Well, I guess every day can't be full of adventure. I woke up early this morning with the hopes of catching a bus to Saigon, but the front desk worker of the guesthouse told me that all of the buses were full for both today and tomorrow. I knew the routine, and took a tuk-tuk to the bus station itself. I got the same response there! Shit. I remembered reading that other bus companies in town did not work out of the station, so I then got a tuk-tuk to take me to another bus service. Again, the buses today were [View Full Entry]

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My plan up until today was to travel up through Northern Cambodia into Laos, and then travel all the way up to Vientianne in Northern Laos, over the course of 3 weeks. I would then take a boat to Chiang Mai to meet mother. Well, today that all kindof went to shit today - at least part of it did. Ryan and I took a tuk-tuk early this morning to the Lao embassy, with the hopes of obtaining a visa. The border crossing between Cambodia and Laos requires a visa before arrival, so we were relying on the Lao embassy in [View Full Entry]

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Well, last night got a lot more interesting after I left the internet cafe, and walked around town some more. A few minutes after leaving the cafe, Ryan and I came upon several stalls selling more insects, but with a greater selection. Besides the regular grasshoppers, crickets, beetle larvae, duck fetus, frogs, and cockroaches, these stands also offered scarab beetles, tarantulas (yes really!!), ants, and a 'salad' consisting of guts, miniature bird eggs that were not fully developed, and peppers and onions. I still couldn't bring myself to eat a cockroach, and scarab beetles feast on deca [View Full Entry]

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So this morning I woke up early to make sure that I could set up a bus ride to Phnom Penh. I inquired at the front desk. They told me that since it was approaching New Year, all of the buses were full for today, and that my only shot was to go to the bus station itself. Ryan and I took a tuk-tuk out to the 'bus station' (really a dirt parking lot), and were bombarded by what must have been ticket scalpers. They were charging $10 for $6 tickets. No way. We walked over to the ticket stands and [View Full Entry]

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This morning we headed off to Beng Melea, an Angkorian temple about 78 km away. After a lot of negotiating, we settled on $20 for a tuk-tuk. I have no idea whether or not that is a good price, but we essentially hired the guy for the entire day, gas ended up costing him $8 (se he only made $12), and he had to do a LOT of driving. Prices here are crazy. On the way to Beng Melea, we passed through a lot of farmland consisting of dried rice fields and starving cows, through some towns with small markets, and [View Full Entry]

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This morning I woke up at 4:45 am to catch a 5:00 am tuk-tuk to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise. We agreed to pay our driver $12 for the entire day (and we think the going price is more like $8-$10). That's what I mean by saying that transportation is expensive, but only relatively so. Well, I was ready by 5:05, and knocked on Ryan's door, and he hadn't even woken up! We didn't get out until 5:30, and got to Angkor by 6:00....a little too late for sunrise. It didn't matter though, because Angkor Wat was beautiful. There were [View Full Entry]

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So this morning I got up at 5:30 am, checked out of the hotelm, and got a breakfast of barbecued meat (duck?) and egg with rice. I then got on the 'fast boat' to Siem Reap. It was about 60 feet long, with about 60 people on it. Jam packed, and people had some ridiculous luggage. One guy had a basket full of half grown chickens, and a lady had two baby chickens with their feet tied together that she just set down on the floor of the boat. Oh, if it wasn't already inferred, this boat wasn't just tourists, but [View Full Entry]

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So today was a little less adventure, and a lot more relaxing. I got breakfast at the market - a chicken leg in amazing spices accompanied with rice. Then, at 9:30 I was at the 'Smokin' Pot' restaurant to learn to cook Khmer food. A british couple and a woman afrom Paris were the other people there for the cooking class. We accompanied the chef/restaurant owner to the market to buy the ingredients. It's one thing to look at the food sold in the market as a tourist, and completely different when you know you'll be eating it! There were flies [View Full Entry]

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I woke up this morning at 6 am, got breakfast, packed, and was picked up at 7:30. Yesterday I went to the 'Ministry of Tourism Office'. I booked the 'VIP Bus', supposedly the cheaper one, for 1300 Baht, about $42. I thought that seemed like a lot of money, but I was at the official Ministry of Tourism after all, so I coughed up the money. A van picked me up at my hotel, which was very nice because it was pouring rain. I thought the van would take us to the bus station, but it turned out the van itself [View Full Entry]

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This morning I took the futuristic and air conditioned! air tram to the Chantuchak weekend market. The weather here is hot, but not unbearably hot. However, it is so humid that you are soaking wet all day. Thus, an air-conditioned tram above the smog of the city was welcomed - although it took away from the 'authenticity' of my Bangkok experience. On the tram I met a girl from Boston who went to Princeton and was just in Burma for 10 days. Whoa! Cool girl. I promptly lost her in the busy market haha. I was distracted looking at the puppies, [View Full Entry]

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