Day 11: Beaches and Trains

Sunny Thursday Morning: When we wake up and look outside, we see our first sun in about a week. It's carving out a picturesque scene over the gorgeous grounds of the Hyatt Regency Danang. 

This is bittersweet, because we'd chosen to take the 1pm train to Saigon and cut short a potential perfect day on the beach. :(  

Alas, we made the most of our morning by spending time walking down the beach, enjoying both pools, and having a nice breakfast to boot. 

Time to say goodbye (to the Hyatt): We do our best to dry off our laundry, but some will have to make a damp voyage to Saigon. We get packed up, frantically search for the passports until they show up in our toiletry kit (sigh of relief mixed with wrinkled eyebrows), and jump in our taxi out front. Quick ride to the station. The instructions which came with the ticket said arrive an hour early but we had already figured 30 min was more than plenty. In reality, the train was 30 min late and even if you show up 1 minute before boarding you're just fine. 

The station: We may not have addressed this before, but the language barrier is tougher in Vietnam than any other country we've been to. Not sure why, but these people speak extremely terrible English. That said, they just keep saying the same garbled mess of sounds hoping we'll get it. In the station, we heard the occasional announcement, but usually couldn't make out the English. To make matters more challenging: imagine the constant chatter of your local manicure shop in the US, but with 50 of them chatting instead of 4-6.  ;)  At times I felt like we were in a chicken coop trying to listen to Lou Holtz comment on a college football game. Thankfully for the dry erase board which told us the estimated time of departure, we were able to stay calm and board out train at about 1:45. Although we were sad to know we could have had at least an hour more of beach time!

The train ride:  We find our 4-person sleeper and are happy to see that for now it is just the two of us. It's tied for the lowest-quality train Travis has ever been on, but Nicole may have seen worse in India. Thankfully, we were prepared to exhaust our disinfectant spray and wipes, and quickly sanitized the room. The train staffer brought us "clean" sheets and we decided we'd be sleeping with as many clothes on as possible. 

We sit down at our little table with passing views of the countryside, a fake flower in the window, some cards, drinks (that's a 333 or "ba-ba-ba" beer) and some incredibly delicious cheeto-variation called Gyros...and got comfortable. Once Nicole tested out the bathroom, she decided not to drink anything more until we got to our hotel. ;)  It was like a rapidly-moving and wobbling port-o-potty. Travis was a bit more willing, but had to use plenty of hand sanitizer afterwards.  We really enjoyed watching the countryside: there were rice farmers for miles and miles, along with cows and/or water buffalo, white geese, pelicans maybe, and other cool scenes.  It was impressive how many Vietnamese were laboring hard out in the field. Travis snapped a few pictures of some really amazing-looking cemeteries (like those in New Orleans but with colors of red, green and yellow adorning the massive headstones and mausoleums), but those pics have disappeared into cyberspace somehow. Anyway, the views were interesting and relaxing, and the weather was sunny until about 5--then the dark clouds helped us crash early. 

The train people:  There was a food cart or drink cart every hour or so. The guys are pretty funny in that they really try to up sell you and since their English is almost zero, they just say a lot of loud noises until we can shoe them away. There's a terrible radio station that popped on, and we fortunately found the switch to shut it off. Someone kept smoking out of the window between trains, but the smoke would make its way to our room. Yuck! When our door was open people just kept walking by and peering in, so we were okay with Guest #1's unilateral decision to close the door to our room. 

Guest #1:  In comes an upper-middle class lady who may have understood our hellos, but that's about it.  We had to shift our stuff around but she seemed nice as she suggested we put our big bags up top. She showed some of that Vietnamese "I'm going to do whatever I want with zero regard for others" attitude by closing/opening doors when it suited her, awaking from her slumber to chat away on her phone, and exerting executive control over the cabin lights. But for the most part we rolled with it. Given the 5am scheduled arrival, we figured going to sleep at 6pm might be a good thing, and the gentle (often not-so-gentle or quiet) lull of the train made us sleepy. We were probably asleep at 5pm then awakened for dinner. Dinner was probably fine--chicken or pork with steamed rice, soup and green veggies--but we both were not feeling adventurous after days of stomach troubles.  We nibbled a little, highly focused on the perceived security of white rice, then went back to sleep. 

Guest #2:  Like most Vietnamese, this guy barrels in with no volume control at 10pm and just keeps repeating something that must have meant either "my bed" or "move bags."  Travis slowly gathered his surroundings, pointed to the bag and that seemed to quiet the dude. Since all we had left to do was sleep, we just put the big backpacks in the middle of the room instead of trying to shove them under the bed. Our new companion started with a constant barrage of loud sniffs and sounds for the first 10 minutes, but after that he quieted down. Thank goodness...now we just have to see if we can sleep soundly till about 4 am. :)

Looking forward to a relaxing last day in Saigon...and thankful we were able to get some decent sleep on the train!

Day 9: Suit Up!

We decided to shift down a gear to give Travis time to rest and recover. So instead of the bike tour, we explored the local sites (museums, temples, ancient Japanese bridges) and by 'explore' I mean walked by. 

Ancient Japanese Bridge

Suits and More: Other than being a fishing village, Hoi An is known for its custom tailoring...suits, dresses, coats, shoes, briefcases...they make it all by hand.  We stopped into a few clothing shops, and each had good-looking stuff, but we couldn't get over quality concerns. After all, what if we get the clothes home and they fall apart? We finally roll up to "Kimmy Tailor," which had been recommended by a girl at the hotel.  A quick check in trip advisor showed 4.5/5 stars and outstanding reviews from about 250 travelers. Their professional manner, uniforms and sense of style pushed us over the top--we're now going to buy some Vietnamese suits for Travis and coats for Nicole. Travis needs a navy suit and a lighter-colored suit, and finds two great colors to work with. We pick out the style and haggle down to $410 for two custom-made suits, two custom dress shirts and a tie. Nicole needs a winter coat or two to endure the Seattle Freeze and haggles down to $150 for a beautiful cream colored 3/4 length coat and a fun short yellow coat. They let us pick out stylish lining for the inside as well as button placement. We scheduled 3 fittings to come back and make sure everything looks and fits great before we fly it home.

STREETS: (Nicole's favorite part of Hoi An) In Laos, Kat and Luke (our waitress and chef at Apsara) recommended checking out a restaurant called Streets Cafe in Hoi An. A chef from Manhattan and his wife opened Streets to take kids off the streets of Vietnam. The way it works is the students are housed in safe, secure housing, provided nutritious food, and medical care for 18-months while they earn an ICE certificate  (International Culinary Education certificate).

Streets Cafe

Additionally, they take a few life skills courses, English lessons, and work in rotation at Streets (the teaching restaurant). While at Streets, they learn every position from the front of house to cooking on the line. All the profits from the cafe support the students' expenses from housing to cooking school. It is quite extraordinary what they are doing to support disadvantaged youth. In reading some articles on the wall, we learned about how the idea came about (in developing nations the tourism and hospitality industry boom) to what they want to do next (scale this model around the world). Upon completion of the program students are highly employable at any number of fancy international restaurants or hotels and able to make a nice life for themselves.

The real streets of Hoi An: We walked along the river and visited a few art shops.  Found some nice paintings, saw some nice leather bags, had a disappointing search for a Cambodian-priced massage, then headed home. We had a fancy drink by the pool (Nicole taught them how to make a lava flow, I tried my first Caipiroska--a Russian twist on Capirinha that they have everywhere in SE Asia) and relaxed before heading out to dinner and our 7 pm fitting. 

Mermaid Cafe:  Its merMAN!

Well...there really was nothing about this self-proclaimed first restaurant in town that would remind a person of a half-fish, half Darryl Hannah creature. However, this divy place had a certain charm in its old ness and dilapidated-ness. It seemed that while the original owner had gone on to create 3 more local establishments.... she'd kept mermaid the same. The waitresses stared at the tables, ready to help their customers at a moment's notice, in true "Vietnamese hospitality" fashion. A single guy came by and they told him to go next door. When we leave, we see that "next door" is just two questionable plastic tables next to the kitchen.  ..."the annex," if you will.  The shrimp wontons in the picture were pretty good, and Travis' hot pot was the most Vietnamese thing he's tasted yet...but between talking to locals and tasting the food, we're convinced now that Hanoi and Saigon own the good food scene in Vietnam.

Shrimp Wontons

Fitting: After dinner we tried our suits and coats on, and shockingly they seemed to be 90% done after about 4 hours. We made plans to go in for the 2nd fitting early in the am, headed home, and still-sick Travis was asleep by 8pm. 

Day 8: Hanoi to Hoi An

We woke up early (as usual) and enjoyed quite a free breakfast spread at the J-dubs. At 9:30 we caught a cab to the airport and had the normal Vietnamese driving experience: a 3-car pile up, cars passing in oncoming traffic during rush hour...that sort of thing. Always fun. ☺Travis was feeling progressively colder all day, so at the airport Nicole got Travis some hot tea and soup to help him warm up. We got onto our flight to Danang and went on our merry way to the next destination: Hoi An, Vietnam.

We jumped in a cab in Danang and drove about 40 minutes to Hoi An. We passed a few beaches and some pretty golf courses on the way into town. 

Bike Tour: After getting situated, we rented bicycles and rode around town to find a British-owned Pub that was recommended to us called Sleepy Gecko. Dodging cars, motorbikes, pedestrians, bicycle tuk tuks, shuttle buses, and other gringo bike riders, we found the Sleepy Gecko up an alley on the other side of the river. We grabbed a beer and a snack, while we inquired about the famous bike tours. Meanwhile, we were chatted up by a nice man in his late 60s from New Mexico traveling through Asia solo, although we never really got the story there. After phoning the owner/tour guide, the waitress told us to return tomorrow at 8:30am for an all day bike tour of Hoi An. We biked back to our hotel, and Travis hit rock bottom...turns out he had a pretty bad fever and some stomach troubles-we suspect some bad street food may be the culprit.

Nicole asked the bartender what is best for healing sickness and came back with hot ginger tea. She also ordered a coconut-orange-strawberry smoothie for good measure, which was delicious. We searched the strange TV programming and found Coach Carter in English with Vietnamese subtitles.  Between the comfort of Samuel L Jackson on the TV and Nurse Nicole in real life, Travis' fever broke right around the time the Oilers won the big holiday tourney. Hooray for all! A few antibiotics, Tylenol and Imodium later and Travis was fast asleep for the night. 

Day 7: Caves, Whiskey Village and Slow Boats

We wake up and pack up our stuff, and leave it all at Apsara while we head out for a day on the water. We're board a slow boat cruise to see the Pak Ou caves, with a stop on the way to see the whiskey village.

So we get onto a long boat with an Australian family (consisting of an expat living in Laos with wife and 4 kids), a gregarious Japanese business professor and his top pupil from Vietnam, and a nice pair from London who are about 50 or so and we assume are brother/sister. Then we hit the Mekong. 

First stop, Whiskey village:  This was supposedly the town where Lao Lao whiskey is made, and when we got off the boat we immediately had some samples in our faces (as well as some red and white rice wine). In the picture, at left is the sampling table, and in the foreground are the local children "communicating" with the Australian girl. It was pretty cute and they went back-and-forth making faces for a while. 
We go up a few steps and Nicole haggles for some cozy and beautiful "hippie pants" as Travis calls them. Then we see some beautiful temples, some monks learning monkhood or something,

some dogs playing around (there are playful dogs everywhere in SE Asia) and some more shopping.  We scampered back to the boat and were on our way to stop #2, but apparently the fact that we took 22 minutes (instead of the 20 recommended) meant that Mr. Japanese professor was going to make wise-cracks about tardiness for the rest of the day. 

The caves:  After a bit more time on the river and a BeerLao, we arrive at the caves. We have 30 minutes to check out these two caves full of Buddha statues. This time we set an alarm on our phone to be sure we are not tardy.

The Buddhas have been there for a while, and the caves are maintained by the townspeople in the fishing village right across the Mekong. Most people just visited cave #1 which was 3 flights of stairs-or-so up the hill, and visible from the water. Travis was the only one from our boat who hiked up to the second cave...which turned out to be his workout for the day. The hike was straight upstairs for a while, but the payoff was pretty good. A dark cave requiring a "torch" (you Americans may call it a flashlight) and a few hundred Buddha statues just chillin in the dark. It was really great. Then began the hike back to the boat. Nicole was the first one back at the boat, but the Japanese guy continued with wise cracks...

Back to town:  The boat ride back was uneventful, but scenic and relaxing. They also served us a traditional Laos lunch which included a sampler plate of fish Mok (which we called fish milkshake), egg wrapped around minced pork, and grilled chicken in a banana leaf.  Followed by several courses of soup, rice, stir fried veggies, and meat. We returned to town at 2:30 and had a 7:30 flight, so we just walked around a bit. We had a banana/Nutella crepe from a street vendor, and watched the guy after us order some green paste (danpan custard) on his crepe.
He didn't know what it was, but said it tasted good. We were captured eating by a film crew, so keep your eyes out for us on Vietnamese TV. We proceeded to hit the night market once more and Travis found a painting he liked. Nicole found some pants that would later turn out to be a little (a lot) oversized.  

We ventured on to a Tracole mini-pub crawl (Aussie Bar, Hive, Utopia- where the bartender couldnt figure out how to make any of the drinks in their menu) and quick stop at JoMa for a chocolate croissant per lonely planet (umm, a little disappointing). Then, we used the rest of our cash to buy a couple of drinks at Apsara and chat up the staff. The morning reception guy drove us to the airport along with his adorable 4 1/2 year-old daughter, Pha (means "sky" in Lao). The drive was really entertaining (we learned a lot about Lao weddings and marriages) and he really was a kind man. 

JW Marriott Hanoi: 

Nicole's points got us a free stay at possibly the nicest hotel we'd ever seen, and we were of course in a fancy suite. Every-where we went, we were shadowed by someone waiting to attend to our every need. We were thoroughly impressed with the pool and exercise facilities on the top floor overlooking the city.

Time for bed in our cozy palace. 

Day 6: Tad Se waterfall and all-day trekking

It was Saturday 11/30, and we had to be at the travel agency at 8:30 to begin the trek.  We start with a well-balanced breakfast. Travis decided to try the porridge that the locals eat, even though it sounded a bit terrible, just to get a sense for the real low I guess.  It was okay, and had mushrooms and onions and a savory flavor but didn't hold a candle to an omelette or croissant. But the coffee, baguettes and homemade jams (mango and pineapple) were amazing. 

We are the first ones at the travel agency but in a few moments our hiking companions begin to show  up.  They are dressed appropriately for the rain and cold weather with coats and such, while Travis and Nicole were in shorts.  The ride up to the hills took about 45 min and was FREEEZING. We were happy to stop moving so the wind cut down!  On the way, we got to know our companions--2 girls from Edmonton, Canada three Swiss, and a Thai girl who's the GF of one of the Swiss guys. 

The calm before the storm:  These guys come grab us in their thin little  boats, and Nicole astutely pointed out the ease with which they could capsize. There were 6 of us in each boat, and they pushed us across slowly with giant bamboo poles like a Venetian gondola driver...sans the opera singing. We get to the other side where we are greeted by adorable little kids and we begin our trek into the jungle.

The Villages: During the hike, we pass through a few villages. Our guides explain that Loas is made up of three tribes who speak different languages: Lao Sun (the Mong from China), Lao Thrung (the Kmhu) and Lao Lum (from the local nations, Thai etc). The Lao Lum speak the language now knows as "Laotian" which is the language taught in all the local schools. We learned a lot about these three and trust me it is very confusing!  In the villages, the Laos Lum used concrete foundations (cinder blocks) with a wood/bamboo second level, the Laos Thung built on stilts, and the Laos Sun had large single level thatch houses that were flat on the ground. So now that they all live together and even sometimes marry each other, you still see the differences in the tribes but they are friendly to one another. In addition to passing a couple of villages on the trek, and we also encountered the occasional remote tribesman on our journey. The kids in town were VERY happy, smiley, friendly, and loved seeing their pictures in the viewfinder of your camera. We noticed some were playing double-Dutch with a homemade black rope of some kind and others playing a variation of dodgeball. After a couple hours, we stopped and ate lunch in one village. The Canadians pulled out some moleskin for a blistered heel and all of the village children crowded around to see what it was--it was fun to see them ooh and ahh after we'd been snooping around their village taking pics. 

The Trek: Village stops included, we trekked from about 9:00 am to 3:30 pm through several different types of terrain including rice paddies, corn and eggplant fields, through tall trees creating an elegant arch over the path. We trodded past pigs, water buffalo, chickens, goats (bringing new meaning to free-range). We walked by what seemed like plantations of banana and rubber trees. It was interesting to see how they harvest the rubber from the trees. After the tree is 5-6 years old, they scrape the bark and insert a metal spigot that drips rubber into plastic containers attached to the tree. We carefully traversed the edge of the mountain on an 18 inch wide muddied (from the recent rains) path with no hand rails other than the plants you could grab growing out the side of the mountain. With each step, we placed our feet with care so that we had enough traction to take another step without falling on our face (or worse-falling down the hill).  We plodded over tree trunks, and tiptoed across rivers and streams on rickety wood bridges, where one of the Swiss guys had his foot fall through a wood plank on the bridge and dropped his camera into the waterfall. Alas, we made it to the waterfalls, and it was well-worth the hike. The gorgeous green blue pools of water were beautifully terraced as if nature was building a resort.  Travis waded around a bit, and three of our "teammates" dared to try the rope-swing and fully submerge. We walked past the elephants taking people for a ride into the water then down to a long-tail boat for a 5-minute ride up the river back to the truck. 

Note: we took pics with the camera but our phones were in a waterproof container so not many easily-accessible pics for you to see yet. 

We get back to town, feeling very cold, and right as Nicole is about to jump in the shower the power goes out. Apparently, this happens on the weekend for 10-60 min at a time--the city shuts off power for whatever reason and just doesn't tell anyone. No power = no hot water (electric water heaters). We went for a foot massage, which was very nice, and well-earned after a full-day hike! They also offered the "fish massage" but we weren't quite ready to be the bait.  However, we did see an Australian girl sit there for 30 minutes with her feet in an aquarium while little fish nibbled the dead skin off her feet. Obviously all of you readers will be rushing out to try this. Anyway... during our foot massage the power returned to Luang Prabang, so it was now dinner time. 

Dinner at Apsaras: While tempting to continue going after authentic street food, we were curious what a nice dinner at our hotel would taste like. We love the ambience there, so we both voted for Apsara. Dinner was amaze-balls and served by our friend Kat, so we felt right at home. In a shocking coincidence, we were about 15 feet from our bed, so it pretty much was "home." After a fantastic meal and a couple drinks, we decided to go to sleep early after a long day. 

Day 5: What a Luang Prabang trip it's been

We woke up, grabbed a Tuk-Tuk to Apsara, and were able to check in promptly. Apsara was a big step up and right in the heart of town, making it easy to stroll around.

French bakery: We read rave reviews about a local French bakery called La Benneton that we decided was a must try. We shared a chocolate croissant, their signature dish and a salted Carmel crepe...and Travis also had an omelette to fuel us up for the day. It was delectable!  

Booking the week: Since plane travel isn't easy and buses are slow & bumpy, it was a challenge to get travel to work out perfectly. We'd originally planned for an extra half-day but flights are hard to come by here, so we needed to pack a lot in (a challenge in a place we'd been told goes so slowly that time can turn backwards). We wanted to see the waterfalls, some native villages, the buddha caves and the whiskey town, while getting in a ride on a slow boat and maybe an elephant.  Oh, and a cooking class too!  Well, we were able to schedule it all but the cooking class came with some hurdles. We couldn't get into the Tamarind (best resto in town--apparently booked far in advance) but we got in today for an afternoon class at Tamnak Lao restaurant, which had been featured on some travel channel show or something. After gladly making our bookings we walked around for lunch and a little tour of the city. 

Cooking class: When we arrived at the cooking class, we met our classmates. One couple was originally from Seattle now living in San Fran. The other couple was from Chicago/Argentina. It was great to hear about their travels through SE Asia and get their trip tips. It was also fun chatting about some ironic similarities including one girl who worked in Audit at KPMG and the other who was in advisory at Accenture. We learned how to make 5 Loatian dishes and then selected 3 to make ourselves. We had quite the learning curve until we discovered that we should prep everything in advance instead of thinking we could chop on the fly like the pros.  There was a lot of eggplant, a fair bit of fish sauce and oyster sauce, some local mushrooms, and your typical garlic, shallots and proteins (primarily minced pork). We also learned the secret to chili sauce and sticky rice. The food turned out great, and we are now officially Loatian chefs.

Climbing Phousi Mountain: A must-see in Luang Prabang, Nicole and Travis summited Phousi in about 15 minutes. The view was pretty remarkable to Travis but Nicole remained unimpressed by the brown rivers. ;) 

Dinner: After the class it was almost dinner time so we go back to the hotel, where Nicole takes a nap (it was chilly but our room cozy) and Travis goes to find a place to have a big BeerLao all by himself. After a lap around town Travis ends up at the Apsara bar, chatting up the staff. Kat is from Montreal and is married to Luke, an Australian executive chef out here for a 1-yr contract.

Carrot, ginger lemongrass cilantro soup

When Nicole rises we deside to try one of their appetizers, and they give us a little amuse Bouche that was off he charts...as was the soup.  We adapt the philosophy "why go anywhere besides our hotel?" Haha. A big group of 60-something's from Seattle, London (and who knows where else) were singing and laughing and having a great time behind us. Maybe we'll be back someday in a few decades?After the meal we decide to do what most people do in Luang Prabang: call it a night around 9-9:30 and get ready for a big day tomorrow (trekking and visiting Tad SE waterfall).

Day 4: The Monsoon hit SE Asia

Today is time to leave Cambodia, which is sad, but having seen most of the Kingdom of Angkor in no time flat meant that we were ready for our next adventure. We packed and blogged, then had a few hours to kill before heading to the airport.

Drinks on the roof: We had two Cambodia beers left in the fridge so after checking out, we went to the roof. There was a little elevated area where we hike up above the rest of the pool-folk to what seemed like the proper vantage point for our last beer in Cambodia. 

Frequent relaxer's card: We went back to Lemongrass spa--Travis for a Khmer massage and Nicole for a "Laotian fresh multivitamin" facial.  What they meant by that was just rubbing food on her face for an hour would make her more youthful. Nicole likes to rub cheese enchiladas and baguettes all over her face already, but hopefully this will be more beneficial for her skin. 

Last Cambodian meal: About to sprint to the nearest tuk-tuk to avoid heavy rains, we spotted a decent looking restaurant and remembered one of our favorite things to do is to just randomly try restaurants we see passing by.

The illustrious Damnak Khmer - our last meal in Cambodia

Nicole had some yummy steak and veggie kabobs with pepper sauce...so good that she sequestered the waiter to explain the recipe in his best broken English. Apparently the sauce of all ages is...wait for it: pepper, sugar and lime juice...legend...dairy. Travis wanted to have one more Amok, and it was good as usual, but sadly he ate it too fast and we couldn't snap a picture of the beautiful banana leaf-wrapped presentation. 

Onto Laos: Our favorite driver, Mr. Ra, took us to the airport and I snapped another picture in an attempt to show you how beautiful the international terminal is...right before the rain kicked up a notch.

We shopped at the fancy airport yet didn't buy anything other than some Cambodian ice cream (decent but not a must-try), but we really wanted these shoes:

Arrival in Luang Prabang, Laos: Its dark and rainy, but we breeze through visas and immigration and head to our hostel. It's "quaint" in the lobby with very nice Laotian staff, but when we get to the room it's a little bit dirty for our liking. As in, they didn't really clean it in the past few days/weeks/etc. Since the rain subsided, we left our bags and went out to see the town. The night market was ready for the rain with tarps everywhere, and since the Laotians aren't very tall it meant Nicole breezed through while Travis dodged, ducked, dipped, dived and dodged (sic) his way through the market. Cool stuff and a huge market, but we're on a mission in search of food...at least Travis sure is. We forego the visit to the tour agencies our guidebook recommended because Travis assured Nicole they'd be open late, and we proceeded to a little spot for dinner called The Garden Restaurant. Travis went right for the Fish Mok, a Laotian famous dish of spiced/steamed fish in a banana leaf, and Nicole had some Chicken Marsala.  The Fish Mok looked like fish spam, but tasted pretty good with a weird texture. So after all of the excitement about the Laotian food Travis was enamored with the Indian food Nicole ordered and proceeded to eat most of hers. We then went to the tour offices which were closed. Travis is deemed no longer a reliable source of knowledge when it comes to Laotian business practices. 

Laos "Full House" bar: On our way home we walk towards the bar district (aka 4 bars in one block that have an 11:30 curfew), we accidentally crash a family party. Picture this: we follow loud ("lao'd?) music and voices up a ramp, only to freeze when we see a family of about 12 Loas just enjoying what must be a festive Thanksgiving dinner. We try to sly-ly turn around and they spot us and cajole us into coming in for a beer. It's seems to be a functioning restaurant, but it's just the two of us and this family...which is kind of aaah-some. The ring leader introduces us to his adorable 3 year old daughter who is kicking a soccer ball around with two other toddlers (toddlao).   He then proceeds to show us his pile of giant empty bottles of BeerLao, and explains that 'Lao people drink too much'
and he's had 6 of these. In a way, he was calling us out for only having one bottle. Anyway, we've now been accepted to the tribe and were given a key to the city.

Heading home: Given the state of our current place (and inconvenient locale), we fought our fatigue in order to check out a few places, both inside and outside of our budget.  The outside-of-our-budget places sure are fun to see.  We found two we loved in our budget with availability, and one called Apsara said we could check in early. We walk past the bar district and arrive at our lame duck hostel and call it a night. Happily, we will be checking into a our new place first thing in the morning. 

Day 3: Angkor Wat Sunrise

Temple Ticket Booth at 5:00am

The day started at 5am, but the morning at Angkor Wat was amazing... 

The Race to Sunrise: The picture is blurry, but we were at the ticket counter with a few hundred people at 5:10am. From there we joined the tuk-tuk race to Angkor Wat. It felt a little like the Cambodian version of Black Friday with everyone racing to get a good spot with a decent view of the majestic sunrise.

Angkor Wat: Pitch black we were thankful Travis bought a cheap flashlight and brought it this morning as we trounced through the temple ot position ourselves for sunrise. 



Angkor Wat at Sunrise



 Already 3 rows deep, we found a spot where Travis could see over the crowd and Nicole could reach her camera high enough to see over the crowd. The crowd was not without drama as people tried to push their way to the front for a good shot. A few verbal sparrings took place around us, including one with a French man that Travis and an Aussie felt compelled to deny entry. The chinese pushed their way through, the French tried to make up stories to get their way through, and the British politely asked if they could crounch in the mud in front...meanwhile the Aussie man had a nice way of telling people off since he'd been there since 4am. The sun finally came up and we migrated through the temple in Tracole style, while the rest of crowd snapped a million more photos. One cool site was the thousands of pink flowers on lily pads in the lake in front of the temple.

Angkor Thom: Told it would take an average of 2 hours to tour wonders and relics of this area, it was a bit anticlimatic, but still pretty cool. This temple had less restoration and so we trekked through fallen columns to find the entrance. We were greeted with incense, a thread bracelet and few words for good luck. Around Angkor Thom, there are still several places of worship. We were most interested in see the "elephant temple" which turned out to be something of a gazebo with trunk shaped objects shooting out of the roof and a statue of worship below. Enough templing, time to head back and explore the town on foot.

Exploring the Market: We haggled at the local market and found Travis some t-shirts. We looked at some picturesque paintings and passed an usual amount of gem stone shops. After we exhausted all the market had to offer, we found a cool spot on the corner called the Red Lion, where we grabbed a bite to eat for lunch while street performers stopped in front of our table to throw knives and play with fire.

Another Massage: Of course, the day would not be complete in Cambodia without another massage, so we headed back to Lemongrass Spa for round 2 of massages. After all, it is vacation. :)

Poolside Drinks: Thorougly relaxed when we returned to our hotel, we took a short siesta and then made our way up to the pool for some afternoon cocktails. The pool was filled with hotel patrons, and Travis spent hours trying to surmise their home country based on the language they were speaking. It was then we decided that life doesn't get much better than listening to music, sitting by a rooftop pool, having a couple drinks. Even as the sun went down, it stayed warm enough to continue to enjoy the awesome setting.

Travis Enjoying the Soup

Cambodian BBQ

Cambodian BBQ: We had been talking about this for days, and finally we made our way to Cambodian BBQ. Your order family style with a choice of 7 varieties of meat or 15 varieties of meat. While kangaroo and snake seemed interesting, we opted for the limited selection which included ostrich and allegator. After a bit of time, the waitress brought out a ferociously hot stone to heat up the grill above. There is a chunk of pork fat sitting atop the grill and a moat of broth that they add noodles and fresh veggies to make a soup. The assorted meats come in a divided platter with picture labels on toothpicks to identify the meats for grilling. From there it becomes a DIY meal. We were surprised that even usually gamey food like allegator were pretty delicious cooked this way. This was our favorite meal of the trip so far.

The Temple Club: We decided to check out Pub Street...we were drawn to the music playing from the Temple Club so we went in and grabbed a drink. They have this great happy hour special on cocktails that is 2 for 1 but it is only from open to close. We paid a slight premium for name brand alcohol and filtered ice, but we felt it was worth it to save ourselves from gnarly hangovers and giardia.There was  fun energy here with a pool table and dancing - and some combining both.

Day 2: Seeing the temples

We arranged for a Tuk-Tuk driver, Ra, to pick us up at 8am for a full day of temples.  We planned to see the #1 sight, Angkor Wat, on day 2 because we didn't want everything else to be a let-down.  We'd see about 5 today, and Nicole and I have a similar style so we go pretty fast.  We read a bit of the history of King Jayvarasham VII who built many of these (note:  I just called him "JAY" so I'm not sure how the rest of his name was spelled), as well as some of the stories.  Fascinating to me is that there were about 1 million people living in this area and each site was basically a city within the empire.  They are only a 5-minute drive from one another, but in a time with no vehicles it's understandable that the neighboring cities are about 3-4 miles away.



Tuk Tuk Selfie



We had to drive past Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom on our way, so we got a sample of the beauty of these places. First we saw Preah Khan.  We really liked this one and took a lot of pictures.  It had a long history of king Jay that we read.  Not much else to say until you see the pictures, but one interesting fact is that one end was built for Buddhists to enter, and the other for Hindus.  It has a Vishnu statue for the Hindus and some other features, so you could worship in your faith by whichever entrance you took.

Next, we saw Neak Pean.   This was in a way one of my favorites because it was unique and simple.  The Lonely Planet book says "If Vegas ever has an Angkor-themed pool, this would be it."  We walk along a long, wooden path over a lake, past a band playing cool Cambodian music.  More on the band later.  We continue on and Nicole points out the very astute reality that this type of standing water in a 3rd-world country is the type you read about with flesh-eating microorganisms (don't critique my poor biology lingo), so she was a little concerned about falling in. We forge ahead, dodging the Asian tourists stopping for many pictures and observing a couple of their hats in the water.  The walk was very pretty if you can ignore the thought of falling in.  The destination is a tower, which apparently had an "anthropomorphic" fountain in the 12th century.  The tower would shoot water in four directions into four pools, and the ''healing fountains'' were an elephant, a human face, and two others I don't remember.  It may not have been breathtaking, but still cool to look at, and I liked to reflect for a minute on how people used it 900 years ago.  This was basically their doctor:  I believe they would bathe in these pools when they were in need of healing.  Now we've adapted the idea that deathly ill people should stay out of the pool, but to each their own.



Pre Rup

We then went to Ta Som, which we liked...but it started to look similar to the others.  Afterwards, we headed to Pre Rup, which was more of a platform with great views.  We really liked this one because it was more open and we could pose like lions on the stairs.  More of a golden color instead of the grey, and plenty of light, and five upright structures on top of the flat upper area. These places were full of really cute kids and others selling stuff, so we quickly learned how to say "No thank you" (Te Ah Kun)  in Khmer, which is helpful and sometimes enough to get them to stop following you. 

We took a long drive to Bantaey Srei, the red temple.  The coolest part was the drive:  Gorgeous farmland mixed with palm trees, houses on stilts and villages all along the way.  The diverse housing was simple yet clean, the people, although poor, seemed to have their basic needs met and looked very happy. What we really noticed was that there wasn't trash all over like you see in most 3rd-world countries.  We passed several primary and secondary schools and saw many children walking, bicycling, and motor bike-ing to school. We saw women heating up stone Cambodian BBQs, and people with beer posters on their houses, cows, chickens, dogs, naked cambodian babies and an occasional monkey or two were just hanging out.

Bantaey Srei was pretty neat, and the entrance was pretty fancy, but we were getting templed-out.  We dodged the umbrella-armed French tourist bus group and made our way through pretty quickly.  The red stone was cool, as was the fact that this was about 200 years older than Angkor Wat.  Seems they built this village, then made their way the 25 km towards Angkor as the empire grew.  Nicole got some pics of three adorable little girls giggling in an ancient window, while a boy jumped over them and tried to steal the spotlight.  We guys are the same at all ages and nationalities.  We had a quick lunch of pineapple fried rice because the "overpriced tourist trap" food was like $6/plate.  How could they gouge us like that! ;)

On the way back we asked to see Ta Prohm because in 4 1/2 hours we were already done with our expected stops.  He takes us to another temple on the way and we say "no that's okay" as it looked just like Pre Rup to us.  Ta Prohm was different because it was the "tomb raider temple" with a tree growing right out of it.  Roots all over it. Pretty cool spot.  We took a half-mile walk through a pretty tree-lined trail to get there, and listened to the loud screech of Cicadas all the way.  It was a nice temple, but like many of these was being restored so we were able to see it quickly and head out.  On the way back a policeman showed up and the 8 year-old kid trying to sell us postcards took off on a dead-sprint into the woods (barefoot no less). 

Happily we head back, and decide to not be ambitious and go to Angkor Thom today.  It's hot, as Ra advises us.  Ra was a really sweet man (as most Cambodians seem to be) and had cold towels and cold water waiting for us at every stop. We'd always pan the gaggle of tuk-tuks for our guy and then see a giant smile as he came walking out to reveal himself.  So at around 2:30 we get back into town.

THE MASSAGE.  So this is part of the wonderment of SE Asia:  The cheap massage.  Instead of the $8 hour at our hotel, Nicole finds a couple places in our guidebook.  One is right by the restaurant we wanted to visit at 5:30. So we head to the Lemongrass Massage, and are greeted with tea made from lemongrass & ginger...then we hike 2 flights of steep stairs after a foot cleaning.  With relaxing music playing in the air conditioned room we entered, the atmosphere was serene and the traditional Khmer massage was awesome...Travis fell asleep, as often happens. When we return downstairs, Beale tea (used as treatment for loss of appetite and some fatal disease like tuberculosis - not quite as tastey as the lemongrass but a nice way to ease back into civilization) is waiting for us as we complete our comment cards. It was an 'expensive' one at $12 for 60 minutes, but they were pros.

We find a couple of backpacker-type bars and Nicole picks the one playing Adele, and we're happy to be in a familiar setting.  Just a bunch of people with nothing urgent to do, having a local beer or two. 

Siem Reap Bar

We decide it's time for dinner and get lost in the tangled circle of streets and alleys now that it is dark.  We pass a couple places full of lawn chairs facing 8 TVs, and Travis is still wondering why. We pass a restaurant with a poorly-translated subtitle "Satisfactory food" and Nicole captured the moment.

We finally find our restaurant "Sugar Palm" and are happy we did because we saw Andrew Lau's doppleganger.  Cool atmosphere, and some good local fare.  We had a marinated steak salad that was awesome, and a fish Amok.  Amok is the local curry, and it's like a slightly-thicker curry than Thai.  The whitefish was very light and fluffy and just tasted great.  It should be noted that Travis loved fish amok a little more than Nicole did...but we were happy with the meal.

Apsara dance show:  We post up at a bar called The Temple that has a 2-hour Apsara dance show which is basically a band playing while a group of ladies comes out and does 5-7 dances, each in 5-10 minute bursts with different outfits. 



The Coconut Dance

 Travis was excited to see "The Coconut Dance," but disappointed that rather than wearing the coconuts they were oddly caressing them and banging them together for our musical pleasure.  The Peacock dance was kind of cool too, with both male and female peacock, which should be noted is not biologically accurate.  A lot of the women wearing those gold hats that look like little temples, and they do this crazy thing bending their fingers and feet in weird ways. Then they had some more lively dances, but most were pretty slow and more like yoga than the up-beat stuff you'd see in say a latin country.

We had a couple beers on pub street, chatted up a South African chef who works at the Sofitel and just moved to Cambodia 3 weeks ago, then called it a night.  We're waking up at 4:30 am tomorrow to see Angkor Wat at sunrise!

Day 1: The voyage to Cambodia

Day 1: The voyage to Cambodia

Monday, November 25, 2013

The Logistics - we traveled through Vancouver, where we had a 5-hour layover, then a short stop in Hong Kong, then we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Monday morning.  Nicole's status was a God-send, as we were able to use the Cathay Pacific lounge at both Vancouver and Hong Kong.  I really took advantage of the free food and drinks, and in Hong Kong we were able to shower and everything...which makes for a world of difference in a 2-day trip.  Because of this, we felt pretty good when we arrived in Vietnam.



Banh Mi



Streets of Saigon

With about 5 hours to connect, we checked in for the flight and just took our carry-ons to the same part of town we stayed in back in 2010.  Had a 333 at the airport and another beer at the familiar bar "GO2" in town, ate a Banh Mi sandwich from the street vendor, looked at some beautiful oil paintings and clothes...then went back to the airport. 

We were both pretty happy to break up the travel with a little visit to a familiar, and fun, part of Vietnam.

The scenery on the flight was pretty amazing (over the lake between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap), and the airport was gorgeous Khmer architecture.  Vietnam immigration had been a little intimidating...but Cambodia was different.  EVERYONE needed a visa, and it was a well-oiled machine:  You give them the form and $20 USD and there are about 15 of them lined up and they just pass your passport down then call your name at the end.  There were about 100 people in line and we were done in 10 minutes tops!  Pretty amazing.

The Alley

Siem Reap is surprisingly clean, safe, and full of gorgeous buildings.  The hotels are all magnificent, even our "mid-range" spot caught my attention before I knew it was our hotel.  The hospitality was great--everyone has a BIG smile.  The downside is their English is limited which makes it hard to say "could you throw in a tour at half-price like we saw online" or that sort of thing.  But hey, lets consider it part of the charm.  It was reasonably late arrival at say 7:30pm so we went to the rooftop pool happy hour and had a local beer and Travis slowly began to fade.  We searched high and low for this place called Chamkar, a vegetarian Cambodian restaurant recommended in Lonely Planet.  We found it on "the Alley" which was in the Pub Street area.  Pub street is lined overhead with upside-down yellow umbrellas and huge neon "Pub Street" signs.   Bars and restaurants everywhere.  We didn't expect this type of nightlife, but it's a blast.  Being pretty tired after a long trip we ate some decent-but-not-amazing food, went and saw the cool night market then went home. Tomorrow we have a long day of temples!

Cambodian jogging and a quick update:

Hi all! We're safely in Siem Reap and have so much to tell you already about the gorgeous airport (not kidding), the nightlife, the rooftop pool and bar...and our trip across the planet to get here.

We're up early to take a jog through town, then at 8 we start a 10-hour temple tour followed by a great Khmer dinner and maybe pack in an apsara dance show and a massage!

Hey everyone,

Yes this is a real blog. We're making the last calls we can make until 12/7, so we'll be living on Internet blogging and emails for a while now. This trip to Indochina is like a journey way back in time: a simpler time...with no iPads or wifi or roads. Although ironically these countries have the wifi and iPads but still don't have a robust network of paved roadways. Off we go! More to come soon I hope.

I believe we're 17 hours ahead so we will arrive in Vietnam at 10am Monday, or about 3pm Pacific time on Sunday. Radio silence till Monday I guess. Wish us luck!  Miss you already (I'm talking mostly to the dog, but that goes for you readers also).