Angkor Wat and Friends, in Pictures

12/31/09 – 1/2/10: Siem Reap, Cambodia

We’ve spent the last three days touring some of the incredible-est, famous-est, awesome-est temples in the world, and somehow thus far we’ve only included four pictures of them. If it’s possible for the lack of pictures in a few blog posts to be sacrilegious, something about this seems a bit sacrilegious to me. In an effort to appease the blogging gods, today’s post will be a picturesque recap of the last three days. Ready? Go!

Day 1: 12/31/09

Angkor Wat

Zhou already mentioned sunrise at Angkor Wat, but it was so darn cool.

I'm not joking.

And we were there!

Can you find Zhou among the mob of 1,000 others who were also there?

Bayon

A few of the 54 towers of Bayon, the temple at the center of Angkor Thom.

A close up of one of the 216 faces carved on these 54 towers.

You don't have to take your shoes off at these temples.

I wonder how many tourists have taken there picture in this frame.

Angkor Thom

A lot of the temples are being restored right now, which unfortunately means a lot of construction is going on.

The Queen's swimming pool at the Royal Palace. It is ten times larger than the King's swimming pool because it had to fit not only the Queen, but also the King's 3,000 concubines.

An elephant carving on the Elephant Terrace outside the Royal Palace.

Ta Prohm

Zhou showed you the iconic picture of Ta Prohm, but there are a million other trees growing into the temple.

I found this one particularly interesting.

Angkor Wat, revisited

To avoid the crowds in the morning we left the temple without seeing the temple itself. We're back!

Guided tours will show you everything. And I mean everything.

We weren't allowed to go in the Angkor Wat towers due to restoration, but here is one of the five.

Day 2: 1/1/10

Ta Keo

Lightning struck Ta Keo before they were able to complete it (they stopped work altogether due to the perceived bad luck of the lightning strike), but they had already built a lot of steep stairs.

I tossed the camera dangerously to Zhou.

A contemplative monk... looking at his monk friend taking a picture of him.

Bayon, revisited

Bayon at sunset.

Day 3: 1/2/10

Banteay Srei

The temple at Banteay Srei wasn't as impressive as most others, but I really liked this tree.

And this pink flower moat was pretty nice too.

Kbal Spean

We took a break from the temples to hike to the river of 1,000 lingas, where I lost the lower half of my legs.

We're not sure why, but they carved the lingas and other images into the river rocks.

A butterfly on Zhou's finger is a sign that she married a great guy.

Banteay Samre

According to our temple Power Rankings, we saved our fifth best temple for last.

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Puzzles for Postcards

It’s Either Fight or Flight on Christmas Anagram

Hot Bob Fighting Self

[Puzzles note: The last Rhyme Time! remains unsolved, despite one decent effort. We're making it easier by saying you have to solve only three of the four, and that Mel Gibson could be replaced by any ridiculously rich person and the first rhyme would be unchanged.]
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Picture of the Day: I could have written an entire post about the floating village near Siem Reap, but figured I already lost your attention midway through the pictures. This picture is a small example of how interesting the floating village was.

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New Year, New Look

1/1/10: Siem Reap, Cambodia

Actually there’s no new look for the blog, but I liked that title. Catchy. Like Britney Spears’ 1 2 3 song.

2009 was a pretty good year for us, what with quitting our jobs, getting married and spending over 250 hours on buses. But with every good, there must be some bad – or something like that. And with that, let’s get started on a couple of 2009 lists.

Highlights

(1) That big party that is getting married
Getting married is really fun. No, I mean it. It’s basically a huge party where you’re the center of attention and all of the people you love and who love you are there. And they bring gifts! What could be better?

(2) Discovering the awesomeness that is camping
Yes, camping is dirty, and yes, I am writing this in clean clothes with clean fingernails and clean hair two months later – BUT. I really liked camping. I slept better when we were camping in tents in Africa than I ever have in my life.

(3) The Annapurna Circuit
We came, we climbed, we conquered. I am a better person as a result.

(4) Staying in touch
Kevin and I have been in pretty good touch with our families and our friends while on this trip. We talk on Skype, we email, we poke each other on facebook. Ok, not really the facebook thing, but I wanted to have a third thing in the list. I think I actually am talking to my family more now while we’re traveling than when we were living in Charlotte. Funny how that happens, isn’t it?

(5) Kevin now reads. And eats.
Every day I’m reminded of how much this trip has helped us (i.e. Kevin) become more open-minded. For example, right now Kevin is reading a book for fun with the remains of a chocolate banana smoothie sitting in front of him. If you had told me six months ago that this is what life would be like now, I would have laughed in your face. Loudly.

Things That Happened in 2009 That I Hope Will Happen Less Often (or Never) in 2010

(1) Constantly being mistaken for brother and sister
I don’t know at what point it was on this trip that I grew 12 inches and my ears shrunk to half their normal size, but everywhere we’ve gone, we’ve been asked if we’re brother or sister. Then the people try to make it out like it wasn’t a weird thing to say, like it’s really some sort of compliment. Because people who look like each other are better together. Is that even a real thing? After this happened for the tenth time, I told Kevin that maybe he should act more affectionately towards me. He just looked at me confusedly and said, “Why?”

(2) Mildly panicking every time Kevin is not within eyesight
Ok, mildly is maybe an understatement. I don’t yell or anything but in my head it’s pretty crazy. I think of all of the awful things that could have happened to Kevin (run over by motorbike, swallowed by tiger, fallen into a sewer). We’re pretty much together ALL the time, which means getting separated in a crowd is a scary feeling. Especially because we can’t text each other: “Where R U??” Kidding, I’m hardly technologically advanced enough to text (and I would never write that). But the reality is, we don’t have any way of getting in contact with each other if we get separated, and so when it happens, I’m basically immobilized by worry. Example: the other night we were biking back to our hostel when suddenly I looked around me and couldn’t see Kevin anywhere. I couldn’t remember if he had been riding in front of me or behind me, so I just stopped on the side of the road and waited. And waited. And panicked silently. Luckily, Kevin realized a few minutes later that I hadn’t followed him and eventually come back for me. Otherwise I may have just stood there forever.

(3) Being TOO connected
Now that we have good internet and free wireless at our hostels, the very first thing that we do when we get up is check email. And the blog. And the news. And sports. We can’t even be bothered to say good morning to each other first. What kind of newlyweds are we? Pathetic.

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Picture of the Day: When we open up an art gallery we’ll call this one “Monk on Cell Phone.”

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A Fishy New Year’s Eve

12/31/09: Siem Reap, Cambodia

We left our guest house this morning at the ungodly hour of 5am in order to get up to Angkor Wat to watch the sun rise. Ever since we nearly froze to death waiting for the sun to rise over Poon Hill in Nepal, I’ve been a bit wary of the whole idea of sunrises. I mean, the sun starts coming up at something like 4am but it doesn’t peek out over the horizon until 7! I’m a slow starter in the morning too, but come on, that’s ridiculous! Sunsets – now that’s something I can get on board with. No waking up early, no foggy contacts and no cursing silently at yourself for not getting to bed early the night before like you said you would. No, none of that.

Right, where were we?

We got up at 5am to watch the sun rise over Angkor Wat.

We have about 50 pictures that are a slight variation of this one.

Actually, we never did get to see the sun, but that’s ok. We then walked over to Bayon, a temple located in Angkor Thom. (By the way, I never realized until we got to Siem Reap that Angkor Wat is just one of twenty bazillion temples in the Angkor complex. The place is huge!) We ate breakfast with our new Swiss friends that we met at our hostel. While we were waiting for our breakfasts to be cooked, a few kids came up to us peddling their wares. One of the kids, who looked like he was six years old, and one of the Swiss guys bantered back and forth for a bit, bargaining over the kid’s little gold figures of Hindu gods and elephants until the kid tried to strike a rather unorthodox deal.

Kid: You say a country – if I know the capital, then $2. If I don’t know, then $1.
Swiss: Italy.
Kid: Roma.
Swiss: Too easy! (The two Swiss take a minute to discuss and decide on another country to ask.) Liechtenstein.
Kid: Vaduz. You buy for $2!
Swiss: No, no, no, I didn’t agree to that.
Kid: Ok, I ask you a country – if you know the capital, then $1. If you don’t know, then $2.
Swiss: What country?
Kid: Madagascar!
Swiss: Madagascar?!

At one point, the kid told one of the Swiss guys to buy a figurine for his girlfriend. When the Swiss guy replied that he didn’t have a girlfriend, the kid replied, “You know why you don’t have a girlfriend? Because you don’t buy my things!” The earnest look on his small face was so hilarious – I was in stitches. I’m not sure how it ended, I think with the Swiss guys buying three small figurines for $3. While all this was going on, Kevin and I quizzed the other kid on other countries and a few U.S. States. (Malawi? Lilongwe. California? Sacramento. And the governor is Arnold Schwarzenegger!) I was SO impressed.

After breakfast we visited Bayon, Ta Prohm and lastly Angkor Wat. We splurged on our first day of temple-seeing on a guide and tuk-tuk driver, and I am very, very glad that we did. The temples are much further apart than I thought, and our guide helped us appreciate our visit so much more than if we had gone ourselves and had no clue what we were looking at.

Nose to nose at Bayon.

The iconic Ta Prohm picture.

By the time we were done exploring Angkor Wat, it was 4pm and we had already been up for 11 hours. Since Kevin was determined to stay up until midnight, we went back to our hostel for a quick nap. Three hours later, we finally woke up when our “backup” alarm (“we’ll definitely wake up before 7:30, but just in case…”) went off. We walked into town and ate dinner at a food stall on the street before going off for an experience I’ve been wanting to have since Kuala Lumpur. Are you ready?

A fish massage!

For $2.50, you get a coke (or a beer) and twenty minutes of soaking your feet in a pool filled with fish with tiny biting teeth. In terms of efficacy I’m not sure that my feet are any smoother than they were before, but in terms of sheer hilariousness? Best five dollars we ever spent.

Look at my face and tell me this isn't the funnest thing ever.

By the time we were done getting eaten alive by fish, it was about ten to midnight, so we went down to Pub Street, which was holding a big New Year’s Eve street party. We’re not quite sure when midnight actually was since there was no countdown – just a general rowdiness that started a few minutes before midnight and lasted well after. There was music playing deafeningly loudly from huge speakers and sparklers everywhere and lots of people were holding these long tubes that shot sparks of colored fire into the air. One guy’s tube was malfunctioning – the sparks weren’t shooting into the air, more like drooping out sadly from the top of the tube and very dangerously close to head level. He was the only person on the whole street that had more than an inch of space between him and the people around him. Kevin and I pushed our way through the crowd of sweaty Cambodians and tourists, hugging and shaking hands with people we’ve never seen before. I don’t think it’s how we’ll choose to spend New Year’s 2011, but it’s one we won’t ever forget.

Happy New Year!

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Ohio Picture: No trip to Angkor Wat can be complete without an O H I O!

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Picture of the Day: The people who restored these seem to have screwed up on two of the statues.

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Recipe for a Less Than Successful Cooking Class

12/30/09: Siem Reap, Cambodia

I used to daydream that upon returning to the States next summer, we would sign a lucrative book deal and write a New York Times bestseller about our travels. In case that modest goal doesn’t come true, we now have something to fall back on to get rich quick – cooking! We’re going to become Food Network’s next big thing: the three-quarters Asian husband and wife team who specialize in one dish from every country around the world. Alton Brown and Bobby Flay can’t possibly remain popular forever, so why not us?

Because we had so much fun at our Christmas Eve cooking class (awesome gift courtesy of Rachel – if the rest of you want your name featured in the blog, give us stuff!), today we were back at it for the second time in the past week. Our course du jour was a three hour session at Le Tigre de Papier. The six of us in the class first selected one main course and one appetizer from the restaurant menu – we would each be cooking our favorite dishes this afternoon. While the real chefs put together the ingredients for each of us, we all walked over to the nearby fruit and vegetable market to learn about some of the local cuisine.

Bananas are a yellow fruit that grows on trees.

I have no idea what this junk is, so maybe we didn't learn all that much.

To spare our queasy readers, I won't include the close-ups of the hacked up fish in the market.

It was then time to cook, so we swallowed our pride and donned our goofy baker uniforms. (When we become famous the first thing we are going to do is change the look of the kitchen apron, which seems to be stuck in the 1960s.)

We both prepared our selected appetizers (spring rolls for me and pumpkin soup for Zhou) and it was time for the main dish. Zhou was quickly sent to work chopping, cutting, smashing, dancing, stirring and just being a good person in general.

Then, as if a bit embarrassed, the lady approached me and said, “Nothing for you to do. You fry later.” That was it. I had chosen the fish fillets expecting to learn how to fillet a fish, but nope – my dish was already ready to be put on the pan. For the next hour, while everyone was pounding, slicing, chopping, tasting and enjoying themselves, I stared at my fillets and waited for my big moment.

And then, adding insult to injury, when Zhou finally finished preparing her dish she was picked to make the group’s banana dessert as well! I stood there with my mouth open, partly out of shock that I wasn’t asked to do that while waiting, and partly in hoping that someone would put a vegetable that they chopped in there. I received neither condolences nor carrots.

Before this turns into a rant about my bad luck, I’ll switch gears to say that our food turned out to be very tasty, even (or perhaps, especially) the fish fillets. I can also happily say that if someone ever needs help putting fish in a frying pan of oil, I’m your guy.

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Picture of the Day: While on the subject of cooking, yet another in the long line of Curry signs we’ve spotted around Asia.

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