Final thoughts on Asia 2006...

It's been so long since I've been on a vacation for longer than a week that it initially felt weird to be away from work for so long. But 'initially' only lasted a couple of days, and after that I was enjoying our vacation to the fullest. It was neat having everyone from Vancouver traveling with us halfway across the world. Thanks to all the planning of the logistics by Lisa, and a bulk of the research done by Darren… the majority of us were able to sit back, relax, and just enjoy our travels. Lisa and I spent a lot of time in airports traveling from place to place and that definitely took up a lot of our time, but with that said, I think at the end of the day, I’m glad we did it that way. We were able to experience so many places, and literally taste the best of all the places. Our intention on this trip was to enjoy the food at all our destinations, and I can honestly say that we did that to our best ability. We experimented, and experimented some more… and most of the time we weren’t disappointed. In addition, we were able to do this by the cheap, and we didn’t get sick! Which of course, I like! Hehe. Asia was amazing. I had the best time, and I know Lisa did too. Thanks to all of you that followed this blog, and traveled vicariously with us (As Jen put it). We really didn’t think that many of you would read and follow us through our trip, so we’re glad that our writings didn’t go all to waste! So to summarize, I’ve listed the most memorable moments of our trip below… just something to look back on =)

So where did our travels take us to? Lets see…

There was Osaka where we learned how to utilize the airport as a gigantic hotel room.

Then off to Shanghai where Lisa and I pretended to be models, tasted our first street food of our trip, saw and ate siao long bao everywhere, observed crazy drivers, noticed Christina speak Shanghainese everywhere we went, and experienced insane cab drivers.

We veered on down to Manila where we just ate and ate and ate. Who can forget Jolly Bee, all the great Filipino food, the excellent Chinese food at Gloria Maris, and finally the scrumptious (sarcasm) Balut… Manila was definitely where I gained the most weight! We were pampered by sincere and generous relatives, chauffeured around by drivers, and toured around by Cheryl and Aileen (Lisa’s cousins). We witnessed the contrast in the city in terms of the rich, and the poor. The gap is so incredibly large here; it’s hard to fathom how the local economy even keeps on rolling.

Where to next? Oh yes, my favourite part of the trip… Boracay. There is only word that can describe it… Beautiful. There was the incredibly blue water, the soft white sand, the great snorkeling, the fantastic food, the yummy fruit shakes, the seafood picnic, the cheap oil massages, and of course the awesome weather. Oh, and I can’t forget our scary experience on “Ghetto Air”, Darren Doo, and the foot spa!

Back to Manila we go where I must describe to you the excellent shopping that was available to us here. Vast malls of fake clothing, over runs, etc. If you wanted it, you could have it. Manila was very good to us, thanks for showing us a good time Manila!

Hello Hong Kong! What I remember most about HK is of course the excellent transportation system… it couldn’t have been easier to get around this city. What about other memories from Hong Kong? A small hotel room, chicken wings at McDonalds, relatives, expensive clubs, girls drinking lots and lots of beer, great fruit desserts, dinner at Fo Tan, Ladies Market, searching for leather samples, the HK skyline, seeing Kelly, and finally last but not least, Dom and Lieny’s beautiful wedding! Congrats guys!

Off to Ko Samui we go. Ko Samui was full of thai massages, and a lot of thai food. I must also mention our magnificent resort, and the buffet breakfasts. Who can forget Lisa jumping on Anthony’s bed, and Anthony sitting on Lisa, spas, and 4 hour pampering sessions, tan lines and swimming pools, and more beer! 7-11’s everywhere you walk, sunshine, and sweating. Herny being heckled by prostitutes and transvestites, Ron getting 30 mosquito bites on his left leg (or was it his right)… It was great having all 14 of us in one place, even though there were times where there was chaos but it was mostly calm. Dining beach side at Ark Bar, and countless stray dogs walking around, no, check that, countless stray dogs lying around.

Our next destination was Bangkok… Sofitel Hotel was 1st class, 5 star! There was happy hour with bottomless drinks, and excellent service. It’s amazing how a great hotel can make your stay so much more enjoyable. Our foray into Bangkok and it’s native street food, and Darren’s venture with worms! Hehe. Cab drivers that were incredibly untrustworthy, cab drivers that love Darren! “I love you” hahahaha. Some other things we won’t forget: More Thai food… the hugely gigantic enormous Chaktuchak weekend market, the Grand Palace, the relaxing Buddha, the polite Thai people with their two handed bow, being on top of the city at night, Tammy cheating at blackjack, Somboon seafood restaurant, MBK mall, transvestite beauty pageants, and Jimmy T and ‘IHT’.

Bonjour Cambodia (was briefly under French Rule). Hmmm… what are some things to reminisce about? The temples of course, Cambodian history, our smelly tour guide with the thickest accent you’ve ever heard, bugs, Cambodian food (which was basically more thai food but not spicy), hanging beds for tables, our cool boutique hotel, sweating, my stinky jeans, cash grab Cambodian visas, negotiating the steep stairs at the temple, cheap food, and cheap beers.

Singapore, you sure are clean! What will we remember most about Singapore? Well, I’ll remember that we wanted to stay there for a longer stay, that’s for sure. The food here was yummmmmmmmmy! With the influence of Chinese, East Indian, Malaysian, Western tastes, it definitely makes the food here original, appealing, and exciting to say the least.

It’s time to turn the page on this month long journey. We are sad to say it’s over, but reality has finally checked in.

‘Flip’ (yes, that's the page)

November 3, 2006 Bye Bye Singapore =( End of our trip! =(

Whoever said Singapore was boring? Maybe we didn't stay long enough to get bored! One full day in Singapore definitely wasn't enough. But it was enough to have us think that it's a great place. Out of all the places we've travelled through during this trip, this is the only place we all said we could live in. It's almost like Vancouver, but warmer, with better transportation system, and a 6% personal tax rate if you make about $80000.

Bex tried to convince us to stay longer so we could shop with her, but no can do. Most of us had to go back to work, and needed at least a day or two to recover from the jetlag. But from what I hear, she bought 10 pairs of shoes so it doesn't sound like she had a hard time shopping after we left!

At about 9:30am, James, Chris, Wes and I left the hotel for the last time. We were on our way home. =((( So Wes and I flew to Seoul first via Singapore Airlines (SQ) and had a connecting flight to Vancouver via Air Canada. Needless to say, SQ was awesome! Service was impeccable! Each seat had it's own personal TV with your choice of 80 movies to watch! The seats fully recline so they're flat like a bed! And then we got onto the AC plane and it was a whole different story. Plane was old. They had to give you a portable DVD player if you wanted to watch movies. And the service?! We basically got ignored by the attendants even though we were on first class. OK so we were dressed like bums, but hey they didn't have to ignore us! I mean we used points, but we coulda paid good money for our seats and deserve better service!

Anyway, we landed back in Vancouver safe and sound. Overall, this trip has been a blast. I feel very lucky - not only to have been able to go on this trip, but to go with all my good friends as well. Trips like this will be few and far in between from now on, I'm sure. So it was nice to get one in before everyone starts having babies!

So till our next trip....... See you in Europe in 07!

November 2, 2006 Singapore Day 2

First of all, our hotel (Sheraton) was a disappointment compared to all the other hotels we stayed in. Can't really complain since we only paid $45 for the room (on points), but if we had paid full rack rate, I would be really disappointed considering it's a Sheraton! The rooms are old and smelly. The pool was a disappointment because it seemed dirty and run down. But the bed was VERY comfortable. I think maybe the most comfortable one during this trip so far.

So since we only had one day in Singapore, we had to make the best out of it (as in eat as much good food as we can!). James, Wes and I took a cab from our hotel at about 9:30 to meet Anth, Bex, Dar, and Dar’s uncle at a Prata place for breakfast. (Chris stayed in the hotel.)

It’s an Indian place that basically serves prata/roti with filling like onions, cheese, mushooms, etc. Kinda like crepes. Very yummy!! They serve it with a curry sauce for you to dip in. Why don’t we have this in Vancouver?

And Dar’s uncle brought along this awesome dish for us to try (I forget what it’s called). It’s basically little, round, bland, white flour cakes (kinda like turnip cake texture without the turnip). But what makes the dish is the sauce they put over it. I think it’s made of pickled veggies, chili and lots of oil. It was sooo good! Again, why don’t we have this in Vancouver?

After breakfast, we went to the newest and biggest mall in Singapore called Vivo City. It's a very nice mall, and I think we bought the most at this mall so far during this trip! Bex bought some clothes and shoes, I bought a pair of shoes. I'm not sure why but shopping here seems to be cheaper than Vancouver?? I think we might be more in a shopping mood because we actually have luggage room now to take stuff home since it's the last leg of our trip, or maybe it's just nice to be shopping in a nice mall instead of a crowded flea market! The boys also went around the mall testing out massage chairs, and finally landed in OSIM. OSIM is store that sells all kinds of massage products. We basically hung out there for about 1.5 hours and got sucked into buying a whole bunch of stuff that we didn't need!

After Vivo, we took the MTR to a mall called Far East Plaza to have some Hainan chicken but the girls got distracted along the way! Stuff in this mall is cheap!! And shoes, shoes everywhere! Chris and James were there before us and, of course, she was already busy trying shoes on. The boys ended up going to eat first while the girls kept shopping. They finally got us to take a moment to eat lunch at around 5ish, but we had to order more because James ate all our chicken! (James hasn't had Hainan chicken in years and it's his fav so he's forgiven.)

The boys didn't want to stick around to hold our shopping bags so we went our separate ways after. The girls kept shopping and they went back to chill out at our hotel.

Dinner was at 7, and the girls took a cab to meet everyone at the restaurant. (I have to say we really didn't want to leave since we had only been through one floor of the mall!) Dar's family wanted to take us out to dinner and chili crab was requested. So they chose a place called Jumbo. This seafood restaurant is in an area by the waterfront with lots of other restaurants around. It's a huge place and it was very busy - good sign! The 1st floor of the restaurant is open air, but good thing they got a table on the 2nd floor with AC (it's hot here!). Dar's grandfather, two uncles, aunt, and cousin Ian were all there. They ordered great food! It's great having locals to take you around, especially when it comes to ordering food because they always know what to get! We had satay skewers, black pepper crab, chili crab, and lots of other yummy stuff. I love Singaporean food! The crabs here have HUGE claws! Needless to say, we all left very full and satisfied.

We had planned to go to the night safari after dinner, but it was too late to go so we ended up hanging out at Ian's (Darren's cousin) place. He just moved into his place 2 months ago, and had his projector all set up. He's also an amateur photographer so he had all this cool equipment and his own studio! Wes was all over it and salivating over all his equipment. Here's some pictures we took in his studio:

We wanted to go somewhere for dessert but it was already after midnight so I don't think a lot of places were still open. We ended up at a hawker place and had ice slush desserts. Not bad. These hawker places look more like mall food courts than anything. All of them seem pretty clean, not like the stuff we were eating at on the streets of Bangkok.

It was 2am by the time we got back to the hotel. BOOO! Going home tomorrow!! =((

November 1, 2006 Bye bye Siem Reap! Hello Singapore!

So today is our last day here in Siem Reap. We've been lazy while we were here. We could have gone to see the temples 3 days in a row like Bex and Dar, but we were too tired and cheap to pay to go into the temples. I kinda regret not going yesterday because we didn't get to see where Tomb Raider was filmed! Our driver was like, you guys are weak! There are 70 year old Japanese tourists who climb the temples 3 days in a row!All in all, Cambodia has been better than I expected. A lot of us (and our parents) were kinda apprehensive about us coming here. But it doesn't feel dangerous at all and people are very nice. The two things that bothered me the most here were the bugs and the very dusty roads.

Today was basically a travel day. We got to the Siem Reap airport, checked in, and hung out at the airport for a bit. I checked the score on the nucks game and found out that they had lost =( (I can't wait to watch the Canucks again) . When we got on the tar mat to walk to our plane, we found out that it was one of those ghetto planes again. Here's a photo of us on the tar mat:

Our flight was about 55 minutes back to Bangkok. 2 beers for Lisa and a meal later, we had arrived. We had to go through Thai immigration, and go outside the security check points to get our luggage, and then we had to check back-in for our flight to Singapore which was on JetStar Airlines. JetStar is a discount airline with no frills. When we got to the Bangkok airport and looked up at the departure screen, we found out that our flight had been CANCELLED!

Did JetStar go bankrupt? Was there a replacement flight? Where were the JetStar employees at the check-in counter? We freaked out because we didn’t have had a place to stay, no where to sleep, etc. I think the most disconcerting aspect of the matter was that we would be missing our flight to Singapore, and wasting our already booked and paid for hotel at the Sheraton Towers in Singapore. With that said, Terry immediately called the Bangkok offices of JetStar and they notified us that the flight was only delayed. Geesh! All that worrying for nothing! Anyhow, thank goodness, because we would be headed to our final destination after all.

Because of the 4 hour layer over, well 5 hours now, we decided to lounge around the airport and surf the internet. We hung out at Starbucks for quite sometime before heading back upstairs to the departure gates. The girls went on a shopping rampage throughout the whole terminal trying to acquire every last package of dried cuttlefish (first off because it was really good, secondly because it was only 30 cents Canadian a package). After they cleared out every store in the airport, we went through the security check points and headed to our departure gates. Singapore, here we come!

Darren, Becky and Anthony flew from Bangkok to Singapore via Singapore Airlines... so we would seem them later on that evening.

November 1, 2006 Singapore Day 1

Tammy and Terry were greeted at the Airport by a couple of friends whom they know. They were staying at their house and they would be taking them around for the next couple of days, so we said our goodbyes and parted ways. I guess we would see them back in Vancouver.

Lisa and I were starving because we didn't eat on the budget flight to Singapore. So once we got settled in and checked-in to our hotel, we went to go eat!

Darren, Becky, and Anthony took a taxi over to our hotel, and we walked over to the 24 hour hawker centre, called Newton Centre. It's basically an outdoor food fair with all these chinese restaurants selling seafood. You order, pay and then sit on the bench seating in the middle. There must have been 30-35 stalls selling seafood. The problem? It's expensive, there's alot of competition, and there are old women harassing you trying to get you to eat at their restaurant. "Chili crab sir? Sting ray sir?" blah blah blah. It's so annoying! Anyhow, most of us ended up eating noodles in soup cause they were cheap! And they were good too! Here we are eating at about midnight!

Jimmy T, Christina, Lisa and myself walked back to our hotel rooms. I didn't get to bed till 4am! I'm trying to sleep later because I know I'll be jet lagged when I return home. Might as well try to adjust a couple of days early.

Anyhow, see you tomorrow... so sad, only 1 more full day in Asia.

October 31, 2006 Siem Reap Day 3. Happy Halloween to every one back home!
(No pictures today because I didn't take a single one today)

I didn't see a single costume today! Obviously Halloween isn't celebrated here.

Lisa and I woke up around 10am today. Today was a rest and relaxation day. Our plan? To just lounge around the boutique hotel and make use of it's facilities. We went downstairs to have breakfast. Everyone here gets up really early! A lot earlier than us, because when we went downstairs for breakfast, the only other people there were Terry, Tammy, Jimmy T, and Christina! We had the whole place to ourselves. I drank some fresh coffee, fresh watermelon juice, and freshly squeezed orange juice. I had some yellow papaya, watermelon and pineapples as an appetizer. The main for breakfast was a flat noodle/kung pao dish which was quite good.

After breakfast, I went to the gym to workout for about an hour. The gym is the only thing that is keeping me somewhat skinny. In fact, I weighed myself at the gym, and I'm still 170 lbs. Thank goodness, still the same weight! Phew!

After the gym, I headed back to the room, and I blogged. Man, this blogging is taking soooo much time. It's so time consuming. Unbelievable. The brightside is that I do it when I'm just doing nothing, so I guess all in all, it's not that bad, but it definitely weighs on the mind when we're too busy and we don't have anytime to update it.

Lisa went downstairs to the lounge with Christina, Jimmy T, Becky, and Darren. They sat, drank, and ate some food from the cafe. I later came down to meet up with them, and I got a tuna melt from the cafe. After our petite lunch, we went back upstairs to Jimmy T's room to hang out. We basically spent all evening in there till dinner time. They played Big 2, while I surfed the internet, read, and blogged some more. Anthony went to the gas station next door to pick up chips, drinks, french fries, and chicken nuggets. We ate some more! We also watched the movie Freak Friday which was on the movie channel. Before we knew it, it was 9PM, so we headed out for dinner. We went to a restaurant called Cambodia Kitchen. We ate local cambodian food... dinner for 9 with 2 pitchers of beer, 6-8 cokes, 9 bowls of rice, ample dishes came to a paltry $55 US dollars. Man, I'm so glad food is cheap here, because it really allows us to stay within or even below our daily budget that we have set for ourselves. Man, when I get back to Vancouver, I'm going to be reluctant to spend any dollars on outside dining!

Anyhow, I just showered and I'm back in the room blogging again. It's 11:30PM... going to call it a nite now. See you tomorrow!

October 30, 2006 Angkor Wat … Day 2 in Siem Reap

We woke up at 7am today and headed to breakfast at the hotel restaurant. The restaurant is quite cool. They have these hanging beds in the courtyard as tables, and we snagged a couple of them. They are more cool than functional. I don’t think a lot of us liked the swinging while eating our breakfast.

Our driver came by today with a tour guide to the temples. I think I’ve been looking forward to this part of the trip the most (in terms of something touristy to do), and it didn't disappoint! It’s magnificent. It feels almost surreal being there.

Wes writing now:

Today was a history lesson of sorts. We hired a tour guide for our trek through the ample temples. His name was Kaem, and his English was very good, except we could barely understand him through his thick accent. It definitely took a lot of concentration listening to him. After a while though, you get kind of used to it and start to understand him through his thick local accent. This can’t be said for everyone though, because Terry, Tammy, Jimmy T, Christina, and Lisa didn’t really pay too much attention to him because his accent was so difficult to decipher. Anyhow, they were able to make good use of their time taking photos, etc. Becky, Darren, Anth, and I did listen to Kaem however. Cambodia sure has been through a lot of hardship in its history. In fact, as recently as 1975-1979, historians estimate that 2 million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge… it’s very tragic and sad. With all that said, despite Cambodia struggling through centuries of war, civil war, and selfish and destructive rulers; the local people are very happy and content people. It really is a testament to the people here. After all they’ve been through, they are still able to keep their chins up and be happy. A lot of it has to be contributed to their Buddhist religion, with an emphasis on peace, divinity, spiritual cultivation, and ultimately nirvana/enlightenment. I admire the country, and the people here. Their attitudes are very different compared to that of other countries that have been through centuries of war, starvation, political strife, and conflict. With that said, though I admire the locals, I am disheartened by the existing government and regime. There are ample politicians that pilfer and embezzle monies from the government coffers, instead of filtering that money to the local people. I realize that this is an ongoing occurrence in governments all over Asia, and other parts of the world, but it doesn’t lessen the significance of this problem. It really makes me appreciate life in Canada, feel grateful for our political systems (though not near perfect in any way), be glad about our peaceful way of life, and value everything about Canada which makes it the best place to live in the world.

Today has brought me back down to earth in terms of leveling myself… it really takes real life experiences to realize what I have and how lucky I am to have it. Life is good, no it’s great.

Angkor Wat

Now, to the temples... They really are quite amazing. You really do see it from a different perspective by actually seeing it in person. Pictures don’t do it justice. These temples were built about a thousand years ago in the 12th century. They were built for King Suryavarman II to house his state and to represent his capital city. There was a significant Hindu and Buddhist inspiration and influence when the temples were constructed. There are Buddhist and Hindu stone carvings scattered throughout the temples. How they built these amazing structures centuries and centuries ago with pure man power alone is astonishing to me. It’s simply magnificent.

This is Jimmy T and I on the stairs heading up to the top of Angkor Wat (steep!):

Here's Anth navigating his way down the stairs... he looks scared!!! (you can blow up the photo by clicking on it)

Here's and idea of how steep it was:

Christina and James halfway up the temple:

Us waiting for Tammy and Terry, hehe:

Darren and Becky outside Angkor Wat:

We went to multiple temples, but the largest was Angkor Wat. In fact, according to Guinness World Records, it is the largest religious structure in the world. Angkor Wat is located 5.5 KM north of Siem Reap (where we’re staying). Unfortunately, construction of the Angkor Wat temple stopped after King Suryavarman II’s death in 1150. Here is a description of Angkor Wat (source: wikipedia)

One of the first Western visitors to the temple was Antonio da Magdalena, a Portuguese monk who visited in 1586 and said that it "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of".[4]

However, the temple was popularised in the West only in the mid-19th century on the publication of Henri Mouhot's travel notes. The French explorer wrote of it:
One of these temples—a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo—might take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged.[5]

Here is the sunsetting at Angkor Wat:

And in 1177, Angkor was sacked by the Chams, the traditional enemies of the Khmer people (Cambodian people). The Chams ruled for 4 years before the Khmer people lead by by a new king, King Jayavarman VII, restored the empire. He also established a new capital and state temple (Angkor Thom and the Bayon respectively) which lie a few kilometres to the north.

Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom (Great City) was established as the capital of Jayavarman VII's empire, and was the centre of his massive building program.

Excerpt from Wikipedia: The faces on the 23 m towers at the city gates (which are later additions to the main structure) take after those of the Bayon, and pose the same problems of interpretation. They may represent the king himself, the

bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, guardians of the empire's cardinal points, or some combination of these.

Here’s a photo:

A causeway spans the moat in front of each tower: these have a row of devas on the left and asuras on the right, each row holding a naga in the attitude of a tug-of-war. This appears to be a reference to the myth, popular in Angkor, of the Churning of the Sea of Milk. Here's a photo of the statues Churning the Seas of Milk:

Bayon

Angkor Thom houses Bayon temple. Bayon’s most distinctive feature is the multitude of smiling faces on the towers which rise up to its central peak. Here are some photos of Bayon:

Here is a photo of the carvings found in Bayon. This a photo depciting Chinese soldiers (The Chinese were peddlers who sold goods to the local people) who were actually allies (because they did business together) with the Khmer people and helped them fight against the Cham people. You can tell these are carvings depicting the Chinese because of the smaller eyes on these soldiers and different uniforms.

King Jayavarman VII was a believer in both Hinduism and Buddhism. He was the first King to introduce Buddhism to the Khmer people. Largely a Hindu country at the time, King Jayavarman VII got his people to carve and create many Buddhist influenced pieces of art, (Buddha’s for example) and installed them all over the temple. Unfortunately at the end of his reign, the ensuing King, King Jayavarman VIII, who was a non-believer in Buddhism, destroyed all Buddhist artifacts, relics, sculptures and pieces of art. In fact, he went so far as to get his people to be-head all Buddha sculptures in the temple. Hence, scattered around the entire temple are beheaded Buddha’s and malformed Buddha’s.

Here is a photo of one Buddha carving that survived! This survived because it was originally covered by stone, and the people never discoverd it:

Anyhow, that’s your history lesson for the day. I presume you’re bored as heck now!

Here are some more photos that I took:

That was our day at Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat. It really was a great experience. Tiring indeed, but well worth it. With that said, I'm kind of 'templed' out. Tomorrow, Anth, Dar, and Becky are going to be heading back to the temple that Tomb Raider was filmed at. It's the temple that is dedicated to King Jayavarman VII's Mother when she passed away. (Basically a place for worship in honour of the King's mother)

We headed back to the hotel after an exhausting, hot day of tourist activity. Lisa and I took another bath in the tub. We were all lathargic and tired, so we just went downstairs to the lounge for a drink. We were going to eat at the restaurant at the hotel, but it was a little pricey. They had an enticing 7 course meal with 3 glasses of wine for $45 US. The problem with that? We fed all 9 of us at lunch today for $45 US. Sooooo, I walked to the cafe just beyond the lounge. And low and behold they had excellent food! Club sandwiches, pomello salad, potato salad, egg plant salad, fish burger, ham & cheddar baguette with pineapple, comte cheese sandwich, ham and cheese croissant, tom yumm soup, and a croque monsieur sandwich. Everything was 50% off too, because they had to clear out the rest of their food. Our dinner came to less than $5 US. It was great. Here are some pics:

After dinner we went back upstairs to Christina and Jimmy T's room and chilled there. They played cards, I read the Cambodia Lonely Planet, and we called it a night at about 1am. I'm sleeping in tonight!

Nite nite

October 29, 2006 Hello Siem Reap, Cambodia!

So our flight was delayed an hour, but it was nice and short. It was only about a 45 min flight, and Bangkok Air didn't disappoint by still serving us a meal on such a short leg! It wasn't a hot meal this time, only a boxed lunch with a bun and cold cuts, but it still hit the spot.

The airport in Siem Reap is very small. There are no terminals really and our plane was the only one in sight. Despite being small, the airport is quite new. I was expecting something old, and run down but I was pleasantly surprised.

When we arrived, you have to line up with your passports to get your visa. Kind of a joke, because it's just a money grab. After passing through immigration and grabbing our luggage, we walked to the exit and Darren quickly warned us to put on our deet (mosquito repellant) before leaving the door. OMG! The mosquitos!!!! You can see a million of them flying around the light bulbs. Very scary!!

So we’ve heard bad stories about transportation in Cambodia so it’s a good thing that Dar was able to get hold of a driver for us. He (his name is Marom – nice guy!) was waiting for us with a van when we came out.

There’s not much to see along the way to our hotel, other than hotels. It's a never ending strip of hotels – and HUGE ones too. I never knew tourism was that big here. The roads are not as run down as I thought they would be – paved pretty well, but there’s no real sidewalks. Seems to be a lot of open, sparsely grassed areas with pools of dirty water here and there. No wonder there are so many breeding grounds for mosquitos! Downtown Siem Reap kind of reminds me of Manila – but cleaner and less populated. (I keep thinking that everywhere else we go is cleaner than Manila!! So sad to think that Manila has gotten as run down as it has compared to all these other cities.)

Finally after a 15 min drive, we got to our beautiful boutique hotel! It’s called Hotel de la Paix and it’s only been opened for about a year. Walking through the doors, it feels like you are walking into an art gallery instead of a hotel. They walked us to the lounge and served us a cold pineapple ginger drink while they took care of our check in. The lounge is very cool and trendy. Here's some pictures of the lounge:

We also took a quick tour of the pool and the spa. This is definitely the most beautiful and artsy hotel we’ve stayed in so far. Here’s some pics of the rest of the hotel

After getting settled in our rooms, we met up with our group downstairs to head out to dinner. Marom (our driver) took us to a place called Arun. The restaurant was pretty empty when we got there and it kind of looked ‘bunk’ (as Wes would say). We sat outside with all our new friends (insects)! Yuck! They kept flying into our food and getting mixed in with the curry and swimming around in our drinks. Ew! I guess we’ll be having a lot of protein during this leg of our trip. Cambodian food is kind of like Thai food, but not spicy. They have the same stuff like curries, pomelo and papaya salad. Oh and everything is in USD, couple of dollars here and there for each dish. (Everything here is in USD oddly enough) But I think everyone lost their appetites because of all the bugs. =( The meal itself was actually quite good, and of course it was relatively inexpensive. Dinner came to 50 US dollars for the 9 of us.

After dinner, we went back to our hotel to rest for our big day tomorrow. Wes and I decided to enjoy the tub in our room. We took a bath while watching Grey’s Anatomy on Wes’ laptop. The tub is so cool because there is no faucet. The water runs down the wall of the tub like a waterfall. Very cool. Ahhh, so relaxing!! But one thing I don’t like about this place is that water is yellow! YUCK! You have to ignore it though.

Here's a picture of our room with the sliding door that opens to the tub.

The bath made me nice and sleepy so I was bed time for me at around 12:30! Night! Angkor Wat tomorrow! Yay!