in our case, Chiang Mai University), they say no and keep on driving. You aren't doing it wrong. Just flag the next one and ask again. I think it was our third one before the truck was going in the direction we wanted. The trucks are very affordable, a trip across town cost 30 Bht per person.

At Chiang Mai University, you wait at a stop and get another red truck to the temple.

The temple has a great set of stairs with dragon railings that you have to climb to get to the top. There was an adorable little girl dressed up, trying to make some quick cash with her cuteness.

The view is beautiful, though it was a little smoggy on the day we were there.

The actual temple is striking with all of its gold. FYI: Foreigners are asked to donate 30 Bht before entering the temple.

There's also a great market around the temple and lots of delicious food stands, so plan on eating lunch here. I found a white stone elephant charm and a heart pendant necklace, my favorite purchase of the whole trip.

View of vendors from the red truck.

Back onto the red truck and down the hill to Chiang Mai.

We ate dinner at Hot Chilli, an open restaurant, much more Western than the other places we'd eaten at Chiang Mai. We shared the Tom Sam salad, their version had pineapple, watermelon, and jicama rather than the traditional papaya salad. It was so good. Light and refreshing, and, surprisingly, not too sweet and a little spicy.

I had the regional sausage (slightly spicy) with fried rice. Yum.

Hubs had the duck curry with pineapple which was delicious.

Split a large Chang beer, which smells worse than it tastes. Love the label!

Add a bottle of water and our bill came to 500 Bht with tip. Not bad for the romantic ambience and a great last dinner in Chiang Mai.

Patara Elephant Farm - Day Three

I must admit, one of the major reasons we went to Chiang Mai was because I watched Samantha Brown ride and swim with an elephant at Patara Elephant Farm. I'd never had any desire to ride an elephant before then, but it looked like an amazing experience. I'd also had a thing for elephants after seeing an Oprah that showed elephants having a "funeral" for their dead in which they all mourned and "touched" the fallen with their trunks. I still get teary thinking about it.

So our third day was spent entirely at Patara Elephant Farm (also check out their Facebook page). There are many places to pay to interact with elephants near Chiang Mai. Patara is the most expensive. There's a reason for that. It's the best.

The elephants at Patara are treated extremetly well; they're treated like elephants. They have lots of space to move around, plenty of friends to socialize with, the right food in the correct proportion, and they get the care and exercise they need to thrive in captivity. Many of their elephants are rescues. Patara's focus is to educate people about elephants, increase the elephant population, and release elephants back into the wild.

BoonPak

At Patara, you become an elephant owner for day and an elephant is assigned to you. I got BoonPak, which means Happy. BoonPak is a big, beautiful, 17-yr-old male with long, glorius tusks. He was rescued from the circus when he was 6. Since I was now BoonPak's owner, I fed him bananas and sugar cane and made sure he was healthy by checking the quantity and consistency of his droppings.

Then I had to clean him. First, I had to brush the dirt off of him with a bundle of leaves. There is a lot of dirt on an elephant, and the surface area is large. After the dirt was removed, I took him into the creek and scrubbed him down. Cleaning an elephant is hard work.

Then we road them bareback down a trail to another small river. I thought it might be scary, but they're so slow and sturdy, no worries.

When we got to the river, there was an amazing spread of food. It was all so good, and great sticky rice desserts were wrapped in the banana leaves. I don't think we ate half of it. So the elephants got to finish it. Except for the chicken.

The most special part of the trek was that you could swim with the elephants if you wanted to. It wasn't hot on the day we went, so most people didn't want to do it, since the water was quite cold. But, hey, when are you ever going to swim with an elephant? Plus, they only picked two elephants to interact with in the creek, and one was BoonPak, so that sealed the deal.

Again, I thought I might be scared, you know, since he's huge, and water isn't my best surface. But BoonPak loved the water and he was so relaxed. I ended up relaxing with him, resting my body on his front leg and laying my head on his. Whenever he'd move his leg, I'd move right along with him. It was pretty awesome. I couldn't stop smiling.

BoonPak and his awesome handler, Thep, who assisted me in taking care of BoonPak all day.

I'm going to be honest, my legs inner thighs took about a month to return to normal. But Patara was an amazing experience. When you're there, you feel like you're doing something good for the world. And you're definitely doing something good for yourself.

Chiang Mai - Day Two

We went to a bunch of temples, which is mostly what you do in Chiang Mai. It's not a gorgeous town, by any means. It feels incredibly laid back and casual, an Asian hippie town. But no matter where you are, if you look up, there are gold and silver spires jutting into the sky.

Here are some of my favorite images from Wat Phra Sing:

My favorite temple in Chiang Mai was Wat Chedi Luang. It was a nice prelude to Angkor Wat. Loved the elephants around it. I could've spent all day reading in the peaceful courtyard.

The most interesting thing about the temples were how there were clusters of smaller temples around the larger ones, and some of those small temples were more beautiful and ornate than the large ones.

We ate at one of the restaurants on Intrawararot, near our hotel. Hubs had crispy pork.

I had boiled rice with duck. The dishes came with a lovely tray of condiments. I love condiments.

2 dishes + water + tip = 100 Bht.

This was the day the jet lag really hit. We went to bed very early and slept for many, many hours.

Chiang Mai - Day One

We had a direct flight from LAX to Bangkok, which was a red-eye, and the 16 hours went by shockingly fast. Took sleep medicine for the first time in my life and slept well, all things considered. And the food on Thai Airways wasn't half bad.

We took a cab from the Chiang Mai Airport to our hotel (120 Bht). There isn't much in the way of public transportation in Chiang Mai besides the red trucks that can take you from place to place. More on those later.

We stayed at the De Lanna Hotel, which was a great location. Lots of restaurants just up the road on Intrawararot. Not to be a wimpy Westerner, but the air conditioner could have been a tad more powerful, that was my only complaint. The daily breakfast is FANTASTIC, and made up for any shortcomings with the air conditioning.

After taking a shower, we walked around and had an early dinner at Huen Phen. When in northern Thailand, eat the curry. Khao Soi is the regional specialty and it's worth having as many times as you can. I had a red curry with noodles.

Khao Soi

Red Curry

Many desserts in Thailand consist of frozen pieces of gelatin floating in a sweet milky liquid. Appetizing, right?

It tastes like cereal milk. Momofuku Milk Bar didn't reinvent the wheel. The flavor of cereal milk is universally comforting. Most importantly, it's cold, cold, cold.

Not so scary.

Chiang Mai is an incredibly affordable place to eat. You can pick up some delicious snack being fried on almost every street corner. Our meal at Huen Phen with two curries, two waters, and dessert was 120 Bht.

If you are going to Chiang Mai, please, please be there on a Sunday. It's the only day of the week for the Walking Street Market 4pm-midnight.

This was our favorite market of the trip, and we went to many. First, it's at night, so the weather is cooler. It's stand after stand, lit by hanging lights, so the atmosphere is special. Of all the markets we went to, I felt that this had the most handmade crafts, and actually felt like we were supporting local craftsmen, as opposed to buying cheap junk straight from a warehouse. And if you see something you like, buy it. I still regret not buying a tiny, carved wooden elephant for $2 because I was sure I would come across another one later in the trip. Nope.

And, of course, there is food, food, and more food. The highlight was the Witty Ice Cream stand which served the best waffle cone I've ever eaten.