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 [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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We went to Angkor wat today; which is the largest and most breathtaking monument at Angkor. Angkor are many ruins which are is just north of Siem Reap, in Northwest, Cambodia. We started the day with an english style breakfast from "le Grand Cafe", for 5 dollars: eggs, bacon, fresh baked bread, jam and a huge bowl of fresh grown fruits. We started our journey on bikes rented previously for $1.5 a day. I should note that when we rented the bikes, some bikes were outside getting wet and Britteni, cleverly, noticed a better one inside, so she got that one [View Full Entry]

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Day 48 Sunday June 21, 2009 The temples 1st stop: Angkor Wat: the world's largest religious structure. Absolutly stunning. 2nd stop: Ta Prohm: The temple where the movie "Tomb Raider" was filmed. 3rd stop: Angkor Thom's Baphom where we waited out the rainstorm in a window way 4th stop: Angkor Thom's Bayon which was very tall and the most awesome in my opinion We had lunch at a roadside stand outside of the temples and surprisingly had some of the best chicken and rice I have ever had! We also milled around and bought two paintings for our house. Now we [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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. [View Full Entry]

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Day 46 Friday June 19, 2009 Bought an overnight bus ticket to Siem Reap for $9 versus the $145 for airfare. The bus trip is only 6 hours long. I can handle anything for 6 hours to save that much money, especially after the crazy mountainous trip to Dalat on the hot bus! We took a motuk down to the bus station at 11pm which ended up being someone's house/ restaurant down by the river downtown. So here we are sitting on a dark road at 11pm at night waiting for the bus (or so we hope) while the locals are [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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