phuket, thailand

We went to Phuket, Thailand for the second half of our trip. It was hot, really hot. And humid. 

We went to this outdoor food stand for pad see ew: 

And pad thai:

 We went to the beach:

I think this was on Christmas day:

After two beach days, we ventured out to this tour to Ao Phang-Nga National Park. We were a little nervous about this trip. It involved traveling on a small-ish boat, and Drew is prone to seasickness, and I was still under the weather from the food poisoning. It could have been a disastrous day, but fortunately, it wasn't. Needles to say, we were pleasantly surprised.  

So basically, the tour boat took us around to all these destinations, where we got out and explored the sea caves in guided canoes. We saw monkeys:

You go through the sea cave and into these calm, peaceful clearings: 

And that was basically it, in and out of these sea caves and clearings.  

Ao Phang-Nga is known for its karsts: 

Inside one of the caves: 

Later that afternoon, we made these, um, I don't know what they're called. Uh, we made this: 

It was a really good day, and that night we headed back to Shanghai. 

angkor wat, day 2

Looking back, I have no idea how I survived our second day at Angkor Wat. I ate some sketchy fish and meat on our first night, and I got food poisoning. It must have been mildly traumatic because my stomach turns just thinking about it right now. I mean, it's not like I died or anything or like my life was in danger, but food poisoning was not a pleasant experience. 

We went to Ankgor Wat for sunrise, getting there at about 5:30 am. It was okay, but it was cloudy so we didn't see much. It didn't occur to either of us to check the weather before going. When you've lived in a place where it's pretty much 75 and sunny every day and never rains for almost 8 years, you fall out of the habit of checking the weather.    

 This is Angkor Wat, the main temple at, uh, Angkor Wat. 

 The nice thing about getting there so early was that it wasn't too crowded. 

 A swimming pool:

 I'm not sure if you can see the detail here, but there are sculptures and etchings everywhere:

After spending the morning at Angkor Wat, we left and went back to the hotel. I wasn't feeling too well, and we saw everything we wanted to see. We bought a three-day pass, but we didn't return. 

On our third day in Siem Reap, I still wasn't feeling well, but we were able to venture out for lunch and a short walk. We found a vegetarian restaurant and ate on its second floor balcony. 

After 3 full days in Siem Reap, we left for Thailand on the 4th day. In my previous post, I mentioned that Cambodia wasn't like anything we'd experienced before, and that we could tell we weren't in a first world country. One of the noticeable differences was the lack of infrastructure-no traffic lights, paved roads, sidewalks. I snapped some pictures on our way to the airport, and you can kind of see what I mean:

angkor wat, day 1

I majored in art and political science in college, and I have a lot of random memories from my classes in both majors. I remember very little from this art history class, but I remember learning about the Hagia Sophia, Easter Island, Machu Picchu, and Angkor Wat. I don't remember what I learned, but the slides must have really resonated with me because when Drew asked me where we should go, I knew I wanted to go to Angkor Wat. 

It was the most economical to fly to Phnom Penh and take a bus to Siem Reap, so that's what we did. Unless you have a strong constitution, I'm not sure I would recommend doing it that way and you might want to just fly into Siem Reap instead. The bus ride was long (7 hours), and the first half wasn't so bad. The scenery was nice (everyone had houses on stilts! I saw cows!), but we were on a bumpy two lane road. They say you learn stuff about yourself when you travel, and so I learned the hard way that I get motion sickness. 

We arrived at about 7 pm, and a tuk tuk driver took us straight to the hotel. We hired that same driver to take us around Angkor Wat the next day. That's really the best say to see Ankgor Wat. The place is huge, and you're not just going to walk around. Some people ride bikes, and others hire cars or go in a tour group, but it seems that most people hire a tuk tuk to drive you from temple to temple.  

I can't remember the names of all the sites, so hopefully that's not important to you. We started off here, at this location that I probably never knew the name of.   

I think Drew would want me to post the picture of him below. I tend to take pictures without either of us in them, but he prefers people pictures. I guess he wants us to have some sort of proof that we were actually at Angkor Wat. 

We strayed off the beaten path and explored these temples. We had them almost entirely to ourselves.

This is another temple, and judging by the size and number of people there, I think it was pretty major one. I think maybe it was called Angkor Thom but I forget.

The temples are really impressive in and of themselves, but what is especially impressive is the level of detail. There are carvings everywhere. 

Another temple we explored: 

Angkor Wat is more than temples. It's a park and you can hike around, so we did. It was nice getting away from the crowds. 

 Another temple. Here I am, pretending to the be the other lion:

This tree is awesome:

 Check out the massive roots:

Our first day at Angkor Wat was a really long one, but it was a lot of fun and we saw tons of stuff. It was a good thing we did, because I got food poisoning on our first night and was out of commission for much of the rest of our trip.