Dearest friends and family,
It is with pleasure that I write to you about our travels and adventures in the Kingdom of Cambodia. Or, as Norah and I like to say, Cam-bo-d-YEAH! But I digress. So, let me start by saying that there are, presently, no less than 6 lizards on the walls of this little internet cafe. How cool is that? But really, that is just the start.Norah and I have found Cambodia to be much flatter than Thailand. Also, there is much more poverty.We've heard others describe this country as Thailand 50 years ago or so. However, the economy here is booming, and whatever the government officials don't take for themselves trickles down to the locals (which doesn't appear to amount to much). Today is our second day in the country, as we arrived yesterday on the 25th of July. We fly out tomorrow mid-morning to Vietnam, so it has been a short stay.
Our purpose here was to visit the temples of Angkor Wat, and they were truly amazing. To our minds, they're on par with the pyramids, Petra, and any other wonders of the ancient world.The temples lie about 10 minutes outside the town of Siem Reap,and were built around the 9-11th centuries. There are maybe a dozen or so actual temples in the area, and many tourists take several days to see them all. We started this morning at 6:30 and went strong until about 1 pm, when we came back to our hotel, ate, and collapsed. The temples were only rediscovered by the"modern" world in the late 1800's by a Frenchexplorer. For more information, please visit www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_wat
(After our visit toKyler's in Jerusalem, we've taken one of his ideas ofadding links to our messages :)
After we woke up from our nap, we spent the rest oftoday shopping in the local market, eating dinner while watching a Khmer (local culture) dance show, and updating our blog. Yesterday we arrived around 1 pm. After we arrived and found a hotel, our taxi driver took us to a floating fishing village that Auntie Helga recommended we check out. On our way there, our taxi had to stop at a tourist checkpoint where a government officalcharged us $15 each to visit the village. We asked for a student discount, tried to look poor, and he only charged us $25 all together [smell fishy?]. We then went on, gave our ticket to a boat driver waiting in the river, and recieved an hour and a half cruise of the floating city.This place was very dirty, and the people were extremely poor. It was fascinating to see, but heartbreaking at the same time. These people, apparently, are the poorest of the poor. They live on the river because they don't have to pay the government taxes to do so. Accordingly, their whole life is on the river...they have floating schools, markets, and churches (Buddists, Muslims, and Christians all live in the village).
After we finished with the river tour, our taxi drivertook us to Angkor Wat to buy a ticket for the next day. They also had some deal where you could watch the sunset from one of the temples if you purchased a ticket for the next day, so we did that. It was spectacular! There were a lot of people up on top of the temple, and we actually ran into an older sister missionary and her grandaughter, who was visitng from the states. Sister Morgan has been in Cambodia for 6 months already, and prior to here, served a mission in...Zimbabwe! She happened to know theKneels and Newbolds - both families are friends ofMargie's...small world! Life is good here on the other side of the world. Tomorrow we fly out to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and will send more updates from there!!
Sorry we haven't been able to get more pictures up - our connections are usually too slow to do it. We'll keep trying!
Lots of love, Mike & Norah
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Thailand Adventures!
Hello to all!
Sending everyone warm hugs and smiles and lots of Green Curry from Thailand!
We've had a fabulous time as we continue our adventures into Southeast Asia, starting with beautiful Thailand.
We flew in on the 17th, first thing in the morning, which meant we were exhausted, but very excited to see Bangkok. After checking into our hotel, we took a boat ride along the river to see some of the many temples, and then found our first, true Thai meal - delish!!! Our first two days were spent in Bangkok, navigating the busy streets and traffic jams, shopping for custom-made clothes, visiting the sites, and starting in on our string of Thai massages. One of our favorite memories from the first day was visiting the Golden Mount, and then stumbling upon a Buddhist monk induction ceremony at the monastery next door. It was fascinating. We learned that about 99.9 % of Thai men become monks at some point in their life, normally for about three months. Amazing, huh? We also would like to mention that we paid $4 for a tuktuk driver to shuttle us around for 6 hours! We treated ourselves to very cheap massages that night to recover from the long flights, and decided that it was probably the best $8 we had ever spent in our lives! The second day we visited the Grand Palace, which is just phenomenal. We took in more gold and more Buddhas than we had ever seen!
After the worst all-night bus ride up to Chang Mai [Thai people apparently need less leg space than Norah even needs, so Mike was miserable!], we began our favorite part of the visit up in the Northern part of Thailand. First stop - cooking school!!! We spent the day learning how to make 6 Thai dishes, as well as visiting the local market and sampling seasonal fruits. While we can't take credit for how good the dishes were, since the sweet ladies helped us every step of the way, it was the best Thai food we ate during our whole visit. Once we're home, if any wants to come visit for a little Thai meal, we'll be all too happy to oblige - just bring lots of coconut milk with you! That evening we visited the night market and treated ourselves to a Thai massage for only 3 dollars! The lady who massaged Mike was somewhat of a masochist, but otherwise we were very happy.
Our second two days - Trekking!
We went on an organized trek up into the mountains near Chang Mai. After a stop at the market, we went elephant riding through the jungle! Did you know that elephants eat for 16 hours a day? After that, we hiked up to a waterfall, and then through the forest up to a hill tribe. It was such a neat experience. The people seemed very gentle and lead very humble lives. Our guide was actually from the tribe that we hiked to, so after dinner, he told us all about their lifestyle. We slept there overnight, and then hiked back down in the morning. Our tour ended with an hour of bamboo rafting complete with rapids and plenty of splashing and rough-housing from the guides and other tourists. It was lots of fun! The evening was spent browsing the city, drinking a mango shake, and getting a foot massage. Heaven!
After our Chang Mai adventures, we headed down south to Phi Phi Island. The beaches were spectacular and the landscape was amazing. Our only disappointment was how touristy the town on the island was. Backpacker haven - and we were hoping for more of a local experience. The first night we were there we had terrible storm. Not wanting to be deterred in our efforts to enjoy the beach, we went for a little night swim in the rain. [Moms, don't read this part!] The lighting flashing up on the cliffs and across the water was incredible!
The highlight of our second day was doing a sunset boat tour. It included a visit to Monkey Beach where we did some kayaking, snorkeling in the lagoons around Phi Phi Lay Islands, and visiting Maya Bay [which is where 'The Beach' was filmed]. That was gorgeous! We then had dinner on the boat while the sun went down and headed back to shore. Life would have been perfection if we hadn't been so silly as to sit on the beach for an hour before the tour with no sunscreen - we're still paying for it! [And yes, Moms, you absolutely told us so!]
The next day we got in a few more precious moments on the beach before heading back to the mainland, back to Bangkok, and then off to Cambodia. Thailand was just incredible! We highly recommend!
Sending everyone warm hugs and smiles and lots of Green Curry from Thailand!
We've had a fabulous time as we continue our adventures into Southeast Asia, starting with beautiful Thailand.
We flew in on the 17th, first thing in the morning, which meant we were exhausted, but very excited to see Bangkok. After checking into our hotel, we took a boat ride along the river to see some of the many temples, and then found our first, true Thai meal - delish!!! Our first two days were spent in Bangkok, navigating the busy streets and traffic jams, shopping for custom-made clothes, visiting the sites, and starting in on our string of Thai massages. One of our favorite memories from the first day was visiting the Golden Mount, and then stumbling upon a Buddhist monk induction ceremony at the monastery next door. It was fascinating. We learned that about 99.9 % of Thai men become monks at some point in their life, normally for about three months. Amazing, huh? We also would like to mention that we paid $4 for a tuktuk driver to shuttle us around for 6 hours! We treated ourselves to very cheap massages that night to recover from the long flights, and decided that it was probably the best $8 we had ever spent in our lives! The second day we visited the Grand Palace, which is just phenomenal. We took in more gold and more Buddhas than we had ever seen!
After the worst all-night bus ride up to Chang Mai [Thai people apparently need less leg space than Norah even needs, so Mike was miserable!], we began our favorite part of the visit up in the Northern part of Thailand. First stop - cooking school!!! We spent the day learning how to make 6 Thai dishes, as well as visiting the local market and sampling seasonal fruits. While we can't take credit for how good the dishes were, since the sweet ladies helped us every step of the way, it was the best Thai food we ate during our whole visit. Once we're home, if any wants to come visit for a little Thai meal, we'll be all too happy to oblige - just bring lots of coconut milk with you! That evening we visited the night market and treated ourselves to a Thai massage for only 3 dollars! The lady who massaged Mike was somewhat of a masochist, but otherwise we were very happy.
Our second two days - Trekking!
We went on an organized trek up into the mountains near Chang Mai. After a stop at the market, we went elephant riding through the jungle! Did you know that elephants eat for 16 hours a day? After that, we hiked up to a waterfall, and then through the forest up to a hill tribe. It was such a neat experience. The people seemed very gentle and lead very humble lives. Our guide was actually from the tribe that we hiked to, so after dinner, he told us all about their lifestyle. We slept there overnight, and then hiked back down in the morning. Our tour ended with an hour of bamboo rafting complete with rapids and plenty of splashing and rough-housing from the guides and other tourists. It was lots of fun! The evening was spent browsing the city, drinking a mango shake, and getting a foot massage. Heaven!
After our Chang Mai adventures, we headed down south to Phi Phi Island. The beaches were spectacular and the landscape was amazing. Our only disappointment was how touristy the town on the island was. Backpacker haven - and we were hoping for more of a local experience. The first night we were there we had terrible storm. Not wanting to be deterred in our efforts to enjoy the beach, we went for a little night swim in the rain. [Moms, don't read this part!] The lighting flashing up on the cliffs and across the water was incredible!
The highlight of our second day was doing a sunset boat tour. It included a visit to Monkey Beach where we did some kayaking, snorkeling in the lagoons around Phi Phi Lay Islands, and visiting Maya Bay [which is where 'The Beach' was filmed]. That was gorgeous! We then had dinner on the boat while the sun went down and headed back to shore. Life would have been perfection if we hadn't been so silly as to sit on the beach for an hour before the tour with no sunscreen - we're still paying for it! [And yes, Moms, you absolutely told us so!]
The next day we got in a few more precious moments on the beach before heading back to the mainland, back to Bangkok, and then off to Cambodia. Thailand was just incredible! We highly recommend!
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