Thailand: Bangkok

Another all-day bus ride took us across the Cambodia-Thailand border. Interestingly, our bus couldn’t cross the border. While we stood in line for an hour or so, all of our bags were loaded into a giant wooden cart and dragged across the border by guys on foot- I took half a dozen photos because the whole process just seemed so laborious. I felt like creating a Kickstarter campaign to get these poor guys a couple of oxen or a pair of mules at least! Then we got on a different bus on the other side of the border and took off for the capital.

                                             Transporting luggage and goods at the Cambodia-Thailand border

In Bangkok we went out for a farewell dinner with the group then took quick stroll through Chinatown before heading to SkyBar at the Lebua Hotel. At 63 floors above street level, it is the world’s highest open-air bar- we enjoyed pricey cocktails with exotic fruit garnishes, incredible views of the Bangkok at night, and pretty good people watching too.  We found it pretty hilarious that, while some people were pulling up in sports cars, we made our entrance in a noisy little tuk-tuk!

                                                               Sky Bar at the Labua Hotel

The next day, we played tourist like it was our job.  We chartered a little boat to zoom us up and down to a few of the temples along the riverbank Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn).  I’m pretty sure we got majorly ripped off in the process, but no longer had our ‘Chief Experience Officer’ (tour guide) there to tell us what we should reasonably expect to pay!

Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world’s longest reigning monarch, passed away in October, 2016, after 70 years on the throne (!!) and the people of Thailand were still in mourning. While we were wandering around the Grand Palace and being blinded by the sun bouncing off all of the gold buildings, people dressed all in black were lined up under the awnings of the buildings, waiting 2-3 days to view their King’s body and pay their respects.

That day we saw an emerald Buddha, we even saw a 5-ton golden Buddha, but of the hundreds- probably thousands- of Buddha images we saw during our trip, the reclining Buddha we saw at Wat Pho that afternoon was probably my favorite and most memorable. He is 150ft long and has swirling mother-of-pearl inlay on his feet!

Thailand is renowned for its silk, and it owes this reputation in large part to an American named Jim Thompson. We visited his home- now museum- and it is completely charming in every respect. The gardens are idyllic and the 6 teak buildings, all over 200 years old, have been beautifully preserved and thoughtfully decorated.

Thailand is also known for its knock-offs and we spent a couple of hours at the MBK shopping center. This place is 8 stories high and has roughly 2000 shops.  For a decisiveness-challenged, shopping-averse, haggling-inept person like me, this place is a sort of living nightmare. After a while my mom and sister just had to leave me at a coffee shop while they had a field day finding the handbag stores with the most authentic-looking knock-off Chanels.

On our last morning, before taking off for the airport, we decided to put the tourists maps aside and set off on-foot to explore the neighborhoods around our hotel.  It was amazing how quickly things changed just a hundred feet from the main roads.  We discovered little dead-end streets with tiny shrines at the ends and glanced into smoky living rooms with bunk beds that doubled as couches lining the walls.  Just a stones’ throw from our hotel, we even found a couple of traditional- and very slanted- old wooden houses. 

Multiple times during the trip our tour guide, PC, commented on how incredibly fortunate we all were regarding our countries of birth (America, Australia, England, Germany, Holland, Japan). Financial situations aside, just being born in those countries gives us rights and opportunities that are denied to millions of other people around the world.

The Vietnamese and Cambodian people that we interacted with during our trip were all generous, friendly, and seemingly quite happy in the moment, yet the wealth disparities and signs of poverty were evident everywhere. Our final walk through the side streets of Bangkok brought us back to that same refrain, “We are so lucky.” 

I feel so lucky that I was able to take this trip and share these experiences with my mom and my sister. I’m also feeling pretty proud of myself for actually managing to get it all documented!

Cambodia: Siem Reap and Angkor Wat

After an all-day bus ride, we arrived in Siem Reap just in time to take a fantastic sunset quad bike tour.  I didn’t expect to enjoy all of these motorized bike tours so thoroughly, but they allow you to get off the main roads frequented by the big tour buses and instead go down the dusty back roads and out into the countryside to get glimpses regular life away from the touristy hot spots.

As it turned out, the countryside was extremely dry and we kicked up so much dust that face masks were warranted. We drove through fields and around cows and past children playing. Watching the sunset over the rice paddies made for a really beautiful and memorable experience.

Siem Reap is a resort town in northwestern Cambodia- practically everything and everyone in this town caters to tourists in general and backpackers and budget travelers in particular. One of the main streets is called ‘Pub Street,’ if that starts to paint a picture for you. Glamourous it is not, but its prime location just over 3 miles from the Angkor archeological site makes is the default basecamp for anyone wanting to visit these incredible ruins.

The temples at Angkor were built by the Khmer between the 9^th and 14^th centuries as the Earthly representation of the abode of the ancient gods and are a point of pilgrimage for all Cambodians. Because the temples are a UNESCO World Heritage site and are even considered by some to be the ‘eight wonder’ of the ancient world, tourists from all over the world now flood there too.

Angkor Wat is the world’s largest religious building- the outer wall encompasses roughly 200 acres and is surrounded by moat 620ft wide. The temple is built upon a series of terraces that culminate in a central tower that rises 213 above the ground. There are 5 main towers and we, along with literally thousands of other eager tourists, got up nice and early to watch the sun rise over their iconic silhouettes and the reflecting pools below. A 3:30am alarm might seem overzealous for a rendezvous with the sunrise, but we all had to wait in line to get individualized photo IDs before entering the complex and jostling for prime positioning.

The Angkor Wat temple is vast and was never actually completed. Many of the intricate carvings on internal stone pillars are only partially completed. I was enthralled by the monks- the looks of the faces of the people receiving their blessings and the beautiful contrast of their brilliant saffron robes against the gray stonework.  I quickly learned, however, that we were not supposed to take their photographs… We waited in line to climb up the tallest tower, which provided a great, almost-aerial view of the entire complex.  If you don’t want to climb the stairs, you can go up in a tethered hot air balloon to get the same effect!

The temple of Bayon is incredibly unique. It is comprised of 54 towers decorated with 216 enormous faces (4 per tower in case, like me, math isn’t your strong point).  They are the faces of Avolokitesharvara but, at least according to Lonely Planet, they bear more than a passing resemblance to King Jayavarman VII, the person who commissioned them. I loved the fact that you could actually climb up and be ‘face to face’ with these massive carvings- they weren’t barricaded off or towering high overhead.  You could walk around and see a dozen or faces at any given time, staring out in all directions across the kingdom. This would have been a good day to own a FitBit-I don’t know if we covered a lot of distance, but we definitely climbed a lot of super steep stone stairs.

I have a definite soft spot for Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, and all of the other pseudo-archaeologist treasure hunters that have graced the big screen so I was particularly excited to see the temple of Ta Prohm. Take Prohm is often referred to as the Tomb Raider temple because Lara Croft did some of her plundering there with film crews in tow. It is also known as the jungle temple and is easily differentiated visually from the other main temples due to the massive tree roots that literally engulf parts of the ruins. It is bittersweet to watch Mother Nature at work; the trees have taken root in the nooks and crannies of stonework placed centuries ago and, as they grow, the stones buckle and give. The temple ruins are slowly but surely crumbling and being reclaimed by the surrounding jungle.

                                                           Can you see the temple amidst the tree roots??

                                                     Did I mention that the whole place was super crowded?

The temples were incredible, don’t get me wrong- but I wish we had seen them earlier in our trip.  Although they regulate visitors by printing photo IDs on each ticket, they don’t actually regulate the NUMBER of visitors that enter the UNESCO site. I’m sort of ashamed to say that, between the oppressive heat (in winter!) and the crowds and the sheer scale of everything, we crossed into the ‘templed out’ zone pretty quickly.  You could easily spend days wandering around here and still not see everything- but a couple of leisurely half-days would make for a more relaxing and enjoyable experience.

(Talking about corruption, which was a common theme during this trip, it is a little unclear who actually pockets the revenue from Angkor Archeological Park, which generated almost $58 million last year in entrance ticket sales. Although the park is now run by the Cambodian government, there is speculation that the money pulled in by Cambodia’s biggest tourist attraction is being funneled to Vietnam as a ‘thank you’ for helping the Cambodian PM regain power.)

After the temples, we did more wandering around Siem Reap, visited a few hundred more market stalls (only a slight exaggeration), negotiated prices for some touristy tank tops and, of course, found more food to eat.  

One of my favorite memories from Siem Reap is a wonderful laughter session at a little tourist trap called Dr. Fish. You’ve probably heard of this gimmick before- you dangle your feet into a large fish tank and the little garra rufa fish obligingly nibble the dead skin off your feet. The efficacy and validity of using these little guys as a spa treatment is widely debated, and the practice is banned in several parts of the US and Canada if that tells you anything. But back to Cambodia… The thing is, to say that a few dozen fish nibbling your feet is a little ticklish- is a massive understatement. Many people find the tickle factor- especially in the first tank with the smallest fish- almost unbearable. (There are even three tanks with progressively larger fish with correspondingly larger mouths resulting in proportionally bigger nibbles). The squeals and shrieks these little fish elicit- absolutely hysterical to witness! My mom had my crying with laughter watching her reactions! For 2 USD, you get a beer, unlimited foot ‘pampering,’ side-splitting laughter, and prime curbside positioning to watch the backpackers in all the various stages of bohemian-ness walking by- bargain!!

                                         Because I know you really wanted a close-up of our feet

Cambodia: Phnom Penh

We had to disembark from our bus and complete the Vietnam-Cambodia border, crossing on foot but it was pretty quick and painless- pay some money, walk in one side of the building, give some fingerprints, get a stamp, and walk out the other side. From there we re-boarded the bus and headed to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.

We did a cyclo tour around Phnom Pehn to get ‘the lay of the land’ on our first day.  Cylcos, or cycle rickshaws, can come in a variety of configurations. I am used to a sort of tricycle-style contraption where passengers sit in the back. These, however, were more like giant strollers, and I must admit that I felt quite pretentious being pedaled around in one.

I have never seen so many high-end SUVs- Range Rover, Lexus, etc. The contrast between extreme wealth and extreme poverty was quite startling and the government corruption very evident.

Phnom Pehn also has a Red Light district that Mom, Stephanie, and I managed to miss completely. While some of our male touring companions were being propositioned and offered drugs on the streets below, we were about 6 stories up having a cocktail on the roof of the Foreign Correspondents Club, once THE place for journalists to hang out during the Vietnam War.

                         Inside the Royal Palace compound with a few hundred school children

Our first dinner in Phnom Pehn was quite memorable. During the first, I summoned some bravery and ordered fried tarantulas and red tree ant soup.  The tree ant soup was very manageable. The ants were miniscule and you could basically convince yourself that they were little pieces of dried oregano floating on the surface. The tarantulas, however, were another matter entirely. First, I was expecting one spider- and ended up with a plate of 3. Second, my American brain translated ‘fried’ to mean that they would be deep fried in batter and essentially unrecognizable. No, they just looked like sleeping tarantulas with their legs nicely tucked.  With deep breaths, positive self-talk, and a few gulps of water, I was able to eat one. With some peer pressure, I managed to get my dinner companions to eat the legs of another. I felt pretty guilty about leaving a whole spider sitting untouched on the plate so, we thanked our lucky stars that we were seated at a table in the garden- and discretely through his little body into the bushes!!

                    A live tarantula at a roadside stop- the bowls are filled with insect delicacies

Our next day was quite a somber one. We went to Choeung Eg, also known as The Killing Fields. Mass killings were conducted here and at numerous other sites across Cambodia as part of a state-sponsored genocide during the Khmer Rouge regime. It is estimated that over a million people were executed between 1975 and 1979, while an addition million people starved to death.  Bits of bone and cloth were evident in the dirt underfoot as we walked around and, although they have excavated dozens of mass graves, there are countless remains still in situ.

            Friendship braces adorn the posts around some of the mass graves at The Killing Fields

We also went to Tuol Sleng Museum- a former school that was turned into a prison and place of torture. Prisoners had their photos taken upon arrival, after torture sessions, and upon their deaths. These graphic photos line the walls of some of the buildings are a truly horrific and emotionally overwhelming.  What I also found so mind-blowing- and what I had to keep reminding myself about- was how recently all of this happened. Very few prisoners survived, but a couple of those that did come back to the now-museum every day to talk with tourists and tell their story! The even more uncomfortable realization is that, not only are some of the prisoners still alive, many of their torturers are still alive as well and living in the community with everyone else. In fact, per our tour guide, one of the former prison guards operated a food cart catering to tourists out in front of the museum! Our guide stated that he hadn’t been seen for a couple of weeks and had likely been offered a position in the government. Cambodia’s Prime Minister, Hun Sen, is a former Khmer Rouge commander who, cutting and pasting from Wikipedia, ‘assumed authoritarian power in Cambodia using violence, intimidation and corruption to maintain his power base.’ Cambodians will tell you that they live in a democratic country but, although Hun Sen did not win the majority of seats during the 2013 election, he still remains in the same role he has held since 1985. Our little G Adventures group all agreed that Cambodia does not feel particularly stable and that we won't be particularly surprised if a civil war breaks out at some point in the future.

Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) was not my favorite city so I’m not going to spend too much time on it.  Over 10 million people live in its greater metropolitan area- and this is projected to increase to almost 14 million by 2025.  While there is much that still appears ‘backwards’ to the Western eye, large parts of HCMC are modernizing, commercializing, and rocketing skyward at a dizzying pace. Stephanie and I spent a few hours doing Lonely Planet’s self-guiding walking tour of Old Saigon- and we were hard-pressed to find anything old!  

 One of the few old buildings we saw: The People's Committee Building, with 'Uncle Ho' out front

A few things stuck out for me during out Ho Chi Minh City wanderings:

Unlike in Hanoi, where many people live in the back of or above their shops- and therefore keep their shops open during all of their waking hours, stores in HCMC operate during ‘business hours’- and many of them close- or at least close early- on the weekends. We ended up doing a lot of window gazing!

For the first time in our Vietnam travels, we encountered fast food restaurants- and lots of them. Burger King, Popeyes, McDonalds, Subway.  It was surprisingly obvious that with more wealth comes higher rates of obesity.  The children here were also the chubbiest that we saw anywhere.  We checked out a recommended iceream parlor known for its exotic flavors- and the prices were equivalent to what you would pay for gourmet icecream in the states- very expensive by Vietnamese standards, but the place was absolutely jumping.  And coffee shops. Every third store was a coffee shop, and that's not even much of an exaggeration.

Whereas in other Vietnamese cities, you can shop for knock-off Coach, Gucci, and Longchamp to your heart’s content, HCMC has clamoring high end shopping streets where you can buy the real deal.  There is a lot of wealth here.  We went to a rooftop bar one evening to see the city lights from up high. Casting my eyes around at the DJ, the drinks menu and the general swankiness of the place- I could have been at a high-end rooftop bar in any major city around the world. Standing at the railing and looking at all the skyscrapers, my mom said, 'You'll be able to say that you visited Ho Chi Minh City right before it launched itself onto the world stage.'

We walked through the large backpacking district and the bustling Ben Thanh Market, and toured through the Jade Emperor Pagoda, the War Remnants Museum, and the Reunification Palace. The Reunification place is a great example of 1960s architecture- and the interior details have been left untouched since the 1st Communist tanks arrived at its gates on April 30^th, 1975. The basement contains a huge bomb shelter with a War Room, map room, and telecommunications center filled with massive old radio transmitters. We read multiple accounts of the lead up to and subsequent fall of Saigon- but there were so many secret allegiances and assassination attempts and hand-offs of power along the way- that we drove out of HCMC still feeling confused about it all.  

                                   Radios in the basement bunker of the Reunification Palace

Next stop, Cambodia!