Siem Reap - Day Four

The tooth fairy came in the night and gave Vivian a 10 baht coin.  I guess she knew that, even though we were in Cambodia, Vivian wanted a coin to feed the fish back home in Bangkok.

We only had three day passes for the historic sites in Siem Reap, so we changed up the itinerary for our fourth day.  We took a drive to Kompong Kleang, a "floating" village.  Part of the road was barely wide enough for our bus, with quite a drop on either side, so that was a bit harrowing.

Once we got to our destination, we had to walk out to the boat dock.  Since this is the dry season, the water was much lower than it would usually be, so they had a temporary walk set up over all the mud.

Then we got into a boat which felt luxuriously large after our experiences with the longtail boats in Thailand where you're basically sitting on the bottom of the boat.  This one had seats, and material to pull down on the sides to protect you from the sun.

We sailed along and took in the houses on stilts.

Their height keeps them above the water during most of the rainy season.  Some of the scaffolding looked precarious, but it seems to work.  After a while we came to a village that was truly floating.

It was a Sunday, and it seems like on the weekends, the kids ride around in boats for fun.  We saw more of them when we got out onto the big lake.

Vivian and Elena both really enjoyed the boat ride.  I think they were just so excited to be in the shade with a cool breeze.

We had lunch in one of the houses on stilts.

On our way back to the dock, we went under this drawbridge.

Then it was back on the bus and back to town.  On the way, we pulled over to the side of the road, because my parents wanted to try bamboo sticky rice.  The rice, sugar, and roasted nuts are stuffed inside a bamboo stick, and then it's roasted over coals.  You buy it still in the stick, and then peel back the bamboo to get to the yummy inside.

We checked out of the hotel, but our flight didn't leave until 9:45pm, so we decided to go back to Pub Street and find a fun restaurant for dinner.  Our guide recommended The Red Piano, which is apparently Angelina Jolie's favorite restaurant.  Angelina Jolie is a big deal in Siem Reap because she was there to film Tomb Raider, and she adopted a Cambodian boy.  I decided to go with it, and got the Tomb Raider Cocktail.

It was actually quite good, as was the food.  We also liked the decor which of course included a red piano

and a replica of the four faced columns from the day before.

We decided that Angelina Jolie has pretty good taste in restaurants.  Vivi is the one who suggested eating upstairs rather than on street level, and it turned out to be a really good call.  Elena also enjoyed herself, because we had discovered the day before that she liked limes, so everyone with non alcoholic beverages gave her the limes from their glasses.

We got almost as many comments on her snack choice as we did on her blue eyes and blond hair.

After dinner, we did a quick sweep through the night market for last minute souvenirs, and then it was off to the airport and our flight home.

We had such a wonderful trip, but one of the best parts was feeling like we were really going home.  Bangkok truly is our home now.

Siem Reap - Day Three

Our third day began with an unplanned adventure.  Vivian woke up in the morning to announce that she had lost her first tooth, and she was pretty sure she had swallowed it because she didn't know where it was.  Luckily Judy managed to find it on the floor next to Vivian's bed.  It was really easy to get Vivian to smile for the rest of the trip, because all we had to say was, show us your gap!

When she got back to school and people asked what she did over Winter Break, her response was, I lost my first tooth in Cambodia.

After tooth hunting, we drove to Banteay Srei, also known as the Citadel of Women.  It's made from a pinkish sandstone which is softer than the stone used in many of the other temples, so it has very detailed carvings.  It took about an hour to get there which is why we opted not to go the day before.  It worked out perfectly as a morning trip though, because it meshed with Elena's usual morning nap time.

The temple was worth the trip.  The carvings were beautiful.

The only downside is that it was really hot, and there were not a lot of trees for shade, so both of the girls started to fuss.  Our guide pointed out a shaded area behind the temple, so I took the girls there.  It was really neat, because it was under this big tree and there were little "seats" made of chunks of wood covered in patterned tarp.  We sat there and listened to some music while the rest of the group finished looking through the temple.

We drove back to town and got lunch near Angkor Wat, and then went to Angkor Thom, which means the Great City.  The wall that surrounded it still stands, and our bus had to squeeze through a pretty small gate to get in.  There are lots of interesting sites there, but since the girls were fading, we opted to only spend time at one, Bayon.  It's a temple dedicated to Buddhism that has 54 towers with faces on each side, for a total of 216 smiling faces.

After that, we went back to the hotel to let the girls rest, because we were planning to go downtown for dinner and some shopping at the night market.

My sister was craving pizza, so we decided to try an Italian place that the guidebook recommended called Il Forno.  It was right off of Pub Street, which is the main restaurant street in town.  It was really pretty at night, all lit up, and the restaurants had little alleys between them with outdoor seating.  We invited our guide to join us for dinner, which is a good thing, because we probably wouldn't have been able to find the restaurant without him.  The food was good, and we had a lot of fun hearing about our guide's life story.

After dinner we walked over to the night market area which was one street over.  Everything was lit up and had a party atmosphere.

We didn't buy anything, but we had a lot of fun looking around.

Siem Reap - Day Two

We started the day with breakfast at the hotel, and then got on the bus for the twenty minute ride to Angkor Wat.  There were a few other people there.

But if we avoided the crowds, we could pretend we had it mostly to ourselves.

There is a man made lake surrounding the temple complex, so first we walked across the bridge.  There are several gates to get to the main green area.  The central one was only for kings and queens, but these days it's the one that most of the tourists go through.  We went through the next door down which was for nobility.  The final door was for commoners or people riding horses or elephants, since there were no steps for the animals to go up. 

After going through the gate, we walked across the large green area looking ahead to the main temple.

Angkor Wat is a Hindu temple, so there were statues and carvings of various Hindu gods and goddesses.  There are also carvings showing various kings and their famous battles.  The engravings were incredibly detailed.

Jeff was a trooper and carried Elena.

He did set her down before climbing to the top though.  She hydrated.

Vivian had to go to the bathroom, so she and I broke off from the main group.  Our tour guide told us where to meet up with them outside one of the other gates.  We found some rocks to sit on in the shade and were just relaxing when Vivian cried out, "Mommy, monkey!"  It took me a second to register that there was a monkey headed our way.

There were a bunch of them, and they were clearly used to tourists giving them food.  We didn't have any food and Vivian was kind of freaked out, so I shooed them away.  One intrepid monkey, hopped onto a nearby tuk tuk that the driver had left unattended and found a water bottle.  Vivian was yelling no, no, no at the monkey, but it wasn't listening to her.  It took the water bottle over to a rock and wrestled with it until it got the top off.  There wasn't much in the bottle, but it was quite a show.

We met up with the rest of our group, watched the monkeys for a while, and then went to get some lunch.  After lunch we drove to Ta Prohm, also known as the jungle temple or the Tomb Raider temple, since that's where the Angelina Jolie movie Tomb Raider was filmed.  It ended up being our favorite temple.  The trees just grow up through the temples, and it's so cool.  Jeff did his usual good job with pictures, but it's impossible to capture the atmosphere.

We had a third temple trip planned, but we decided to save it for day three, since we were all pretty worn out by then.  Instead, we went back to the hotel, lounged at the pool, and had dinner at the restaurant again.

Siem Reap - Day One

We relaxed with massages on Wednesday, and then left the house bright and early on Thursday morning to drive to the airport for our flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia, the home of Angkor Wat and many other beautiful sights.  Before I moved to Bangkok, I had never even heard of Siem Reap.  It's a quick one hour flight from here, and so lots of people go there on vacation.  Everyone who has gone there has raved about it, and after the trip, my family all agreed that the raves were well deserved.  Of course Angkor Wat is amazing, but there are many other incredible temples, and the city itself is a fun place to have dinner and walk around in the evening.  We also stayed at a wonderful hotel, which made the experience even better.

In typical Bangkok fashion, what should have been a 30 minute drive to the airport, took an hour in heavy traffic, but we had planned for that, and got to the airport in plenty of time.  It is ironic though that our trip to the airport took as long as our flight to Siem Reap.  We had arranged for a driver and guide to pick us up and take us to our hotel.  The hotel, Villa Indochine D'Angkor, had arranged a special welcome for us, or at least for me.

My name was on the reservation, so that's what got written on the bed.  The hotel was small, but perfect for us.  Jeff only had one complaint.  The room's open floor plan was really open, to the point where there was no bathroom door and no shower curtain.  The toilet was tucked away in a little alcove, and it all worked out fine, despite the possibility that someone could open the door to the room while you were in the shower and you would be on display.  At night when we walked up the entrance path, however, we had no complaints.

They also had a lovely little pool with a swim up bar and some lounging couches.  

Each afternoon we laid claim to a couch near the swim up bar.  Jeff and Vivi swam and had drinks (orange juice for Viv), and Elena and I could splash around for a bit, and then lounge with the rest of the family.

The first day is a bit of a blur.  We started with lunch, where Jeff felt he should try the local beer.

He decided he liked it, and bought the t-shirt to prove it at the night market.  My sister Judy was also feeling adventurous and got a big, peppery fish.

After lunch, we went to four sites in the Roluos group.  I stayed on the bus with Elena for two of the four, since she was napping, and we wanted to pace ourselves, so that she made it through all four days without completely losing it.  The consensus from the rest of the family was that I didn't miss much.  Apparently we're becoming temple snobs.  Here are a couple pictures, so that you can judge for yourself.

We were worn out after all that, so we took a dip in the pool, lounged around (we fit most of the family on the lounge couch next to the pool)

 and then had dinner at the hotel.

Our meal was complimentary, because I told them that we chose the hotel based on a friend's recommendation.  We pointed out that our friend really should have gotten the free meal, but I guess it's a pay it forward thing.

We were all exhausted by the time we were done with dinner.  Vivian was sharing a room with my sister, and Jeff and I had Elena in our room.  This seemed like a reasonable arrangement, but the crib was more pretty than functional,

and Elena was so wound up from the day that she was fighting sleep.  We didn't convince her to sleep until 10pm, and that was in our bed where she woke up several times during the night.  It's all part of the fun of parenting though, and we got enough sleep to be able to tackle our next day's adventures at Angkor Wat and the "Tomb Raider" temple. (Next blog coming soon!)