Thailand and Cambodia

The trip from Johannesburg, South Africa, through Dubai to Bangkok, then an overnight in Bangkok before flying out to Phuket at 6 AM and driving to Krabi, Thailand was the longest of our entire journey, and by the end of that we were fairly exhausted. Adding in the fact Emirates lost all our luggage for two days made this the most challenging transition so far. Good thing the fruit shakes—pineapple, mango, banana, dragonfruit— in Thailand are inexpensive and very delicious, that was a definite pick-us-up...

...So after a long nap in our cabin at a place called Ao Luek Paradise and buying some new swimsuits for various family members in Krabi, we went out for a four-Island tour in a long boat the next day. We visited Pharang Cave, Tup, Chicken, and Poda Islands, with a picnic lunch of yummy basil chicken served on Poda Island. The boat stopped at each island for about an hour; time to walk around, swim a bit in warm and calm ocean waters, and in one case (Chicken Island) do some snorkeling. Fiona and Harley met two kids of close to their same ages, French by birth but living in Qatar as expats. So they got to talk to someone of their own ages for a while and hear about life in the desert.
The next day we took another long boat to Railay Beach, surrounded on all sides by cliffs. The weather was steamy and we all appreciated being in the water. This was also the day we found a small brown snake in our cabin, and to date remains my only snake experience on the trip. Small freak out. It was under the dustpan. I do not know the species.

Krabi and the surrounding area was culturally very different from my expectation of Thailand: it was significantly Muslim in religion and many of the restaurants featured halal meats and a prayer place. The dominant mode of transportation in both Thailand and Cambodia was motor scooter or tuktuk, and sometimes an entire family of five would be crammed onto a scooter—two adults and three small children. I saw lots of babies being carried on scooters as well as full-sized ladders, groceries, linens, etc. Some of the tuktuks were used as school buses, getting kids in bright blue uniforms with pink hijabs to school.
We flew from Phuket to Siem Reap, Cambodia for the next leg of our journey. Siem Reap is the home to Angkor Wat, the largest set of temple ruins in the world. I will have to admit that as a kid of about age 12 I read about Angkor Wat somewhere and thought visiting it would be among the most exotic places I could ever go. The experience did not disappoint that 30+ year old expectation in the least. We were greeted at the airport by the man hired to be our guide for three days; a colleague of Scott’s had visited the year before and recommended Mr. Heang. We climbed aboard his tuktuk with all our luggage and made our way to our hotel. After dropping off the luggage we got our passes to the Angkor Archeological Park and began our exploration of the temples found within. The temples have elements of both Hindu and Buddhist religions, with Buddhist being a bit more dominant, and the period in which they were built was largely 1180-1220 AD. Beautiful. Stunning. Every inch of stone was carved into a picture depicting a deity or telling a story. We started at the central Bayon temple in Angkor Thom (Big City) and visited several other temples before collapsing for lunch. At the restaurant there was a pavilion with hammocks strung up for diners to rest after eating, and we took advantage of them for a good hour and a half. The naps ended when poor Fiona tripped over a hammock while walking around and hit her arm pretty hard. The restaurant’s owner

approached us with packing tape and cardboard to make a splint but we declined to go that route. We determined she could wiggle her fingers and decided to press on, seeing Angkor Wat (City Temple) in the afternoon. It is enormous; I think it would take months to truly see everything.
The next day, December 31, Scott and the kids went out to see some more temples but I had a fever the night before and opted to stay back in air conditioned bliss of a bed for a while. In the afternoon I caught up with them to see a temple dating from 977 AD and made of pink marble. Making our way back into the city Scott and I both likened the traffic, and seemingly disorganized chaos of it (not many traffic signals), to our trip to India. Somehow everyone got to where they needed to go, but I could not account for it. One thing that surprised me was the dichotomy of vehicles: scooters and tuktuks, for sure, but then...lots of Lexus SUVs. Nice ones. With tape on the door handles to show they were new vehicles. I asked Mr. Heang about this...who in Cambodia could afford these SUVs, some of which he estimated were worth $200,000? Cashew farmers, rubber tree plantation owners, and illegal businesses. I have since seen articles alluding to the drug trade in Cambodia so I think that could be part of it. We ate dinner that night at TukTuk Tacos in downtown Siem Reap and walked around; the Cambodian night life was hopping. Many Thai and Cambodians get at least one meal a day from sidewalk vendors; we trusted only the fruit shakes ourselves. Later that night we heard some fireworks, after all, it was New Year’s Eve, but we were in bed early for our adventures the next day.
Happy New Year! We were packed up and ready to go by 6:45 AM to Angkor Ziplining. Great fun, and very different from our experience in Colorado. After ziplining we visited The Tomb Raider Temple, so called because the movie Tomb Raider was filmed there; the trees have really taken over many of the walls. In the afternoon we went on a boat cruise in the largest lake of all Southeast Asia, passing

through a unique fishing village: the house were built on scaffolds 30 feet high to accommodate the difference in water level between wet and dry seasons. Finally, at the end of the day we flew to Bangkok. I was covered in dust from our tuktuk rides, but a great experience.
We spent the next two days in Bangkok. One of the first things we did was visit Bangkok Hospital Chinatown to get an X-ray for Fiona’s arm. We had done some research on Cambodia’s health system while we were there and determined staying out of a hospital in Siem Reap should be the goal (a decision affirmed by the fact that while we we traveling through the countryside in our tuktuk we were passed by an ambulance with someone hooked up to machines inside. When we stopped for gas a little while later, we noticed the ambulance also stopped for fuel with the passenger still inside). The Bangkok Hospital was excellent: X-ray and determination that no, her arm was not broken, was made in about 90 minutes. Hooray! That night we walked around Bangkok and went to the Temple of the

Golden Mount.
The next morning Harley and I went to several temples; The Temple of the Reclining Buddha (Wat Pho), The Temple of the Emerald Buddha, and the Golden Palace. Modest dress was required for all visitors, especially women, as it was in Angkor, and women must not get too close to a Buddhist monk (we saw lots of monks). Fiona was not feeling well that morning, and Scott stayed back with her. In the afternoon her fever climbed to 103.6 F and we determined a second visit to Bangkok Hospital was in order. They recognized her on her return, which was a good thing as Scott had forgotten the passports for their trip. We now joke that Fiona must have her own wing in there. This time it was the flu, and armed with Tamiflu among a plethora of other drugs, we made our way to the train station for our overnight trip to Chiangmai in northern Thailand.
Chiangmai is a little more laid back than Bangkok, and the temperatures are a bit cooler too. We left Fifi to sleep in our hotel and went out to explore the old city, which has numerous beautiful temples surrounded by a moat and city walls. We visited Wat Chedi Luang Varavihara, and Wat Phra Sing, built originally in 1345 AD. In the evening we all visited the Night Bazaar, which was approximately a mile of stalls selling crafts and souvenir type stuff. The next day we did another ziplining in the rainforest surrounding ChiangMai with a company called the Flying Squirrels. This one was everyone’s favorite, with lines 400 meters long sailing over the rainforest. The next day, we went to Bua Thong Waterfall. It is known as “the sticky waterfall” because one can actually climb the waterfall without slipping: the rocks are made of a limestone that actually grips your foot.

After returning to Bangkok via the night train again, we visited Wat Arun via the ferry, then took a canal tour of Bangkok. We did see what looked like a very large lizard swimming under several of the houses. We explored one of the Bangkok night markets, and Fiona got a temporary tattoo, but we all agreed the Chiangmai markets were far more fun. On our final day we went to the Jim Thompson House: he was an American responsible for commercializing the Thai silk trade and an architect to boot, before he disappeared into the jungle on a hike at age 61.
Bangkok is huge! Sprawling, and we saw only a part of it. But a great time, and then we were on our way to Sydney.