Siem Reap, Cambodia July 11th-14th, 2010

Siem Reap was a terrific visit, the Angkor Ruins was the coolest place I've ever seen in my life. It is said that it is the largest ancient ruin in the world, it used to be 1,000 square kilometers. I am shocked it is not one of the seven wonders of the world. Some shots from Tomb Raider were also filmed here, most notably at Angkor Wat which is the single largest religious monument in the world. It was once home to Khmer Empire and is a feat to see. They also had a Pub Street which was very fun for Americans and foreigners to visit.


Culture: They are very friendly, I believe they went from Buddhism to Hinduism, back to Buddhism, it is rich from the Khmer Empire back in the day

Religion: Buddhism, just like Thailand the people are very nice, a lot has to do with what they learn through Buddhism on how to treat you

Language: Khmer/Cambodian, no need to learn it

Transportation: Cars and motorbikes, motorbikes are more common. However, the driving here is the most insane I’ve ever seen, not too bad in Siem Reap though. In the capital of Phnom Penh, there was just chaos in the street with about 4-6 motorbikes next to each other in each lane with no real rules or regulations. The roads are poor. Absolutely do not drive here!

This is even better than most of the streets, when they are allowed to go they all just turn at the same time, it is absolutely chaotic


They drive like this often, fitting three or four people on to motorbikes meant for two people. It is fun to watch them drive the children around.

Population: ~180,000

Currency: USD, believe it or not it is most commonly used here. Their actual currency is the Riel which is a huge joke, it is $4,100 Riel to $1 USD, so the money is like monopoly money

Place Stayed at: Hotel 89 in Siem Reap. It was fantastic, very inexpensive, they left us a bed time story for when we arrived. They also gave us sheets with what to do, and contacted tour guides for us for our Angkor Ruins tour. They also had a good spread for breakfast, as well as calling for us to get transportation to the Pub Streets.

Laurie opening the bed time story to read

Food: Almost all meals are comprised with rice, and some type of meat. Our tour guide told us that rice is so big there that they trade it as a type of currency. With that said, on the Pub Street where tourists go out, you can get good burgers/steaks, basically the Western food you might be craving.

Rice Paddy Field

Beers: Angkor Beer & Tiger beer were the new beers I saw here, they were decent but nothing special.



Entertainment: Pub Street was great, it had a bunch of bars and restaurants, all of which seemed good. They also sold souvenirs on this street and had huge projection screens up for the World Cup. It was nothing compared to Patong in Phuket, but a great place to relax at night time.

Internet: Did not attempt to use it, I think it was very, very poor here since the country is extremely under developed.


Sites to See:

1) Pub Street/Bar Street - A fun area for tourist to enjoy a cheap evening of drinking and dinner. A bunch of bars on the street.

Laurie walking down it


Some food, a fun shot

2) Angkor Ruins - It was the coolest site I’ve ever been to. It was once home to the Khmer Empire. It is said to be the largest Ruin in the world, it contains over 1,000 temples! It is also home to Angkor Wat, which is the world’s largest single religious monument. It was once over 1,000 square kilometers. Most people choose to try and see the Ruins within three days to one week. While we flew through it in one day. It is insanely hot and humid so dress accordingly. Also, since it is a religious area you want to dress real conservatively and wear pants. O yeah, there were also wild monkeys there also.

One of the many temples

Another temple

Yes, somehow I stumbled in to locals playing poker on the grounds, what are the odds?


Wild Monkeys right outside of Angkor Wat


The front of Angkor Wat


The money shot from outside Angkor Wat, it was quite the site to see.

Likes: Angkor Wat was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life til this day. I would strongly recommend it for any history buffs. It is massive and I’d allow two-three to see it if you can fit it in time-wise to your trip. It is massive and extremely humid, try and bring a bunch of water. You will be walking the whole day so bring comfortable shoes with nice insoles. Also, Pub Street is a fun relaxing night out.

Dislikes: That I did not have more time to see this place. Also, it is not a place to live, you can only visit as the traffic is horrendous, and other than these sites, you would get very bored after a week. It is a great place to hit and run for a visit.

Ko Phi Phi, Thailand July 4-5, 2010

I am heading to South America shortly to stay in Brazil, and then travel to neighboring countries. I decided that due to this I should stop slacking and try to add a blog a day about the last trip so that I can catch up and blog on the current trip I will be on. Ko Phi Phi is an island off of Thailand. It was absolutely insane. On the way to the pier on the motor bike, Laurie and I got a flat tire. Ko Phi Phi was amazing. While Kata itself was very relaxing and fun, Ko Phi Phi was a great release and very fun. We swam in the clear water, saw some neat tiny islands and monkeys, and also got to go to some amazingly fun/simple bars. I'd highly recommend a trip here if you come to Thailand. You can get to it from most places in Thailand I believe, put aside 1-2 days for this. The island itself has fun bars at night and great people, it's very tiny though. You also want to make sure you can take a ferry to the other islands for the day. So if you are arriving at night time then stay that night and one more to get everything in, and if you get there in the morning one day and night should be fine.

Oops, not the best timing

After the flat tire we missed the ferry to Ko Phi Phi and had to wait for the next one, so we just drove around for some. We stumbled upon this intersection, check out the name of it.

And it was just that

I picked up a comic book to entertain me on the boat ride

Finally we got on the ferry, and I could start throwing back some Sing.

A nice shot from the land

We had only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before because we decided to add this stop to our trip, and we had to get it in on this day. We ended up passing out in our room at about 11pm and waking up at 2am. We could not fall asleep so we wandered the island, and am I glad we did. We bought a bucket, which consisted of about 8 shots of vodka, a red bull, and a coke. The US needs these.

We found Slinky's bar, it was insane. It was a bunch of 20 year olds who were almost all on some sort of drug, and the bar itself was amazing, with body paint, the world cup on, etc.

After it was done, we decided to stay up for the sunset.



A few hours later we got on a ferry to tour the island. There are a bunch of separate little islands off of the main one. The first stop was monkey island, which had just that, wild monkeys on a tiny strip of land. The ferry was awesome, it was about $15-20 USD a person, we got a dinner on the boat, we got to see the sunset, see monkey island, and tour the island that "The Beach" with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed on.

Laurie likes to get hands on

Struttin' around


The nice blue water


A poorly taken picture at the beach where "The Beach" was filmed


Nice Sunset 1


Nice Sunset 2


Nice Sunset 3


A monkey outside the bar to be pet for money. While the monkey is cute, it was real sad to see a drugged up monkey being exploited. This is similar to how elephants are treated around lots of Thailand, it's one of the only things I did not like about the country.


We went to a bar on the island that gave out those free buckets I spoke of earlier for boxing against another traveler.


And yes, it happened. Apparently they get 3 fights a night, crazy.

I hope you enjoyed. Next blog will be up soon.

-P12

Traveling Tips

Lately, my blogs have been about my traveling destinations and experiences. I will get back to that for the next blog, but I decided to list some tips for longer travels for anyone that is interested in pursuing that. Here are my tips for traveling as well as some backpacking.

1) When backpacking take the bare essentials, also recognize that you can get clothing cheap in the third world countries so it is better to underpack slightly on clothes here. Also having things that can double as two outfits is good, such as zipper extensions to shorts/shirts. This is not an exact science and you will get better over time. Here is a site I found useful for this:

http://www.backpacking.net/tips.html

2) Finding hostels can be tough, www.hostelworld.com is a great site to use to find them. I would also search on kayak for hostels, and then I'd type them each in to google and check out the reviews. With the reviews, check back on the prices and what you and your traveling partners need/care about, then try to select the one that fits your needs the best.

3) Do not set up dates, for my last trip I realized with just having a one way ticket to Thailand, that I was going to be able to leave when we wanted. Well, when we were checking out flights home, it actually did not cost much more to travel to all the stops I will blog about, instead of just going directly home. This is why I decided to turn the end of the trip in to a backpacking trip. Some stops you will love and want to stay for a while, and some stops you will inevitably hate and want to leave. By leaving yourself open ended time tables at destinations, you make it so you can dictate how the trip goes and where you stay, this is extremely important. We did not have enough time at each stop as we would have liked so we pushed for one month straight to see everything. We absolutely loved it, but were ultimately dead by the end of the trip, and our bodies were very fatigued.

4) VACCINATIONS, this one is huuuuge. It is very very easy to just see the shots you will need and try to get them at the last second. However, immunizations such as Hepatitis A & B require more than 1 shot! Some shot periods take over a month to get administered, and it also depends when you can get in to the offices for appointments. Shots such as Typhoid only need one single visit, but absolutely plan for this ahead of time and do not leave shots for the last second. It is also smart to get an immunization card for the places to initial when you leave so that you have your own records for personal keeping. Budget for the shots, they can be very expensive!

5) Budget your travels, this one is self explanatory, but some people overlook and do it on the go, don't burden yourself if you do not have a tight budget, but give yourself a rough idea by seeing how much the cost of items are in the various countries you are going to are to get an idea of how much to bring/budget for.

6) Bring a money belt for around your waste to protect your valuables, people are always trying to find easy marks in life, and tourists are tops on their lists because they are not as familiar with their surroundings.

7) I believe it is also possible to get prepaid cards with foreign currencies before you leave home. This means you don't have to pay the enormous exchange rates you encounter everywhere on the trip. I am not positive on this last tip, but was told by a traveler that this is the way to go and I will be researching it before my next adventure.

Good Luck at the tables,
P12

Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok was certainly one of our least favorite stops on the trip. The city was described to be very dirty. Well, that is because people refer to it in comparison to their other cities, in comparison to New York it is extremely clean. Here, the hospitality that you see in most other parts of Thailand evaporated, with the barters being more aggressive and not quite as friendly. Also, the cheaper prices seen through out Thailand rised here to what I would compare to the US as standard prices in smaller towns/cities. I had taken my hiatus from poker for a few weeks and my mind was nice and fresh. The coolest part was definitely the Sirocco Rooftop bar in Bangkok that is rated at the top of every list in the world for rooftop bars. We were also not looking to see any more Wats(Temples) as we'd already seen so many. Here are some pics from around the city.

researching the city before we go to find the train station, I'm drinking a real coffee, sugary whip creamy thing in front is Laurie's, it looks like I'm drinking from hers.

Elephant Salt Shakers doing their thing

Laurie on our hotel balcony


Laurie pretending to be tough while waiting for the train


The park near the huge market in Bangkok

The same park


Scary tatted up guy at the Bangkok Market

A shot of how packed the market gets on a Saturday

Their ads are much more entertaining than American ones, you could look at them all day if you wanted to and still be amused

Laurie in the park on the way back from the market, I believe I'm carrying everything that we bought

Same bridge, different shot


Random couple romantically canoeing down the stream

I never felt too safe exchanging money from a random van on the side of the road, entertaining nonetheless


Random cop dude that helped us locate Sirocco Rooftop Bar, ranked here as the #1 rooftop bar in the world, we also made it to #3 on the list

http://matadornetwork.com/nights/the-10-best-rooftop-bars-in-the-world/

Shots from the rooftop of Sirocco bar, $15 a drink, no cover though, fun to go and see one time, offers almost a 360 degree of the whole city of Bangkok which was really neat

Myself and the city beneath me

A shot of the upper bar at Sirocco

Myself and huge random statue at the Bangkok airport, we're getting ready to depart for Cambodia which will be on the next blog

Last shot for the blog, had to pretend I was in, note where my hand is pointed, this lady was too tired perhaps and had her boyfriend pushing her around in a cart everywhere


Good luck until next time - P12

Awesome Trip - Part 2 Chiang Mai continued

Hey everyone, sorry for the huge gap in between posts, I have been extremely busy catching up with friends and just living my life. After Chiang Mai, Laurie and I headed to Bangkok, Thailand so I'll post the rest of the pictures from Chiang Mai and then try to upload the other trips in the coming weeks as soon as I get to them. I've been playing a lot of poker lately with mediocre results, I am putting more time in to studying though so I have plenty of confidence I'll be back to old form soon. I had been in a rut the first month of travel, and now while back at home. I took the last month off on the trip to just enjoy the travels, so in all my last 3 months of poker have been the worst results wise each month for any month in the last 2 years or so, this can also be attributed to the games being harder these days. They've still been winning months and I'm glad I can say I've still yet to have a losing month in Limit Hold Em since beginning in December of 2007 which makes it 34 straight winning months. Without further ado, I present to you Chiang Mai.


We decided to site see as Chiang Mai was a great location for this. We had already seen a bunch of Wats (temples) so it was not high on our list at this point. We decided to check out the gold though in Wat Phan On located in the Old City of Chiang Mai. The old city is in the heart of Chiang Mai encapsulated by what appeared to be old moats. It is a neat little historical area.

Wat Phon On, note the great photo taking to get it symmetrical


I decided to then bug Laurie in to letting me see Chiang Mai University since I wanted to compare it to American college. It was mostly the same except for all the motor bikes zigging in and out everywhere.

Me on my first day as a student at CMU



Here I am at their outdoor workout facility which is just a neat combination of mainly things already found in the outdoors. I thought it'd be fun to try out, this one is comparable to dips for the triceps, they had about 5 more workouts there



Afterwards, I decided to get in some hands so I went to the internet massage where they didn't massage me on the internet. Actually I didn't even go in, just enjoy all the random signs they have that are confusing.

From there we decided to get an American meal since we had only had primarily Thai cuisine for over a month at this point. And, well...it doesnt' get much more American than McDonald's which were everywhere, but not seen as frequent as KFC's. Out of respect I bowed doing the wai, which is a form of respect shown. Typically Americans misuse it by doing it in spots where they are of a higher social standing or it is unecessary. However, Ronald is a worldwide icon and deserved the respect.

After such a grueling day, Laurie and I decided to have some drinks. We ate at a little restaurant near by that costs us a total of $4 USD. Next door was the owners brother who operated a mobile cart that transformed in to a bar when he got there. He also had an ipod with incredible tunes on it, mostly American.

On our last day I decided to take Laurie to the elephant conservation center since she seemed to really like the elephants and wanted to see the cause first hand as she had learned so much from our countless nights watching Animal Planet.

Not only did she get to see the big boys, but she also got to see some baby elephants as well. The place would try to buy elephants that were abused and help them in life. Many people use them as a form of income by raising them to walk the streets and make money from tourist donations. In fact, even at the mobile bar one walked down the street.

What is a trip to see the elephants without riding one?

The view from atop him, couldn't get any better and also didn't have anyone on the ground to take some of us.



I'll post within the coming days on the next stop on the trip, Bangkok, Thailand


-P12