britteniandcamden

Day 52 Thursday June 25, 2009 Today is going to be a long day. In fact, we'll get to do it again. We fly back to the U.S. today and since we are 13 hours of Kentucky time, we'll essentially be gaining a half day. However, that will be wasted on all the flights from LA to Memphis to Lexington (not to mention the 9 hour flight from Tokyo to LA) finally arriving at 10pm EST. I've made up my mind to go home (didn't have much choice) and now I'm excited about seeing everyone. We took the subway to Tokyo station and went to get tickets for the JR express train to teh Narita airport, only to realize we left our passports and our wallet at the hotel so we had to go back and ... read more

Day 51 Wednesday June 24, 2009 Woke at 8am and paid 300 baht for a taxi to the airport. We had tons of baht left over so we bought some souvenirs with it because we would have been screwed by the exchange rate. Our flight to Tokyo departed at 6:50am and arrived in Tokya at 3pm (only 2 hours ahead of Bangkok). We stored our big bags in the airport overnight so we wouldn't have to lug them all over the city. We took the airport limousine bus to the Grand Prince Hotel in the Asaka area. It was nice to take a shower with a washcloth in a real shower and to stay in a hotel that not only provides a soft bed, but all the toiletries you could dream of as well. No wonder ... read more

Day 50 Tuesday June 23, 2009 Arrived in Phnom Penh at 2am and stayed in the Grand Palace hotel (not as grand as it sounds, but it was nice). We awoke early that morning to catch our 10am flight to Bangkok. We went back to Jim Thompson's house to get some silk fabric for mom. We went to markets to get another crazy watch, but they wanted crazy prices for them and I informed them of it! We also went back to the Khoa San market to get the triangle chairs we wanted. Had a good Italian dinner with Thai beer and headed back to the guesthouse. I went and had a last minute foot massage while Camden went to the internet cafe to get reservations for a hotel in Tokyo. He had his discover ... read more

Day 49 Monday June 22, 2009 Had breakfast at the Center Cafe (I'll have to write to the lonely planet about them, they were awesome). "Some of the best things in life are free" so we took a free shuttle to the Les Chantiers Ecoles, the silk farm/ Artisians d' Angkor which is an organization specializing in training young men and women in the art of silk textile weaving. We toured the silk farm where they raised the silk worms (should have stuck a few in my pocket=) and the mulberry trees to feed them. We viewed the production of silk cloth from the first silk worm's cocoon, cleaning, spinning, spooling etc until finally, the weaving stage where they still use hand looms to make meters and meters of beautiful fabric. Unforntunately, the prices were very ... read more

Britteni's View Day 48 Sunday June 21, 2009 We woke up at 8am, needless to day we missed both the sunrise at 5:30am and mass at 6:30am. Darn. We did have a wonderful breakfast at the LeGrande Cafe. "Not just anyone can say they wrecked a bicycle 3 times in one day, one of them involving Cambodia police on motorbikes fully equipped with AK47's (really big, scary guns!), and lived to tell the tale=). I'm not bragging, I'm just saying the temple Gods were defientely against me viewing the temples that day." I wasn't hurt, just some bruises to my body and my ego, that's why this story is humourus. 1st-We were crossing through a major intersection, Cam was in front, that had no stop sign/light and Camden suddenly stopped in front of me. I ran ... read more

Day 47 Saturday June 20, 2009 Arrived in Siem Reap at 6am, right on schedule, amazing! Pais $2 for a motuk ride to the ""Popular Guesthouse"" where we secured a room with A/C for $14. The room rates seem a little higher than the other places we have been staying, but so far the city seems more interesting than most, even with all the dirt roads. Well, some were paved, but we reclaimed by all the silt so they appeared to be dirt. After catching up on some sleep we had lunch at the Le Malraux restaurant for some excellent eats. We then proceeded to the Psar Chaar where I bought the cutest wooden Pinocchio puppet, so cool! Next we biked towards the temples to get tickets for the sunrise viewing the next day. We biked ... read more

Day 45 Thursday June 18, 2009 Rented a motuk driver for the day to take in some local sights for $14. Our 1st stop was the Royal Palace and they were charging $6 admission. The guidebook quoted $3, but she said they raised their prices. Whether they did raise them or she was trying to make a profit, we didn't bother with it and decided to go somewhere else. Once you've seen one fancy palace in an exotic country you've seen them all. They can't afford to feed all the hungry people in the nation, but they can sure line a palace with gold! Anyway, our 2nd stop was the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. (History lesson from Lonely Planet: Between 1975-1978 people were executed by the Khemer Rouge for pretty much whatever they felt like, ... read more