After hearing about 24-hour tours of Cambodia, I thought it'd be a great way to kick-start my long awaited trip to Asia! The plan was to enter into Cambodia in the early afternoon, see as many of the ruins in and around Angkor Wat and then leave by the next morning back to Thailand. Upon arriving into Bangkok from my stint in Sydney, I put all of my belongings into storage, bought a round trip ticket to Siem Reap and was on my way!
Flying into the airport was fantastic, the fields were so green and lush. Upon getting off the plane, it was so humid and sunny, a nice little change from chilly (relatively speaking) Sydney. The 'unofficial' currency is the USD and they even have an ATM in the customs area that actually dispenses twenty-dollar bills. The image to the left is $.10 in Cambodian currency. Hilarious! The system at the airport is quite inefficient as far as getting a travelers visa. There was a row of about 10 guys that basically were like a conveyor belt. I'm certain that half of those guys were literally just passing down the passport and doing nothing more.Upon exiting the airport I hired a motorbiker, Wannak, to take me around the whole day - I wanted to bike to each of the main ruins however my time was pretty limited so off we went. Upon arriving to the first temple I was really surprised by how ruined it was! I guess they are called ruins for a reason. The area is so lush that insects, plants and mold took over the whole area. We motorbiked to and from other ruins and ended at Angkor Wat which was beautiful. There is a moat around the ruins and the temple itself was well kept. While I enjoyed my day looking around, I think I most enjoyed the stories Wannak told of the area, the culture and the people.
While I only spent a short amount of time in Cambodia, I had a good time exploring but was really excited about getting to Thailand. Once I got back into Thailand, I left Bangkok and headed up to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. It was amazing being in the hills and I could feel the freshness of the air and the environment. My old colleague from Disney was living in Chiang Mai and so we caught up and had a grand old time talking about the last 5 years we hadn't seen each other. It was like nothing had ever changed! Paddy connected me with his travel agent friend that set up my days of sight seeing in the vicinity. Some highlights from the trip were:
* Taking a thai cooking class on a farm. We made about 8 dishes in total, needless to say between the heat and all the eating, I was so lethargic by the end of the day! Randomly, there was a Asian cooking channel show taping an episode on Thai cooking. I must have seemed like a good chopper since they interviewed me and taped me for the TV show which I believe aired across one of the networks in Asia in the Fall.* Going to some of the most beautiful monestaries with a former monk. He showed me the monestary he lived on for 13 years. We also went to Doi Soy Tep, a monastery at the top of the mountain that overlooks Chiang Mai. The view was fantastic!
* It was amazing and surreal waking up early in the morning to see a bunch of orange robed monks scouring the city for food donations for the day. Don't see that in NYC all that often (or ever!)
* Visiting an elephant camp -- it was cool! I love how simple elephants are yet do amazing things like play soccor and paint. In fact, their paintings were so much nicer than I ever could have painted. The elephant camp is a place where elephants can live in the foothills of Chiang Mai in peace. I'd like to have a pet elephant one day....
