All good things…

The last few days were relatively low-key and was mostly transit and eating, so will lump them all into this last update for this trip. Our last full day in Chiang Mai starts with breakfast at the hotel. We had the three dish rice soup (all the veggies!)

We then skipped the heat of the day and enjoyed the breeze on the lounge at the hotel. Later in the day we hit up Warorot Market and Wat Saen Fang.

The highlight was hitting up the night market nearby. This market had the best selection of food we’ve seen at a night market on the trip. We split a Khao Soi, a spicy noodle soup with chicken, a giant shrimp egg roll, and a rolled green tea ice cream with mango and longan.

Morning brought us even cooler weather, I guess the weather knew to acclimate us back to the chill of home. I’m impressed with how well they do eggs here, I’ve yet to have a bad egg meal. My friend had banana pancakes, and they didn’t disappoint.

The journey back to Hanoi was frustrating. The airport (BKK) was not particularly helpful in guiding you to where to check in, fortunately the information desk was a huge help. This also had the slowest immigration line we’ve dealt with on the whole trip. One cool part is the section that looked like it was on another planet, definitely reminded me of walking between pressure domes.

Once we got back to Hanoi, we treated ourselves to our last dinner at Grandma’s restaurant, near our hotel. We had a kumquat and lemongrass juice, one of the tastiest juices we’ve had, a pork belly with pickled veggies, clay pot rice, and clay pot fish, and a traditional sweet dessert.

Our last morning of our trip, we had hotel breakfast, the usual noodle, bacon and soup stuffs seen before, still tasty and filling. Our last activity before leaving was visiting the Fine Arts museum, just outside old Hanoi. Truly amazing works here, especially their lacquer arts.

Of course we couldn’t leave without one last snack, some Banh Mi. We both had the barbecue pork, mine with pate, from Banh Mi 25.

Getting to our flight home was a bit dicey. Our flight to Hong Kong was delayed, which left us stuck listening to a bad loop of Jingle Bells at the gate in Hanoi for a few hours. (Not as bad as the loop you hear on VietJet when you are boarding/have landed). Our short flight had a meal surprisingly, my last dragonfruit! This seafood medley was pretty good, and the banana bread not bad.

We thankfully got to our second flight a few minutes before they started boarding. They ran out of the beef dish, so the flight attendant got me the beef dish from what I presume was business class.

“Breakfast” (at 7pm) was the always welcome congee dish, and my first in-flight yogurt that wasn’t the god awful sugar free strawberry crap, instead a tasty pineapple.

And that concludes this trip! This has been a very eye-opening, outside the comfort zone and absolutely gorgeous trip. It’s good to be home and thank you for following along. See you on the next adventure.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle

Early to rise today, as we had to be on our way early for our trip out to the Elephant Nature Park. As always, a good breakfast to start the day. My friend has museli with yogurt and I had plain yogurt, both coming with mixed fruit. We both had the noodle soup, loaded up with vegetables (this hotel only serves vegetarian and vegan dishes).

Shortly after, our van whisked is up the highway to the nature park, about an hour north of Chiang Mai. Our video we watched on the way up set the backdrop for what many of the elephants endured before being rescued by the nature park.

After we arrived, our guide, Trunk (yes, that was his name), showed us around the various parts of the park.

Then came time to start feeding the elephants. They eat a lot as you might imagine. We mixed up rice balls (sticky rice, hops, bananas, pumpkins, and some other items) to feed them first, then moved on to bunches of bananas and cut watermelon. Then it was time to move onto our Pamper a Pachyderm part of our tour, where we basically fed elephants bananas as we walked with them.

After all that feeding of the elephants, it was time to feed ourselves. Just as the elephants are vegetarians, so were we for lunch, as we were treated to a delicious vegetarian buffet, not to mention, a spectacular view to digest the meal with.

Fully fed, we headed back to the river for the next part of pampering the elephants, the “spa” treatment, or bathing with buckets.

I thought we were done, but our guide had one more activity planned, rafting down the river. The river was fairly calm, but a couple of sections managed to soak us all. This was a fun way to end our time at the park.

Minor plug: Do check out what Elephant Nature Park is doing, as they’ve rescued 77 elephants so far (some from some pretty awful situations).

Nothing like a good dinner to wrap up the day. We ate at the cafe at the hotel, and split a green curry and pumpkin soup. I also had a mango lassi (made with almond milk and yogurt) and my friend had a mango juice (could’ve used some ice).

Tomorrow is our last day in Chiang Mai, and we’re going to check out some of the markets, and try our hand at another night market, hopefully we can replicate our luck from yesterday’s jackpot with the pork.

Out here on the streets

After spending our morning on planes and airports, we arrived at our hotel, the Green Tiger House early in the afternoon. I’m digging the logo.

We hit up a couple of local wats, Wat Chedi Luang and Wat Phan Tao.

Over to Wat Phan Tao.

We heading out to the gate surrounding the inner part of the city to try our luck at more night market food. We were not disappointed! We found a standing doing pork leg and pork intestines, both quite excellent.

We found another stand and had some pork noodle soup.

Tomorrow brings us to the Elephant Nature Park and our Pamper a Pachyderm day, and our last major event of this trip.

Bustling and Hustling

We arrive to Phnom Penh late Monday. Ended up in traffic for almost two hours on the relatively short trip between the airport and our hotel. Our poor driver was getting frequent calls from the hotel asking where we’re we.

Once there we hit up a restaurant on the hotel’s recommendation, at The Sugar Palm, which was a very quick walk from the hotel. We ended up sharing a pork crispy noodle and a fish and chicken curry.

Breakfast at our hotel the next morning was a much welcomed by both of us rice porridge, of which I had pork and my friend had chicken. Turns out it there was more ginger than my friend had planned on. Still a very tasty treat.

On our short itinerary here, first up was the Royal Palace.

Next door to the palace is their national museum. This had many artifacts from the 6th-7th century onward.

Lunch break was at a tapas place, Friends. She has roast pork belly and I have seared sea bass.

Later in the evening we paid a visit to Wat Oulanom and Wat Phnom.

We paid a visit to the night market later in the evening, and like many of the others we hit up, it was the usual clothes and accessories. The food area was kinda cool, lots of mats for people to sit on. The majority of the stalls were of the grab a basket and load up variety. Depending on your preference, they will either stir fry your basket or make soup from it. Not bad for under $10 combined.

That wraps up our brief stay in Phnom Penh, tomorrow we are back to Thailand to our last new city, Chiang Mai.

The Grand Tour, Part 2

Day two of Siem Reap starts off on the right foot, as we managed some extra sleep. Started off with a filling breakfast at the hotel. Noodle soup with pork, various breads and fruit, and yogurt.

Our guide picks us up at 8:30 and we take an hour drive up to Phnom Kulen mountain. We first hike up to Preah Ang Thom, home of a reclining Buddha carved into a rock atop the mountain.

Down the road from the temple is a river with several linga carvings.

Nearby was a little spring that was “boiling,” and is considered a site of holy water for many here. Also nearby is a waterfall where people come to be blessed.

All this walking meant it was time for a break and we stopped on the road for lunch, me having the fish Khmer curry and my friend having stir-fry fish and mushroom.

After that much needed energy boost, we move the last part of the tour to Bang Mealea, a temple that is quite in ruins and hasn’t been renovated yet. It only recently opened on account of land mines being cleared recently.

Dinner? Our appetite again fell prey to the heat, and was skipped. Tomorrow we fly off to Phnom Penh, and start into the home stretch of our trip.

The Grand Tour

Grudgingly we awoke at 4:30 so we could be on our way for the first of our two-day tour. Unfortunately our tour guide for mixed up with a similarly-named hotel. Once that got straightened out we had to buy our pass for the day at a ticket center, which was packed with other early risers.

Once that was squared away, we proceeded to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise there, along with hundreds of others.

After a pit stop for breakfast, which our hotel was kind to provide, we hopped over to Ta Prom. If you’re a movie person, (as I am not), you may know this temple from Tomb Raider, according to our guide. This tomb is known for its spung trees, soft-wooded trees that started growing over various parts of the temple.

Banteai Srei, or the Lady Temple, is next up. Unlike Ta Prom, this one is predominately constructed from red sandstone.

Angkor Thom is next. Within this complex there’s the elephant terrace, Bayon temple, and the terrace of the leper king.

Lastly we headed back to Angkor Wat, to see it properly in daylight.

First a pit stop for lunch. I had stir fry pumpkin and pork and my friend had seafood soup.

We noticed this monkey admiring themselves on the way to the main building.

This depicts heaven, earth and hell respectively. Was meant to show what happens to people who end up in hell.

After this long day we cooled off in the hotel room before checking out Pub Street for dinner. I had Khmer minced fish with coconut sauce and my friend had wok fried frog at the Khmer Family Restaurant.

Time to knock out and continue our tour tomorrow morning. So glad we don’t need to be up at 4 again! Good night.

Wat to do, wat to do.

Early to rise Friday morning brought us to the airport and later to Siem Reap. This is another airport that we unloaded via air stairs, but no bus this time, we had a nice long walk to immigration. This was definitely one of the nicest immigration areas at an airport I’ve seen so far.

Once in, we got checked in at the Alliance Boutique. Since we still had a good chunk of morning to kill, we wandered around the small local Wats.

First up was Wat Damnak.

Next a short walk over to Wat Preah Prom Rath.

Lastly is Wat Bo.

We decided to take it easy the rest of the day, as we spent most of the hottest part of the day out in the sun, which took its toll. This means we had dinner at the cafe attached to our hotel. They have us sweet potato chips to start, then our set meal had a chicken salad, fish in broth (this was very good), chicken and morning glory, pork and mushroom, and dried pineapple with coconut sauce for dessert. (Couldn’t really taste the pineapple, but still good).

Another early start Saturday, as our tour starts with Angkor Wat at dawn.

Overflowing

So we’ve spent Wednesday and Thursday at the Dewa Resort in Phuket. This was a nice change of pace, nothing to explore, nowhere to rush to, just chilling.

After we got settled, we set out for lunch at Khwanta’s Seafood Restaurant. I had seafood with fried noodles and my friend had seafood glass noodles.

After lunch, we hit up the beach and relaxed. Despite the beaming sun, it was nice and peaceful. We headed back at sunset, as they were putting the chairs away.

Dinner was Phen’s Restaurant. It was on the beach, so everything on the sand. I had more Pad Thai and my friend had seafood noodle soup.

The next day has no pictures, as second Resort day was snorkeling. We started with food at the hotel buffet, your usual breakfasty items. In the afternoon we made our way out to the shop taking us out.

We were fitted for fins, a wetsuit, and mask, and we realized that my friend is small in many ways and I am large. Fortunately we got that sorted out and hopped into the speedboat out. The initial ride out should’ve been a warning of what was to come…

As many of my friends know, I am not exactly comfortable being in the ocean. I tried jumping in but ended up not being able to let go of the boat. Then came trying to breathe with the snorkel…they had to change mine to a larger tube. Eventually with me hanging on to our guide’s hand, we managed to get going. After about 10 minutes, I was finally enjoying the various marine sights.

Things started rapidly going downhill when we got back to the boat for a break. I was already getting nauseous in the water (the currents were fairly strong), and the salt water taste didn’t help, which lead to bags, and you can fill in the rest. I have never been that motion sick. Since we couldn’t head back to shore (we also had scuba divers going on the same boat, and they needed to be nearby for support, they were going to have us swim to a beach to hang out on til it was time to go back.

Needless to say, land sounded good. Our guide was going to pull me along, but I didn’t realize this and set off for land on my own. Not having a mask was a mistake. Also, I understand that shore is always further away than it looks. After much struggling, I knocked out for a nap on the beach.

The swim back to the boat went far better once I got my energy back, and we took off for land once again shortly after.

My friend, who also was not immune to the seasickness and I were all smiles at least when we got back, and despite that, looking forward to the next time we do this (hopefully in slightly calmer waters).

Dinner was Peony Coffee and Restaurant. I had yellow noodle with pork and my friend had steamed fish (which looked excellent!)

As we were eating dinner, we had a partial view of the water, which gave us a view of the lightning storm that finally lived up to the forecast. Little did we know that it would turn into a tropical downpour shortly after we finished dinner. We had to hustle back to our hotel, as we hadn’t brought anything for rain. We got clipped with some drizzle that turned as soon as we stepped into the hotel. We hung out on the common area by the pool enjoying the show in the sky (also since the path to our room was flooding, with a waterfall down the steps, waiting was a good idea).

Next up is Siem Reap. We need to be up at the lovely hour of 03:45 so we can catch our 4am ride to the airport.

Standing Tall

The weather gods have smiled on us as we went to Ayutthaya, north of Bangkok. We journeyed up to the Mo Chit Bus Terminal

This is an interesting bus system they have, using regular busses and vans. This got us to Ayutthaya and at the end of the line we rented a tuk tuk to get us around. Our first stop was Wat Chaiwatthanaram.

Next stop on the Wat tour is Wat Maha That. This Wat was in pretty bad shape, on account of it being torched by the Burmese. Also interesting is the Buddha head in the tree.

Onwards to Wat Rachaburana. This Wat is known for its mural paintings, dating back to 1424.

Next up, Wat Phra Si Samphet, part of a former royal palace of King Ramathibodi I.

Lastly, we move to Wat Phra Ram, which was built in 1369 by King Ramesuan at the cremation site of his father.

We figured that was good enough at this point so we journeyed back near to Chatuchak Park and paid a quick visit to the Or Tor Kor market, essentially a very large indoor farmers market. We brunched on Pad Thai (after all, we have to compare from the best we had the night before…)

The lady working at this shop flagged us down and we decided to eat here. On the whole, texture on this one was better, and taste from last nights was better.

Afterwards we took the MRT back to Silom and wandered around Lumpini Park before heading back to the Silom Complex Mall for an early dinner.

I had the Tom Kha Mushroom soup with dragonfruit shake (couldn’t resist!) and my friend had glass noodle pork soup with a lychee shake.

That concludes our time in Bangkok. It’s been hot and fun, and now we move to our mid-trip break (which is where I have been writing the last couple of posts, hence the delay) at the Dewa Resort in Phuket…and snorkeling and chilling to look forward to.

Shiny

Our tour of Bangkok continues with the early morning trek out to the Grand Palace. As a heads up to anyone considering visiting the palace, make sure you have you passport with you!

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