Delhi, Day 1 of the trip

I had the best plane food I’ve ever had on the way over here – if you are flying to India take Jet Airways, it’s the best. I had a REAL wine glass, and a REAL napkin, the dinner was veggie, and there was really good Raita, Curry, and Chapatti, it was AMAZING. It goes up there with the other two awesome meals I’ve had on planes, one of which was in first class, and one when I was 9, so it’s a lofty category.

Arrived in Incredible India with Steffen and Liz waiting for me at the airport, and we got a little cab car to our hotel.

I thought Asia was hectic, but it is NOTHING compared to India. While in Asia there are usually only motorcycles, cars, buses, etc in the road, in India there are all of the above as wells as all manner of livestock, monkeys, people and of course cows running back and forth in fast moving traffic.
People on a political march walking down the middle of the road

On the way to the hotel we passed a truck which had ‘Anytime is egg time’ written as the slogan, which is a great slogan, because it is true, anytime really IS egg time. After checking in I received my Xmas present, which was a blow-up sumo wrestler suit; we are going to all wear them when Rahul picks us up in the airport in Bangalore.

Funny anecdote: They tried to find batteries for them so that they could pick me up in the suits as well, but met with blank stares after asking for batteries, later Steffen started pronouncing batteries with an Indian accent and then suddenly everyone knew what he was talking about.

SO far my absolute favorite thing about India are the amount of vegetarian restaurants. I’ve always been so envious of people who can just go into a restaurant where the menu isn’t in English and just point - now I can do that!!! We ordered four dishes at random and then potato Nan. I have never had such good food in my life. Each dish was incredible and we just stuck them in the middle and then all shared. I got Aloo Gobi, which is potato and cauliflower curry, and the other dishes we got were mutter masala, mutter something else, and then Dahl something because there was one lentil dish. We were the only foreigners in the restaurant, and everyone stared at us with great curiosity. Funny thing is that people think I’m Hindi. The waiter at the restaurant asked me if I was and the next day our tuk tuk driver went off in a random stream of Hindi at me; I think I must be dark enough that I could almost pass.

Delicious meal the first night; we had four curries and three orders of naan and the bill was 150 rupees: 3 dollars US. It was the best food I have ever had

Happy food consumers

Pink Palace Reuinion

Despite the fact that I really have no love lost for Bangkok I went 3 days earlier than I need to just to see some friends from the Pink Palace. 3 nights on Koh San is not really my idea of an awesome time, but it will be worth it I guess. Without much ado we all managed to meet up, which I’m not going to lie was a little weird at first since I hadn’t seen them in 6 months and couldn’t understand a word they were saying for the first few hours since I haven’t hung out with aussies in so long and the accent is fucking thick, I think its worse that Irish. Things got back to normal after a few buckets.

We spent most of the night at a bar with a sign that read ‘Very Strong Bucket, We Don’t Check ID’… which is pointless since ID doesn’t exist in Thailand, and if it did you could simply go next door and get the guy making fake IDs and diplomas to make it for you. The night was pretty loose; the end is my first REALLY blurry night since moving to Asia.

Next night we went back to the same bucket place where the proprietor was overjoyed to see us.    

Simon lost rock paper scissors to the devil child (who I think is an institution on Koh San since I see her every time I go which is turning out to be far too often) and had to buy five roses from her, which was still only 100 baht.  

Then they decided it would be a good idea to get their eyebrows pierced, so we went back to the place where I had had mine done and I ended up getting my cartilage pierced as well– I think I need to stop with the piercings soon cause I’m accumulating them at an alarming rate.

Showing off our new piercings

Went on to get loose at a club in Koh San and then ended up not going to sleep for a long time after that back in the room even though they were leaving at 7 to go to Trat.

God Save the King

Phnom Penh - Tuol Sleng & Killing Fields

From Siem Reap I just joined the family on their way to Phnom Penh. Tristan had headed home the day before, and Verber's leg was so infected that the doctor told him he should go home and get treatment in the US, so he was leaving the following morning.  After the 6 hour bus ride we arrived at Phnom Penh and crashed at Guesthouse number 9 on the lakefront, which was really cool and set on stilts out over the lake with a great porch to watch the sunset and chill out on. 

Had dinner at the Lazy Gecko, the food was stellar, and the proceeds go for the rehabilitation of some or other elephant.  I had thought the proceeds went to the local orphanage so I was a bit disappointed about that, but I guess elephants are a worthy cause as well. 

Guesthouse Number 9 at sunset

After dinner we went on a drinking odyssey through Phnom Penh, first going to a club out on a boat in the river, I think called Platoon, which was cool but pretty empty.  I ended up getting in an hour-long argument with two Swedish guys about the fact that all Americans are not stupid. Seriously, some people fail to realize they have idiots in their own country as well, probably at almost as high percentage, but since we have more people, we also have more idiots, which means more idiots traveling, but the ratio is probably almost the same in your country. Anyway, our education system sucks, so you cant really blame disadvantaged people themselves for not knowing anything.

Dave trying to get rid of Jill's hickups - looked pretty intense, but it worked immediately

On the ride back to the main area there wasn’t enough room so Dave ended up riding on the handlebars of the drivers motorcycle, I'm sure highly safe.   The tuk tuk had speakers so we were driving along jamming out the sides to apple bottom jeans, which seems to be enjoying a resurgence of popularity in SE Asia.     After we got back to the lakeside we went to an awesome bar whose name had something to do with frog - lazy frog maybe..., which was REALLY cool. It was just a tiny room a few stories up but it was all open air and you could look down on the street below. I think it must have been the after hours place to go since when we got there at about 2 it was pretty empty and by 5 it was packed.

The next morning we went to the Killing fields first, which was the main execution grounds in Phnom Penh for the Khmer Rouge. When they were excavated in the 80s over 9000 skulls were found here, which are now encased in a stupa that bears memorial to the horrors of the place. The place looks un-sinister until you begin to read the explanatory plaques and see bitts of clothing poking out of the ground everywhere, and the bits of jaw bones people have found even now and placed on the other stupas scattered around the grounds.

Main Stupa housing the 9,000 skulls which were found in the excavation of the site

One of the many execution pits scattered over the grounds. 

over 9,000 Skulls which were found here during excavation 

Many of the skulls bear witness to the Khmer Rouge's method of executing with pickaxes to save the cost of bullets

After the killing fields we went to Tuol Sleng or s-21 security prison.  This was the main torture and detainment center in Phnom Penh from which only 7 of the roughly 17,000 detainees who passed through during the height of the Khmer Rouge survived.    The center was originally a high school before Pol Pot set the clock back to 0 in Cambodia renaming the country the Republic of Kampuchea, and still looks relatively innocent from the outside, albeit the heaps of barbed wire.   

Tuol Sleng from the outside. The classrooms inside were used as mass detainment rooms, which the halls downstairs were bricked off into individual cells for solitary confinement and interrogation.

For me the most disturbing aspect was the recentness (I'm pretty sure that is not a word) of this nasty piece of history, only 30 years. Walking on the street the majority of people you see have direct experience with the Khmer Rouge; they have lost parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. The old people have lost children, husbands, and wives. For a people to still be as friendly and outwardly happy when this is in their immediate past is a testimony to the strength of the human spirit. 

Street kids climbing a wall in a garbage dump near the Cambodia Thai border

Surgery in Cambodia!!!

Yes, I did indeed get surgery in Cambodia, but it was very minor surgery so there really isn't any cause for alarm; the only cause for alarm was that after he was finished I say a grasshopper on the wheel of the operation bed I had been lying on.

My toenail had been kind of destroyed on the booze cruise in Sihanoukville, and it had gotten infected somewhere along the way even though I thought I was taking good care of it. I was going to try and fix it myself, but then one of my veins in my toes started turning white and I had a vague recollection this is a sign that the infection is going into your bloodstream, resulting in gangrene, which was not high on my to-do list so I figured I had better find a doctor.

I went to the hospital, which was very new, clean, and expensive, and the doctor took one look and said he had to remove it, so he shot me up with Novocain and that was that.  The only hitch to the procedure was that they didn't give me enough Novocain so I could feel the nail being cut out.   I now have a much deeper sympathy for torture victims who have their nails pulled out, it its not fun, and I can't think of too many things that could be worse.

Toenail post-surgery, yum yum

I got back to the hotel and couldn't walk which presented a slight problem since our room was on the 4th floor with no elevator.  I ended up sitting on my butt and moving backwards up the stairs, step by step, all four flights of them. The workers in the lobby thought it was quite something.

Anyway, that is basically my surgery story, so moving on...

Because of the nail I ended up staying in Siem Reap with the rest of the family for a really long time, about 6 days, and had to cut Laos out of my trip which was really disappointing to me, because I had high expectations for tubing in Vang Vieng.

Siem Reap was a pretty decent place to get stuck however, and I managed to entertain myself, mostly by making close friends with the lady who ran the internet and paying her long visits everyday. Some highlights:

Angkor What? Bar = mostly this place was awesome because of the name... I am a nerd, I love puns.

Khemer Kitchen = Best Cambodian food EVER. I am slightly obsessed with Cambodian food, which is mostly curries and stews you can pour over rice. I bought all of the spices necessary and I am planning on mastering the art when I get home.

Awesome day at the river where we played with two little boys for at least 5 hours =

Dave and Josie and I were just chilling on the river since we had been too cheap to pay the $5 to go to the pool, when we saw two little boys on the other bank. Dave started wondering if people actually swam in the river, which looked a bit suspect, so as a joke he motioned them to come over, thinking that they never would. we were wrong, they both immediately stripped off their shirts, dove in, and swam across. They ended up hanging out with us for most of the day. We bought them ice cream, which they didn't like, apples, which they also didn't like and then finally some fried noodles, which were a hit. They both spoke no English, and so we played charades all day to talk. Dave pulled out some card tricks, and soon we had a huge crowd. It was pretty fun times.

After swimming across the river

Revolted by the ice cream

The noodles are a hit

The card tricks are also a hit, not just with the kids but with the tuk tuk drivers too

I wanted to adopt this one

Basically I love Cambodia. A lot. Much better than Thailand. Go there. Now!  (pic below is just a random picture of the river in Siem Reap that I thought was pretty.

Angkor What?

We finally dragged ourselves reluctantly away from the easy beaches in Sihanouk Ville and booked a bus to Siem Reap (9 hours).

The bus stopped in Phnom Penh for a few hours which was wonderful since I thought I was not going to get to see it at all on account of using up all my time in Sihanoukville. We stopped right next to the central market which I think is one of the main attraction, and if it is not, it should be.

The market in Kashgar, Western China, was supposed to be the "best in the world"but this one completely blew it to shreds. It was inside a huge old yellow colonial looking building which was octagonal and so the market started inside and spilled out beyond the building in a giant circular see of umbrellas. The building itself was very unique and made a very interesting an out of the ordinary staging for a market. I bought two Khemer scarves for 1 dollar.. I'm contemplating buying more since they are so cool - good stocking suffers.

Another wonderful feature of Cambodia is the bread. Because of the French colonialism, they can make baguettes that are on par with anything I tasted in France. These are served with all meals and many of the street vendors will whip up a delicious cheese-cucumber-and-sauerkraut-ish-substance baguette for a dollar. Oh, other random reflection, Cambodia looks like Nicaragua, kind of the same jungle-ness.

Got to Siem Reap, found a place to stay after a bit of searching. The town is cool, but its clear the main attraction is really Angkor Wat and the town just plays backup.

Kyle and Verber have to share a tiny bed. This is their interpretation of how kyle sleeps at night and how horrible its going to be.

Angkor Wat / Temples of Angkor

Tuk Tuk fun
More Tuk Tuk fun

We started our Angkor day at 8 am, and headed straight for Angkor Wat. Usually this would be done on the the third day, but since I was only going to be here for one we did it in the first day so that I could see it. Its actually really hard to express how cool it was, but it was kind of like being on the set of Jungle Book, Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones all at once, and then realizing it wasn't a movie set but was all real. Angkor Wat is really just one in a sea of temples, but as it is the one on all of the postcards it is what people think of as Angkor. In reality there are more than 60 temples scattered around the city of Siem Reap, some big, some small, some cool, some not - Angkor Wat is just the most famous. It was built as a tomb for Vishnu, and has some of the most well preserved wall carvings inside, the most famous depicting the Churning of the Sea of Milk - a legendary event when Vishnu and the Naga churned the sea to produce the elixir of imortality.
Entrance to Angkor Wat
The boys getting excited to be there
Typical tourist picture - I think every person who visits takes this exact same picture

Inside Angkor Wat
Inside Angkor Wat

After Angkor Wat we went to Angkor Thom, the old walled city of Angkor, which has a hand full of other temples inside. In Angkor tradition, stone was fit only for the gods, so all of the houses of ordinary people were constructed of wood and have long since disintegrated in the tropical rain. Kings were considered god-kings, so the structures they lived in and gave speeches from still remain as well as the temples for the gods.

Gate into Angkor Thom

My favorite temple was Bayon which we visited first in Angkor Thom. It was very uncrowded and many times I was the only person in the section of the temple that I was in. You are allowed to walk around uninhibited in the ruins which is really cool, but this is sure to change soon - there are rumors that the entire area will close to the public within the next ten years.
Inside Bayon

After this we visited a few other temples in Thom, a notable one being Baphuon, which was taken apart and documented painstakingly by French scientists after WWII for reconstruction, but unfortunately their documents were lost in the chaos of the Khemer Rouge revolution, and now an ambitions project is underway to restore the temple to its original glory without the documents, which is a daunting task.


Jill trying to climb up the hard way

Leaving Angkor Thom, we went to one of the other most famous temples in the area Ta Prohm, or the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed. This is probably the second most photographed temple after Angkor Wat on account of the huge trees growing their roots out and over the temple walls.




The Family

After this long day of tramping through dusty hot jungle we went to a magnificent restaurant called dead fish, which had four or five different levels scattered through the warehouse which you reached by ladder, kind of like a tree house. Your food and drink was brought up on a pulley system, and the tables were made of old tires with a slab of glass on top. They also had crocodiles you could feed and free wireless Internet. It was awesome. Afterward our tuk tuk driver Dara took up to a Cambodian club for a few drinks, which was interesting because it was the polar opposite of a US club experience - all of the men were getting crazy on the dance floor while the girls just sat and watched or awkwardly moved back and forth. It was very strange.

Sign over the crocodile pit


The red bull have amphetamines in it. no seriously I'm not kidding. They are deadly. Dexpanthonol 5 mg. I drank three one day and couldn't sleep all night

Cambodia!! - Shinoukville

This pic is actually from BKK, just got on the wrong blog post. This guy was passed out at a table the next morning on Koh San, the waiters are trying to figure out what to do with him.
From Nov 23rd-27th

Sihanouk ville is supposed to be Thailand in the 70s, before it was discovered, and it does certainly measure up to that somewhat. You get there from the border crossing at Koh Kong.

Sihanoukville is in the south west corner of the map

Serendipity Beach at night, we spent most of our time at the bar with the dolphin

It is in far southern Cambodia, and it would be really easy to make this either your last stop before jumping off to Vietnam or your first stop in Cambodia before Phnom Penh. There are really only a few major beaches, and we stayed on the most populated / also supposed to be the nicest of these: Serendipity beach - a very nice stretch of white sand completely lined with restaurants and bars, all of which have big circular lounge chairs and tables on the beach so there is a very chilled out atmosphere. Opportunities for happy pizzas abound, and there is even one advertised on the official city map of the area, which struck me as very strange considering Cambodia's harsh drug laws.

sunset at Serendipity beach

Unfortunately, although this is a kind of paradise, it is also overrun with children selling you stuff and trying to steal your stuff as well. Within the first 30 minutes I was on the beach my wallet was stolen out of my bad which was under my chair, WHILE I WAS SITTING THERE. apparently don't close your eyes even for a second.

The second night we were there we did a booze cruise which was mindt. There was a really awesome mixed crowd of all nationalities and ages, about 40 people in all. There was a really awesome 60 year old Aussie guy named Allen who had a joint permanently attached to his hand and was a great character. There was also a French girl Josie and I talked to for at least ten minutes before her boyfriend told us she didn't speak English... no idea how that worked.. we must have been too busy drinking to noticed she wasn't replying.

Cliff jumping.... German dude who was definitely on something a little stronger than Clang beer.

Booze Cruise!!

We started out cliff jumping, at which juncture Verber managed to disobey all instructions and get out of the boat the wrong way resulting in him lodging a few sea urchin spines in his foot, which he is still complaining about. Then we moved on and had a beach bbq and after went on to Bamboo island, which is a really cool secluded island about an hour boat ride from Serendipity. There is only one bungalow hotel on the island so if you really wanted to chill out this is where you should go. I slipped on the boat around this time and peeled pack part of my big toe nail, resulting in excruciating pain and lots of blood. I asked our resident walking pharmacy, verber, for painkillers, which he told me were not very strong, so I took four. I realized immediately afterwards that if someone who regularly takes morphine tells you something isn't strong you shouldn't believe them - I was completely out of it for the next 12 hours at least, and still felt pretty shitty they next day as well.

Beach BBQ

Deserted beach at Bamboo Island

More Bamboo Island, this is the side with the bungalows.

We went back to bamboo island the next day because it had been so cool the day before and just chilled. That is really the only things we did so doesn't really merit anymore writing about it. Some pics from the bus ride to Siem Reap:



Next Post: Phnom Penh and Siem Reap