Thailand Day 12

So! Chiang Mai!
Between all the other planning, and our planned hiking tour, we decided to just leave some Chiang Mai days free to take it easy.
So the evening before, when we were just relaxing in our room, we looked up some things to do.
#2 on Tripadvisor at the time was a cat cafe called Catmosphere. Neither E nor I have been to a Cat Cafe before, we thought that sounded fun. And it was about a 45 min walk from the hostel (which I remembered was called Aoi Garden Home btw) so we thought great, we'll just wander that way and see what we see. And depending on what time it is we can use the cafe wifi to see what next to do.

Armed with our plan of action, we first decided to ramble and see what snackish thing we could find to eat while we walked.



Not chickens.

Thailand Day 11/Cambodia Day 4

Ah leaving Cambodia day.
This was sad, because when we came I was really feeling ambivalent about our choice to come here. But by the time we left I wished we had more time.

Some parting shots of our room at Gloria Angkor:



(love that mini fridge!)

Thailand Day 10/Cambodia Day 3 - Part Seven

Part the last!
I got super distracted, but I'm still determined to get all these photos up, for my own benefit at least.

After we left the lovely overgrown temple we had one last stop.
Okay no, actually we had two. We stopped at Sras Srang Complex, and it was basically the pretty uninteresting foundation of a temple, with a lake by it. I did take a picture, but it wasn't very picturesque. So moving on.
The last stop!
Phnom Bakeng.

It's built on top of a hill, there's three ways to go up. The elephant path, which starts slopey then has a series of switchbacks, the pedestrian path, which just goes around and around the hill until the top, and the "dangerous path" which goes straight up. That one is closed XD



We took the pedestrian path.

Thailand Day 10/Cambodia Day 3 - Part Six

And onto Banteay Kdei!

Thailand Day 10/Cambodia Day 3 - Part Five

Next we went to Ta Keo.

At first glance from the road it’s a fairly unassuming temple.

Thailand Day 10/Cambodia Day 3 - Part Four

Next up we went to twin temples Thommanon and Chau Say Tevoda, which are right across the street from each other.

The road that separates them was there at their creation and originated from the royal palace.

Thailand Day 10/Cambodia Day 3 - Part Three

When I remembered to, I took pictures of the signs so I’d know where we were!
This next temple was a complex called Angkor Thom.
Well, kind of. Prasat Bayon is actually in that complex. So this is the rest of it!



It looks big, but it wasn’t nearly as large as Angkor Wat!

More after the break

Thailand Day 10/Cambodia Day 3 - Part Two

Back to posting 8D

I really don’t know how anyone does this actually ON the road. I’d say maybe I take too many pictures but, I’ve seen blogs w/ lots of pictures? So it must just be me.

But speaking of pictures…

Even though this day was non-stop temples, like we went to over 20 (actually Is stopped counting after 15, but something about 21 sticks in my mind)... my camera ran out of batteries. And my sister’s camera wasn’t charging for unknown reasons. I did take more photos on the phone I was using at the time, but since moving I’m not 100% sure where it and the card adapter are.

Anyway, I still managed to take pics, and maybe it’s a blessing in disguise as it won’t take 20 posts to get through one day, but sadly there were loads of things I wasn’t able to take pics of that I would have loved to.

But focusing on the good! Now to post pics I *did* take!

So Angkor Wat was beautiful, it was huge and iconic and sunrise was amazing, but this next one was one of my very favourites. This and one we went to later this day I could have spent the entire time in.

Doesn’t look like much with the restoration going on...

But..

Thailand Day 10/Cambodia Day 3 - Part One

This day @.@ It was a GREAT day. But reeeeeally exhausting.

We did the sunrise at Angkor Wat thing.

I can’t remember if I mentioned, but I let E plan this leg of the trip because this whole trip was a little last minute (more so than I’m used to planning anyway) and I was overwhelmed with some other life things. Anyway, the point being, I knew NOTHING about Cambodia when we went, or the places we’d be going.

So yes, I didn’t really know what was involved.

Apparently Sunrise At Angkor Wat is a bit Thing To Do.

So we arranged with the front desk and up we got at 4 and met our driver for the day. It took 45-60 minutes to get there, E went right back to sleep but I couldn’t. Tuktuks aren’t the most comfortable for sleeping in.

We got there and it was pitch black, and we had noooo idea where we were going. A flashlight would have been really useful, but… we didn’t think of that (and of course, I had one back at the hotel). We managed though! I’m surprised we didn’t trip and die. Then as we were more into the complex we were just looking around, totally unsure where we were supposed to *go* for this sunrise view. We didn’t even know which way to face!

But we saw some lights and joined a small gathering of 5 or so people at the edge of a small lake and thought “Welp, I hope this is the right spot!”

Thankfully, it was!

I wasn’t sure how it would go so I just kept snapping photos, there’s more of a progression in my flickr album.

Thailand Day 10/Cambodia Day 2 - Part Three

Whoops, had this all typed up and forgot to click post.

From Bantaey Samre we just stopped at some small temples that were on the way back.

Usually I’m pretty good about taking pictures of the signs so I don’t forget the names of places but… I didn’t this time so I honestly have no idea what temples these were. I think part of it was I was still feeling under the weather, not drastically but enough to be pretty spacey.

Mostly from this place I remember those kids.

You can just make them out in the doorway of the structure on the right. They tried to sell us stickers or something and kept getting in my photos and posing.

I do know that in a lot of these countries it’s standard to send out cute kids to sell stuff to tourists, or beg money from tourists, I ran into it a lot in India. But thus far hadn’t run into much here, except the first place we went some kids followed us around demanding candy and money.

It’s very sad :/

Rest of the day after the break!

Thailand Day 10/Cambodia Day 2 - Part Two

From Banteay Srei we went to the Cambodia Landmine Museum before heading to Banteay Samre.

Thailand Day 10/Cambodia Day 2 - Part One

So! We decided to a light day today, and cram more into the next day. Because it’s $20 or $30/day to go into Angkor Wat (I don’t remember which). In hindsight, that isn’t that much, but we thought these particular temples weren’t part of that, so we’d do those first and just pay once for the others. Plus being so tired, we wanted to not push it too much.

So, leisurely breakfast at the hotel:

Then met our driver outside and off to Banteay Srei!

Thailand Day 9 - Actually Cambodia Day 1

We rose early and took the free shuttle to the airport and from there E & I parted ways with Jey. She got on a plane to head back and we went down to the free shuttle to take us to Don Mueang airport, a smaller local airport about an hour away.

I honestly don’t remember the particulars now, we had looked up “how to get to Don Mueang airport from Suvarnabhumi international airport” and found a good walkthrough, probably on tripadvisor. But it’s really easy, just outside the arrivals there’s a shuttle and a desk. You do have to show that you have a flight, so you have to have your boarding pass or receipt printed. Otherwise, people could just use it as a free shuttle.

Anyway!

We found something to eat at the airport, before going through security. I accidently got something super spicey >.< But I was still feeling quite out of it, so I only ate the rice anyway.

Then through security! Where I’d forgotten to take my tiny (teen tiny) exacto knife out of my carry on D: I tried to show the person the blade comes out and I’ll throw the blade away, ‘cause I loved that little knife thing. We used it to peel fruits, and it was a great thread cutter. But they made me toss the whole knife ;_; Still sad about that.

Off to Cambodia!

Thailand Day 8

Day eight was a weird day. We all had breakfast together and then Mask left back to Malaysia (sad times!). I was feeling a little under the weather but thought I could tough it out. We went to Ratchadamri Market.



You pretty much get off at Silom station and it’s right there.

Thailand Day 7 - Part Two

The second half of our day tour!

From Erawan National Park we went to Wang Po elephant park.

Elephant riding time!

Thailand Day 7 - Part One

Finally getting back to posting!
Now that I’ve got my cardreader again.

Anyway, tour day! We decided to do a tour, I don’t remember exactly why we settled on this tour, just that we had some misgivings about the ethics of the Tiger Temple and didn’t have enough time to really research it (plus what I did read was super polarized, and very emotionally charged, further muddying the waters), so I know that was a factor. We had breakfast at the hostel and then hung out until the tour came and picked us up.

 

All the flowers made me nostalgic for India!

Thailand Day 6 - Part Five

End of Day Six! Wow that took awhile.



We left the Grand Palace around... 3-3:30 in the afternoon I think. And got some street food on the way to... more food.
This is a quail egg fried. It was super delicious.

Thailand Day 6 - Part Four

Continuing on at the Grand Palace!



Here is where our guide told us you can tell a monkey from a demon because monkeys don't wear shoes (obviously).

Thailand Day 6 - Part Three

Still Grand Palace!



More tile work~

Thailand Day 6 - Part Two

Continuing on with the Grand Palace!




Super grand