travellingwithkids

So, we made the decision in Hanoi to come to Siem Reap, Cambodia for a few days to see Angkor Wat, and all I can say is that it was definitely worth it. I think we all had a great time, except for maybe the heat, which we will have to get used to since we are now on the plane to Thailand. These are some things I noticed, things we did, and memorable experiences: 1. We visited a lot of temples. There are soooo many of them everywhere! They were mostly built in the 11th to 13th century by a king. The murals on the walls were very detailed. We played hide and seek in some of them, and it is basically impossible to find someone. (Dad's note - from the outside some of the ... read more

We woke up and drove out to the Angkor complex. First we went to Angkor Thom which was one of the biggest Khmer cities. We went to Bayon temple which was really cool. It had 54 towers with 4 huge faces on each tower. We walked in and went around into these corridors. Every wall had patterns and drawings carved into the sandstone that was used to build the temples with designs that had a huge amount of detail. Bayon was built in the 12th century and still most of it is intact. In the center of the temple was a shrine where people can burn incense and pray to the Buddha. It was really interesting, cool, fun and incredible. After that we went to Baphuon which is another temple that was built 200 years before. ... read more

We fly early from Bogota to San Andres island. It's very straightforward, no hitches, so all my worries the day before were unnecessary. Bogota airport is busy but organized with lots of coffee and doughnut kiosks. For some reason someone feels it's a good idea to stock up on doughnuts before flying, but we resist that particular temptation. There are numerous security checks - my theory is that with a semblance of peace in the country, the government must find something for all the soldiers to do ( many seem to hang around the streets of Bogota, not really appearing to do much, but make tourists like us feel safe) and before the gate, the airline attendants actually collect boarding passes which they then give back to you at boarding time. it's an odd system but ... read more

It's our last day in Bogota so we make a token stab at the hotel breakfast (only my wife is actually eating it now as she likes the eggs and has worked out a formula for making the coffee drinkable; I just go down the street to Juan Valdez, and our son doesn't even look at the breakfast - he knows there's far tastier fare all around), and head out. We're going to the Gold Museum which has a huge reputation. It's a 10 minute walk from the hotel, and it's housed in a beautiful building. Our guidebook calls it 'perhaps the finest museum in South America'. The exhibit takes up three floors and is very impressive : shelves and shelves of golden artifacts, gorgeously presented and maintained. However, we're with an eleven year old who ... read more

Today we're off to Zipaquira, home of the famous salt cathedral. We're generally not that excited by religious monuments, but this one is apparently a must do. The bus station is not surprisingly very busy and big, but there are enough official looking personnel to direct us to the right area. We're immediately whisked onto a bus and then sit for a while as more passengers get on. We leave on what is apparently a ninety minute journey. For the longest time we crawl through Bogota traffic, seemingly stopping to load on more passengers every block. Unless the town of Zipaquira is hidden somewhere in downtown Bogota, we'll never get off the bus in another hour and a half. This goes on and on, but afer a (long) while, we are out of ther city and ... read more