Angkor Wat and Siem Reap Part 1



We flew into Siem Reap direct from KL.  We hit the ground and had our first, real experience with militant immigration and visa applications.  We were first in line and as such, didn't have any direction to follow.  We wandered up to the first counter and had a staredown with the agent.  After about 2 minutes, we were ushered forward to hand over our passports and then were summarily dismissed to "stand over there."  We went to the next person who sent us to the next person who sent us to the next person.  We reached the correct counter and stepped up.  The agent promptly told us to step back into line.  There was no line.  We dutifully stepped back 2 feet and watched the agent do mysterious things with our passports.  Finally we were summoned forward, paid and got our visas. 

I had another dumbass moment and got stuck outside the airport without my passport and Molly was inside waiting for me.  I got a security agent, went to all sorts of places that I was not supposed to go and eventually made a security guard go inside and retrieve Molly.  We eventually got our Tuk-Tuk and headed into town. 

 

Siem Reap is almost bipolar.  There is a significant segment of the population with wealth, and they like to show it.  I saw more Toyota Landcruisers and the Lexus counterpart than I have ever seen in my life.  They were all over the place.  Most were tagged with foot high letters declairing "Land Cruiser" or "Lexus" as well.  Comparatively, the bulk of the Cambodian population live on roughly $1 a day.
 

We hit up Pub Street, the Old Market and the Night Market(s) nearly every day.  Pub street is the major backpacker hub, the Old Market is the green market and seafood market and the Night Markets are where you get every assorted piece of crap you never knew you needed.  There are multiple night markets, all with neon signs pointing this way or that, directing you to an ever cheaper assortment of goodies.
 

Siem Reap is also the gateway to Angkor Wat.  This is a massive array of temples, palaces and other assorted ruins north of the city.  They have been the sight of many movies, notably Tomb Raider and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.  The Emperor and Liu Kang's final fight?  Angkor Wat.
 

 

The ruins are incredible.  The thing that pictures can't really describe is the sheer scale that these are built on.  The temples are massive and we spent hours traversing individual complexes.  But the real kicker is the size of the complexes.  The first day we took a Tuk-Tuk to the first temple complex which is actually called Angkor Wat.  After a few hours there, we walked to Angkor Thom and the Bayon temple complex.  It is over a kilometer just to get through Angkor Wat and another half a km to the south gate of Angkor Thom.  We saw the gate and started to celibrate.  We took a bunch of pictures and headed into the complex.  The road is rail straight and so long that you couldn't see Bayon.  It was 2 km more INSIDE the walls just to get to the temple!  This is a walled, controlled area.  It houses 10 major and minor temple complexes, a Tuk-Tuk parking area and a food court.  We also hit the Terrace of the Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King.

 

At this point I was tired, sweaty, sunbeaten, dusty and just generally over life.  We nabbed someone else's Tuk-Tuk (this is why you don't pay in advance) and headed back to the hostel for a good dose of A/C and swimming pool.  The next day we took the more traditional tourist routine which is a Tuk-Tuk on the small tour.  We focused on the second half from the giant buddha statue and back around.  We climbed to the top of a ziggurat and took some cool pictures.  The bridge was razor straight and over a hundred yards long.  Once again, the sheer scale is incredible.

 



 

 

 

Another feature on the small loop is the "Tomb Raider" temple.  It hasn't been as managed as most and features the wilderness slowly eating away at the temple.  Trees, hundreds of feet tall, have eaten huge chunks out the the temple complex and its walls.  While a serious tourist trap, the temple keeps up with the hype.  At this point my camera overheated and we were down to just Molly's.  We finished off the loop, headed back to Angkor Wat and hung out for sunset over the temple and the moat.





 

Day three we took a Tuk-Tuk on the big loop past the aquifer and through another temple complex.  We picnic'd at a temple and caught the sunset again.  After the first day, we had decided to take it a lot slower the second two days.  We took advantage of the transportation, brought snacks and books to read.  The three day pass is a pretty sweet deal and we tried to use it to the max.

 

 The three day pass is $40 and you can use it over the course of a week.  We did the first day, took a couple of days off to hang out in town, and then did the second and third day back to back.  There is a 7 day pass which can be used over the course of a month for $60 and also a one day pass for $20.  For us, the 3 day pass was just about right for our budget and ambitions. 

 

 

Hahahahahaha!

One night in Kuala Lumpur or Selamat Datang

Our next stop on our way was Kuala Lumpur.  There isn't a whole lot of press dedicated to Malaysia in general, and Kuala Lumpur in particular.  Lately Kuching has been the hot name, and it is on Malaysian Borneo, as opposed to the Malay Peninsula. 

We flew into KLIA around 1am.  We stayed in KL on a whim.  When booking our flights, things were a little awkward so I figured we could stay there for a couple of days and get organized again.  Malaysia offers a free layover visa for any stays shorter than 3 days, so we took advantage of that.  Anyhow, we flew in at 1am.  We didn't want to pay for a full night in a hotel when we wouldn't get into the city until early morning, so we booked for the following night but not our arrival night.

Molly and I made it through immigration without a hitch and then picked up our backpacks.  There were some flat, well padded rows of benches against the wall in baggage claim and we staked our turf.  Molly and I each slept for about 4 hours and the staff was very accomodating in not kicking us out or hassling us.  The A/C was in full effect, to the point that Molly and I both had to pull out Sarongs to cover up with. 

The highspeed train from KLIA to KL Sentral kicks ass.  It runs nonstop from the airport to Sentral Station at roughly 160km/hr, has comfy seats and tvs.  We rolled in around 7am on a Sunday and the station was empty.  There was a conveniently closed Starbucks with free wifi where we caught up on the world and looked up directions to our hotel. 

Back in our native hemisphere, I am usually the one who knows where we are.  There are some exceptions, such as the Kahului Wendy's, but generally I am on top of it.  As soon as we arrived in KL, Molly crushed it.  We got not so great directions to the hotel and slogged off in the general direction.  We got turned around a couple of times and basically walked the wrong way down a car ramp, and I was ready to catch a cab.  Molly demanded perserverence and 30 feet later, we found signs directing us to our hotel. 

We stored our big packs and decided to find the big park just
north of KL Sentral.  Following my lead, we managed to circumnavigate the southwestern quarter of the city before we got to the park.  Keep in mind, we could see the damn thing the whole time, just on the other side of the highway, or the lightrail line, or the mosque.  At one time, I found us the landscaped side of an onramp and declared it to be our destination.  Fortunately, Molly could not be dissuaded.  We made it to the KL Planetarium, took advantage of their skywalk and crossed over into the park.

This was an epic park.  I would say that it is a little smaller than Central Park in NYC, but it has a lot of bang for the buck.  We walked past the world's largest free flying bird aviary, hit up the orchid garden, checked out the butterfly garden, caught the tram that took us around the bulk of the park, and generally just walked everywhere.  There was no chance of seeing everything, so we just walked and took it all in.  There were fashion photo shoots in the orchid gardens and the ampitheaters host concerts regularly. 

We checked into the hotel and enjoyed our first hot showers and A/C in two weeks.  Finally hunger drove us out of our chilled cocoon and we hit the town.  When we had walked through in the morning, it seemed like there were a lot of food stalls lined up in our neighborhood.  When we went out at dark, they were all up and running.  Food stalls, sidewalk cafes, cham booths, fruit stands.  It was yummy, yummy chaos.  We cruised around, slightly overwhelmed, looking for grub.  We had picked up fried shrimp cakes and a curried potato pie earlier, so we had the routine down.  After walking for a few blocks Molly spotted a stand with a bunch of charcoal fires going.  We headed over and found the famous Clay Pot Chicken Rice dude!

 

 

The owner was running 6-10 clay pots of different sizes at any given time over charcoal burners, adjusting the heat by levering the pots up and down and using a reciprocating house fan behind him.  We sat with a nice lady and her daughter and they helped us order.  When they left, another lady and her daughter sat down and ran us through proper table etiquette and explained about Chinese New Year and Malaysian Holidays.  She suggested a number of different sites for us to check out and was even kind enough to take pictures of the meal and email them to us.

 

 

 

The next day we slept in and went out with the intention of finding the Petronus Towers.  I hammered out 3 Harry Potter jokes and we were on our way.  We hopped on The J.B.'s Monorail (funk joke) and headed to the towers.  Now, the towers are huge.  Immense.  And unlike NYC where the rest of the skyline encroaches on the big boys, the Petronus Towers stand pretty much alone.  I lost them.  I admit it fully.  I could not find my ass with both hands and a flashlight in KL.  After our little misadventures Molly took over and found us the towers.  They were awesome.  I made a fool of myself and was the guy who laid down in the sidewalk to take the straight up shot. 

 

We ran around the towers, shopped a little, and generally enjoyed ourselves.  We hung out on the steps around the water feature and watched night roll in.  Molly got some great shots of the light and water show.

 

We finally broke down, picked up our bags and headed back to the airport.  This was our first Air Asia experience.  So KLIA is a brand new, high tech airport.  All the bargain carriers fly out of the old, run down airport.  I was checking the departure board and they were slamming 20 flights an hour out of this thing.  Anyhow, we show up and it is like a refugee camp.  Everyone is laid out all over the floor with makeshift beds however they can do it.  Not to be outdone, M and I staked out our little corner of heaven between two potted plants, broke out the sarongs and passed out.  I praise my quick thinking in using my boots as a pillow.

 

All in all, KL got a 9.5/10.  The ghetto airport was goofy, but we loved the city. 

 

Giant Puppet Parade, Siem Reap

This blog is dedicated to the kid in all of us.

Brought to you by the letter "P" and the number "7".

The Giant Puppet Project

Before leaving on our world tour, I decided that one of the activities I wanted to do was see the gigantic street walking puppets in Siem Reap, Cambodia.  On February 23rd, 2013, we needed to be in Siem Reap to participate in such a spectacle and so the planning began.

Entering its seventh year, the project engages and involves hundreds of disadvantaged Cambodian children.  The participants are students, orphans, street children, landmine survivors and many caring adults. It creates a sense of community unity and an artistic expression outlet that many programs are missing.  If you want to learn more or donate to next years parade, the website is http://www.giantpuppetproject.com or like them on facebook.

 

 

The puppets were being made in the courtyard of the Wat Damnak primary school.  The walk from Jasmine Lodge was about 2 km and took about 40 minutes in mid-afternoon heat.  What a sight to behold, the porcupine is peering at me through the frangipani trees (or what we call plumeria trees).  There were a dozen adults finishing up the light instillation on these bad boys and also applying paper mache.

 

A couple of days before the event, Greg and I walked back to Wat Damnak and I talked to Stuart from the UK about helping out.  He said that what they really needed was for people to flier the hostels and streets.  We grabbed a couple of stacks and hit up a couple of restaurants and hostels and decided to come back at night.  Pub Street fills with tourists after the sun drops.

 

 

We fliered everyone, tourists, locals, shopkeepers, smoothie makers, tuk tuk drivers...

Tuk tuk driver: "You need a tuk tuk?"

Greg: "No.  You need a flier for the Giant Puppet Parade.  Here you go.  IT'S FOR THE KIDS!!!" 



 

 

 

I didn't have a tripod with so my photos didn't turn out crystal clear.  I did take some video footage that I won't be able to upload on the blog, however their facebook page has captured some images that are worth a look from that night.

 



The Philippines - Hawaii if the US had left

Our first major stop on our trip is the Philippines.  We got a great flight bargain to Manila and decided that after 4 days of nonstop flights, stress, jet lag and acclimation to heat and a foreign country we would be best off with some quality beach time.  You know, just chill and get acquainted with the endless summer.

First off - The Philippines are gorgeous.  Whether from the air or on the land, the archipelagos, lagoons and tropical forests are beautiful.  We hit Manila about as strung out as a person could be.  We hit the tourist and information booth to see about booking a room for the night.  We had one night in Manila just to get coordinated and then we flew out to Puerto Princesa on Palawan.  We had checked out a few hotels online and the tourist counter couldn't come close on price, even for the same properties.  We logged on to a compy and booked the same room for half the price. 

The hotel was pretty basic, but the A/C worked and jet lag was starting to kick in.  We ended up crashing out around 6pm and waking up at 4am.  We ate at the hotel - Pancit, Longanisa and Lechon.  We got charged double for all foods and services but at that point, it was time to go.  We hit Manila airport, Terminal Three and our next issue was no ATM on the terminal and no vendors took card.  We went hungry to avoid burning through all our cash.

Air Philippines has a brand new fleet of jets built on Filippino sizes.  Lets just say that I couldn't put my knees forward.  We hit Palawan and caught a Trike to a bank.  Cash in hand, it was time to head to the bus terminal to catch our Jeepney to Sabang.  Jeepneys are by far the most economical transport we have found. 

For the uninitiated, Jeepneys harken back to WWII era jeeps, left here by the US forces.  While the original Jeeps have been retired, Jeepneys are built out of anything resembling a Jeep and then decorated wildly. The front ends are modified with scrap metal into the iconic Jeep grill and then the rest varies between rusted out bus hulks or chromed out displays from modern Jeep frames.  Ours was the former.  I am very conflicted on Jeepneys, on the whole.  I love the ride, but hate riding in them.  I have done four 3 hour rides and thoroughly enjoy them when I don't have 4 children and three bags, only one of them mine, sitting on me.

 

So, we got to Sabang in the late afternoon.  We didn't have a reservation anywhere, but had an idea where we wanted to stay.  DabDab Cottages was booked up, but we went looking elsewhere.  Our unfortunate luck worked out that there was only "1" room available in the town.  We took it, because the other options didn't look good.  We took it, at three times the normal rate because we didn't have a choice.  This is a pretty popular scheme.  This boarding house has a terrible location and preys on the travellers who have limited options.  They promise power and A/C for the absurd rate they charge, but cut the power at will and heaven help those who stay more than one night.  We had power initially in our room, but the occupied rooms on either side had their power shut off.

 

Go figure, we only stayed one night.  The following morning, we were chased 150 yards by the manager of the property trying to sell us tours, meals, vans, his first born child, his kidney, boat rides, you name it.  DabDab was still full (it was consistently booked every night) and we went to another set of cottages.  This one only charged us half again what our neighbors paid.  We even had a nice sitting area, with a view of 10 derelict cottages and a 12 year old girl nursing a baby.  Who sat outside our room for all daylight hours, including a massive deluge.  Molly and I named her "Creepy".

 

At this point, we had gotten quite good at hitting a place up for breakfast and waiting until a room had opened.  This is how we got into DabDab at last.  DabDab gets pretty much nothing but praise.  Food was good, portions were big, the cottage was nice.  There were some issues with animal noise, but all in all, a very positive experience.  

 

After all the drama of getting into DabDab and settled, we wrote off Port Barton and El Nido.  We did finally make it to the beach, though.  The beach was very nice.  Nice and big, not too crowded.  There was a pretty consistent shore break which got bigger towards sunset.  So - me being me, I had to do something dumb.  The first day on the beach I was using gifted sunscreen.  I ended up getting burnt.  Nothing too bad, I have had much worse.  But when we got back to the cottage that evening, the mosquitos were out pretty bad.  We had brought some high grade bug spray, so I doused myself with it.  You know what happens when you apply 100% DEET on a medium grade sunburn?  I do, now.  It's a full on chemical burn.  At this point, nearly 2 weeks later, I am mostly healed.  I kind of took up residence in our hammock.  For me, beach time became 4pm and on, when the sun was starting to go down.

 

Since I didn't get to play as much as I wanted, I had time to observe and think.  The most notable thing about Sabang isn't what's happening, it is what isn't.  Walking around town, most of the places to stay have downsized.  Cottages are derelict and closed up.  In some cases, entire resorts have wasted away.  Even DabDab, which stayed consistently busy, has the shell of a much larger resort on the back of their property.  All commercial craft has to be labeled as to its use, we found out.  There are a fleet of catamarans that sit on the reef because they are supposed to be used for passengers only.  Only 3-4 boats go out fishing on a daily basis.  There is no power available other than generator, no phone lines or traditional utilities, yet a cell tower was set up so everyone has cellphones. 

 

We got up early on Molly's birthday to do the nature hike, which is the back way to the Underground River.  We hiked around the major beach and found a smaller beach on the other side.  There were "No Trespassing" and "Beware of Dogs" signs posted at the treeline, and we didn't get too close.  We still had a pack of dogs sicced on us as we were crossing the beach towards the nature walk. 

When we hit the nature walk, it was marked as out of service indefinitely for repairs.  As we sat on the rocks trying to decide what to do, we watched 4 locals come out of the trail and three more head up it.  At that point, we figured we might as well give it a shot.  The climb was a little intimidating, but we headed up and hit the ridgeline.  When we reached the ridgeline, the path was in heavy disrepair.  We plugged on for quite a while, but turned back when we thought we might have to explain our presence to the Underground River crews.  We made it all the way back and ran into a guy in a Security T-shirt at the entrance to the path.  Fortunately, he just tried to sell us on the Sabang Zipline.  We managed to make it back to the tourist area without anymore dog attacks.

Happy 32nd Birthday Molly!

 

 As you can see from the pictures, Palawan is gorgeous.  It is incredibly diverse ecologically and the weather is great.  What we kept running into was this:  Everything that is on Palawan, we had seen, if not always done right, but done differently and with more forethought on the Hawaiian islands.  The development of Maui, the Big Island and Kauai are particularly pointed here.  Everywhere we looked, we could see the comparisons and it was hard not to make them.  When you can go to Hana and see power, sewer, phone lines and ecologically sound management practices in a very remote location on the most remote population center on Earth, it is hard not to make the comparisons.  This does not excuse the mistakes that have been made on the Hawaiian Islands.  The fight for Honolua Bay comes to mind. 

 

We had some fantastic beach days on Palawan and I am a firm believer that all experiences on this expedition are valuable, not just the perfect ones.  We tried very hard not to let our experiences at the start of our excursion jade us.  I am still a fan of the Jeepney, I just suggest not riding one when you are 6'3" and sun/chemical burned.