Day 23: Singapore

8am. Wake.

The original plan was to go out to one of the closer Indonesian islands, but after we got up and K did some research on the net, we decided the cost probably wasn't worth it. So, we spent quite a while deciding what to do for the day, going through all our pamphlets, finally settling on the bird park, supposedly the largest of its kind, whatever that means (we visited the largest 'covered' birdpark earlier in the trip in KL).

We first stop off at a hawker center to grab lunch. The food stalls in Singapore are generally grouped into large "hawker centers". This one we went to had several aisles with a total of 100+ different food stalls to choose from!


We got the food to go, intending to eat it on the subway, only to recall later that eating or drinking on the subway resulted in a large fine. Oops! So, we had to wait until we finally arrived at the bird park to eat (subway, then a bus ride away).

Singapore definitely has more money than Malaysia, easily seen with the bird park as an example... more structured and nicely built. The bird park was something akin to SeaWorld, minus the rides. Lots of birds and also a few shows.


After the park, we stopped off at Chinatown to go to the Chinese Heritage Museum. This was the cleanest Chinatown I've ever seen! K also commented on the minimal litter almost immediately after coming out of the subway. Not only that, but things also seemed more 'well-organized'. If not for Singapore's humidity, I could definitely live here.

The Chinese Heritage Museum was pretty interesting... all about the trials and tribulations of the first Chinese immigrants to Singapore.

We got a very filling dinner at the same food center as the morning, then returned to the hostel for a short rest (watched the end of Stuart Little on TV) before heading out for the New Year's fireworks. The advice of the hostel receptionist was not to go all the way out to the Esplanade but to sit on the steps in the shopping area a little back... which turned out to be pretty good advice.

The subway bottlenecks - getting into and out of the subway - was interesting to say the least. Singapore is very densely populated.


The fireworks only lasted all of 8 minutes or so... but it was a decent display and how can you be in a foreign country for New Year's and *not* go see the fireworks?


The key getting back was not to get foamed by the peeps carrying cans of spray foam.

Sleep. 1:30am.

Day 22: Singapore

8:30am. Wake.

I am decidedly getting sick. Guess I did get the virus from K, B, and/or L... or something. It's very humid out. That, coupled with feeling ill-ish puts me in an icky mood. K manages to stick through the grouchiness somehow.

MRT to Raffles Place where we walk around towards and then next to the river, looking at a series of statues. The first one is what K calls "scrap metal" but the others turn out to be more interesting for us...



After statue-exploring, we head over to the Asian Civilizations Museum, where we learn about all the different Asian and Southeast Asian cultures... kind of interesting to see the displays and explanations after we've already gotten glimpses into the actual environments and cultures earlier in our trip. For example, architectural drawings of Bayon in Angkor Thom...


K had a whole afternoon planned, which didn't quite work out because I was groggy and slow. So slight revision... I had seen an events flyer for the re-opening of the National Museum (which had been closed for and undergone over 3 years of renovation). One of the events was occurring today... a show by a group called Project Bandaloop, which apparently was touring from the US. So we headed over to the National Museum to watch "aerial dance"... (you have to see it in person!)



A short-ish trip to the Philatelic Museum next. I went in by myself while K just waited in the lobby. I guess the museum wouldn't be all that great for someone who had no interest in stamps, but perhaps history buffs might get a kick out of it, too. The first floor exhibits were stable whereas the 2nd floor exhibits changed every once in a while. On this visit, the 2nd floor had a room devoted to WWII (for the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII) and another room devoted to dogs (it's the year of the dog)...


U.S. stamps are blah when compared to some other countries. There were glow in the dark stamps, action-movement stamps, crystal stamps (with real crystals!), etc, etc... even make your own vege-head stamps...


Leaving the stamp museum, it began to drizzle. We decided to head over to Clarke Quay, a renovated waterfront district, walk around there for a bit and find a place to eat. We end up at a place called "King Satay" that only has a few tables so we think it'll be a faster meal. We, of course, order the satay plate, a small size which should feed the two of us. I also order a sugar cane drink... the sugar cane drink I got in Hanoi was better though.

After waiting 40 minutes for our food, we ask the waitress how much longer it'll be since we're in a rush. She comes back saying it'll be much longer, some indeterminate amount of time that's likely to equal how long we've already waited (?!?!!). The reason is the satay was originally frozen... which I guess means they spent the last 40 minutes thawing it... grrr. (Would have been nice to know when we ordered) So, we just ask her to cancel our order, pay for the sugar cane drink, and leave since we're already later than planned for heading out to the Night Safari.

Taxi to Night Safari, a zoo that's only open at night so all the animals are nocturnal animals... apparently the first and only night zoo in the world.

The crowds are very large, which we attribute to it being holiday time. The lines for the tram and the show are also very long, but we manage to just make it in to the 8pm "Creatures of the Night" show before they cut off seating; poor people behind us in line had to wait for the 9pm show.

After the show, we debated getting in line for the tram until one of the park employees advised us to do the walking trails first because the tram lines get much shorter later in the night... all the tour groups go to it at the beginning. (One had to do both the tram and walking trails because there were areas that could only be seen by one or the other, not both.)

One of the best parts of the zoo [for both of us] was the free-flying bats enclosure. A bit scary to have bats fly right by you or to stand a foot away from a bat, but *very cool*. No flash photography throughout the park though, so without a tripod, it was impossible for any pictures =( Nearly impossible to tell, but it really is a bat...


Oh, and the park dude was right about the tram tour... we went on it at 10:30-ish and there was no line... yay!

Since we basically ended up skipping dinner, I grabbed a S$5 hot dog at the park. K waited until after we got back to the hotel and then went to one of the nearby 24hr food stands and got some congee. Singaporeans really do like to eat... you see them eating during all hours of the day and night - it was midnight, but the tables were still very crowded.

Sleep. 1am.

Day 21: Singapore

5am. Wake.

Still have to pack up and K had the travel agent (same one we used earlier) get us a car to the airport, 500B, cheaper than the hotel charging 800B... pickup is 7:15am. We rush through breakfast, I take half of it to go, and the car finally leaves the hotel 7:40-ish.

Singapore is definitely the cleanest out of all the cities we visited. It also has the highest cost of living. We stay at a hostel... smallest and probably lowest on the scale of all our hotels... but at $50+ a night. Just a place to sleep in anyways.

The heat and massive humidity is back. But yay for clean public bathrooms with provided toilet paper. And yay for air-conditioned decent subway network. Very modernized... people walking around with ipods and whatever other tech toys.

Though littering incurs a huge fine, there's still a little bit of litter in some areas... guess it's unavoidable; but for a city, it's quite clean.

They're ahead of us in milk nutrition... whoever thought to add "multigrain" to milk!


A politically-incorrect ad like this would never make it out in the U.S....


And they are terrorist-conscious it seems...


After taking the subway to our hostel and checking in, we head back out to the Botanical Gardens, a humongous, very well-kept, free park. Inside is an admission-only Orchid Garden, which we visit. Decently big with lots of orchids.



It's getting dark by the time we leave the orchids. So we walk down to Orchard Rd, a massive shopping street, to grab dinner. Xiao told us we *had* to visit Orchard Rd because her company designed it. The streets were *very* crowded...


The Christmas/New Year's lights made for a nice touch...


We wanted to eat at Din Tai Fung, apparently a Taiwanese chain, but the line was very long (like all the other restaurants in the basement of that particular mall building), so we got on the waiting list. In the meantime, we grabbed some yakitori bento boxes from another place in the basement. Somehow, we still had room for yummy soups and dumplings at Din Tai Fung.

Sleep. 12 midnight.

Day 20: Phuket

6:30am. Wake.

Today is Ko Phi Phi day, with a 7:45 pick-up. I do a quick grab and go as K waits in the front for the minivan. I see L at the breakfast; she is waiting for X to come back from the bathroom. As I rush to the lobby with a breakfast sandwich for me and a French toast for K in hand, K runs by me to get L and X because the pick-up arrived. When I get to the lobby though, B who is also there waiting says the guy left. Eek.

After some time, the hotel receptionist manages to contact our travel agent who calls the guy and tells us to wait for him to come back. Guy comes back and we get tot he dock ok. Phew!

It's about 25-ish people per speedboat and if you decide to, you have to rent fins there on the doc because they're not otherwise available on the boat. At last minute, I decide to get fins just in case. After boarding the boat, our guide hands us each a snorkeling headset, which he tells us to be careful not to lose.

We speed out to our 1st stop... Kai Island (some places incorrectly spell it 'Khai Island'). Some people just lie on the beach but most go in the water. I try on the fins in the water but they don't work too well, so I just end up wearing my water shoes. The water bottom is very rocky with assorted coral and rocks. We love our underwater camera case!!



At one point, K and I both enter a spot with tons of medium-sized fish that every once in a while runs into me (with a stinging sensation), so I quickly leave the area.

Stop 2... Maya Island... where we have to choose either to stay on/near the beach or to snorkel. The boat drops the people out on the beach first for those who chose that option and then goes away a bit from the beach. The guide says it's 2-3 meters deep.

Beilie and Ling get into the water first but come back shortly, saying it's really tiring. After hearing that, K puts on a life jacket, too... I was going to wear one anyways to be safe (after all, I did miss passing the TIM orientation swim test). Yay for life jacket keeping me afloat so I can entirely focus on admiring the sea life!


Only after getting back on the boat at the end of snorkeling part 2, Xiao tells us we could have taken a watermelon piece with us to attract the fish (crew had chopped up watermelon). Oh well.

Buffet lunch on Phi Phi Don.

Snorkeling part 3... on Monkey Island. The finest sand grains I have ever felt... life jackets because it gets deep very fast. After snorkeling awhile, it starts to drizzle, quickly turning into full rain, and then a downpour.


We still snorkeled in the rain, but once it began pouring, people quickly made their way back to shore and their boats.

The boat speeded back to dock, 45 minutes or so away. Our seats were originally in the front of the boat, which offered no cover, so everyone crowded in the back. The back had a semi-cover, which was certainly better than the front. But it still didn't do much for shielding people from the wet and cold as rain poured through the cover's voids. Everyone, already wet, continued to get more drenched.


I stayed slightly warm with my towel wrapped around me. Interesting experience indeed!

10pm-ish. K and I have dinner at the same location as the first night but a different restaurant stand. On the way to dinner, we notice two middle-aged Caucasian males walking with two young clubby-dressed Thai women. Funky.

I order a noodle soup for dinner... not spicy and yummy. K orders two dishes, one of which is a Crab Fried Rice, 40B, only half the cost of his other dish and has a whole lot of crab meat. Yummy!

At dinner, the table next to ours also has two middle-aged Caucasian guys sitting with two "nicely" dressed young Thai women. Again, funky. Maybe funkier because it's "late" dinner. Then, looking at the other tables, I notice almost every row of tables has at least one table with a middle-aged Caucasian dude with some Thai woman. Hmm... maybe I'm just making something out of nothing.

Pick up a drink at 7-Eleven (lychee) and our laundry, which smells nice but the stains on my light jacket are still there. I thought they would do a better job than me washing it by hand myself, but I guess not. Oh well.

Back at hotel. After some talk (and K losing his temper), the front desk manager gives us a 1000B discount off our Christmas dinner for the cockroaches we encountered. He says he can't give us a room discount because we booked through an intermediary and not directly with the hotel... and we already fully paid so he can't refund any money. It's a take it or leave it offer, saying we're lucky to get anything. He cited another guest who found a rat (!) in their room, and just made a comment, not a complaint like us and didn't ask for nor get any discount. Sheesh.

I accept the offer. I could say 'no' based on principle, but principle in this one doesn't really have any practical benefit is the way I see it.

Sleep. 1am.

Day 19: Phuket

9am. Wake.

Today is lazy day. Started with a leisurely breakfast (unlike yesterday's rush). Followed by a bit of rest and then down to the pool and staked out a couple of pool chairs. I ran through the kiddie mushroom sprinklers to get wet and then we both got in the pool and swam around for a bit.



Sat on the chairs for a few hours, me catching up on writing, and K playing GBA. Around 1pm, this guy came around with tiny pizza slices. I didn't really understand what he said so he started going away and then this other guest by the pool came over and said she ordered the pizza, but it's apparently free between 1 and 1:30 everyday. Someone just needs to order it and then they bring tiny slices for everyone by the pool. Turns out the pizza guy was asking "taste?" as in, "do you want to try a sample?".

After 5:30 we realize the time and rush out. We're supposed to be picked up at 6:30 for the Fantasea show.

Drop off our jeans at the 10B per piece laundry place and then make our way towards the beach for dinner. The few places next to the beach have very reasonable prices... same range as any other restaurant around the area. We pick one that has a decent view of the sunset and ask the guy to rush our order... a pad Thai, basil pork, and banana pancake. The sunset is pretty as always...


I finish half my noodles and box the rest with the banana pancake, and K manages to chomp down all his basil pork (too spicy spicy for me).

We get back to the hotel a little after 6:30, but our driver is late. What is supposed to be a private car for the five of us (did we misunderstand?) is actually a minivan with other guests. We're the first ones aboard and he rushed to pick up the rest... rushes, meaning heavily tailgating other cars, then passing them using the oncoming car lane while intentionally putting his feet on both brake and accelerating to make the van extra loud, or passing cars on the shoulder if there is one. It's like a rollercoaster ride.

Arrive at Fantasea at a perfectly fine time. The "attractions" turn out to be just carnival games and lots of stores in which to shop. The games are same as ones you would see at a carnival or amusement park in the US, but all more cutesy and with much cuter prizes.


The show starts at 9pm. They confiscate everyone's video and camera supplies but I manage to snake mine past, not that I take any pictures inside with it. I just didn't want to wait in a long line to check-in and then another long line to get it back later.

Outside the 'theater'...


The show lasts for a little less than an hour. The beginning makes it seem like it'll be a cohesive story, but the "plot" (or non-plot) is disappointing. Most of it is a Thai cultural show, with the addition of some laser lights, a comedic magic show, and some elephant tricks at the end. Somewhat interesting. K's favorite part was the elephants... and I could have done fine without the magic portion. At 2000B (~ $55) per person ("gold seat" tickets (250B for front & center) + transportation), it's a toss-up as to whether it was worth it. I suppose it's an "experience".

Sleep. 12 midnight.

Day 18: Phuket

6am. Wake.

K is to take a shower. Encounter with cockroach #1 in the bathtub. We speculate it must have fallen from the ceiling and then got stuck in the bathtub, unable to crawl out. A while after a distressed call to the front desk, a maintenance guy knocks on our door. He comes in, uses his walkie talkie antenna to pin the cockroach, picks it up via its antennae, and removes it from the room.

We have a minibus/van pickup at 7:45 for our 'James Bond 4 in 1' day trip. The van waits until 8:05 before it finally leaves the hotel; we assume it was waiting for someone else at the hotel who never showed up. The van goes to a couple other hotels to pick up people and then drops us off to transfer to our normal tour bus.

There are people signed up for the 2-in-1, 3-in-1, and 4-in-1 on the bus. Our tour guide's name ("hollywood name") is Cindy, a friendly middle-aged Thai woman. It's 50 minutes to Phang-Nga (on the mainland coast), our destination. Cindy begins by telling us about our itinerary for the day and then goes on to tell us various facts about Phuket and Thailand.
...The first people to come to Phuket Island were Malaysians... I guess they were Muslims because they're called Thai Muslims now.
...Phuket comes from a Malay word meaning hill.
...Phi Phi Island is named after the abundant Phi-a-Phi trees on the island.
...Patong, where our hotel is located, means 'dating'.

Rubber tree plantations...
Things about people who plant rubber... they have to wake up *really* early. (They wake up when the tourists come back from their bars.) They come out with huge rubber shoes to protect them against poisonous snakes and other poisonous creatures and they put a torchlight on their head. They walk around slitting trees to get the sap and then come back later to collect all the sap (reminds me of maple trees). Then they go back to their house. They lay the sap out on a sheet, add some water and some sulfuric acid, mix mix mix, flatten it with a piece of wood, roll the result in some machines, and then sell it.

The rubber trees give seeds every year and apparently the rubber plantation people can tell the good seeds from the bad. After a rubber tree is planted, they have to wait 7 years before it starts producing the latex sap. During the 7 years, they have another source of income, like growing other crops - pineapples, etc. The crops do double duty... because they also protect the baby rubber trees from the intense sun and other elements. The trees will produce rubber for 40/45 years and live for 100 years.

It's high tourist season in Phuket... because the best weather runs from the end of November to the beginning of February.

Our first stop was an elephant camp. Elephant trekking... my second ride on an elephant and much bumpier than the one in Siem Reap. The ground here was very uneven, unlike the flat ground in Siem Reap. A third of the way through, our trainer gets off the elephant and asks us for our camera to take pictures for us. We thought after taking a picture, he would get back on the elephant, but he didn't. Instead, he just walked on and every once in a while would voice commands to the elephant. Sometimes he would continue on without looking back, not noticing the elephant wasn't following. Then he would turn around, see the distance, and yell some more commands until the elephant caught up.


Almost at the end, he asked one of us to climb forward off the seat and sit directly on the elephant, but we both decided against it (which I shortly regretted). He got back on the elephant and then navigated into a small pond that the elephant swam through... a much smoother ride than it walking on land. The couple behind us...


Post ride, we stayed at the camp for a bit, drank some tea, rode on an ox cart, and played with some mangrove monkeys... and then returned to the bus.

The next stopping point was adjacent to Phang-Nga bay where Cindy had us all get a life jacket and board a boat similar to the klong boats in Bangkok. Off we went... to James Bond Island. A short stop to climb up and down some of the island's steps.


Stop at a Muslim fishing village for lunch. Locals' buildings filled half the village and the other half was obviously built as a tourist food stop. Lunch was pretty decent... soup, fried rice, a bunch of Thai dishes, and fresh fruit. The Thai dishes were not spicy, catering to tourist taste buds.

Took the boat to a bigger boat from which we boarded the sea canoes (flat bottom boats because some areas can be quite shallow depending on the time of day and the tides). Each canoe sat two people plus the "canoe boy" who did all the paddling.


The sea canoeing was very cool. We got to go in a bunch of areas that required everyone to lie down flat in the boat because the entrances were that low. (Waterproof camera case served us quite well here as I didn't have to worry about getting the camera wet.)


After canoeing, we got back on the klongish boat back to the pier. (Note, the usage of the life jackets was kind of silly... we wore it while on the klongish boat and took it off each time we got off. We did wear it for the canoeing though.)

Bus to monkey cave temple that had a whole lot of wild mangrove monkeys outside and a small reclining Buddha (when compared to the ones in Bangkok & Ayutthaya) and tallish cave inside.


Then, a short 10-minute stop at a cashew factory store, where we learned cashews come from cashew fruits that grow on trees, each fruit containing one nut, and each tree producing over 1000 fruits per year. We also got to sample Cashewy, a drink made from cashews and apples. According to the info pamphlet there, it got "added to Thailand's herbal miraculous drinks" recently.


Some people bought quite a bit of food goodies from the store. The bus then dropped off everyone at their respective hotels.

Dinner ended up being at this place where you picked your own fresh seafood (Phuket has no lack of seafood places) and tell them how you want it cooked. The split of food and bill was a bit more complicated here because - K didn't want seafood so he got his own dish by himself (but then he wanted to share the one vege dish), and I wanted to partake in all the seafood dishes with the exception of the lobster (which ended up being 1500B = ~ $40, so I'm glad I stayed out of that one).

Some time at the internet cafe looking through some of our pictures.

Back at the hotel, cockroach #2 encounter >_<

Sleep. 1am.

Day 17: Phuket

8:30am. Wake.

We lazily wake up and eventually make it down to breakfast before it ends at 10:30. The breakfast choices are good, with a decent variety... french toast, pancakes, cook-to-order eggs, various breads, bacon, sausage, fried noodles, fried rice, other hot foods, yogurt and toppings, and lots of fruits.


We rush through breakfast though because on the way down we bump into BLX who say they're going to a spa (for which they made a 11:30 appt)! After much deliberation, I decide to join them to check out "the spa experience" and K also will tag along.

It takes ~20 minutes to drive out to the spa. Once there, I feel pressured to get a package, which was what I was afraid would happen. So, I end up with a 2-hr treatment with body scrub and massage for 2300 baht discounted to 1955 baht (~ $60) because Xiao has a coupon. BLX all pick greater than $100 packages. Apparently, Xiao gets a massage once a week and goes for full spa treatments every now and then. It *is* somewhat relaxing, but is the $ worth it? It also doesn't help that there's a huge daddy long legs type spider and half a broken spider web in one of the ceiling corners of the room I'm in... so that I see it whenever I'm lying face up on the spa table. Blah.

Cookies and tea after the treatment (elephants are everywhere)...


I find the walking around afterwards as we wait for BLX to finish their 3-hr treatments nice though. The spa has lots of water and open space and feels somewhat serene. I probably should have just brought a good book to read while BLX got their treatments. It would have been free and still relaxing.


After the spa, BLX take the taxi to check out a couple of beaches, of which K and I opt out. So, we take our own ride arranged by the spa back to the hotel... which costs 300B vs the 400B taxi originally arranged by the hotel.

We then go to the travel agency [as directed by the hotel peeps] to book our 'James Bond 4 in 1' prize. Turns out 'James Bond' is for 'James Bond Island', one of the stops on the tour. The island was renamed to James Bond Island after one of the James Bond movies had a scene from there (a 30 yr-old move... something like 'Man with the Golden Gun'). We book the tour for the next day. It's a day trip with 4 in 1... elephant riding/trekking, James Bond Island, a cave temple, and sea canoeing. We also check out some of the options for Ko Phi Phi day trips.

Getting back to the hotel, we meet Beilie who says she passed a travel agency that offered the Ko Phi Phi day trip for 1400 baht... all the other travel places were over 2000 baht. So, we all head out to that agency and end up booking our Phi Phi trip with the lady there. Beilie and Ling also decide to sign up and join us for the 'James Bond 4 in 1' for tomorrow.

BLX also want to sign up to see a show called FantaSea. (There's basically two shows in Phuket - that and Cabaret.) The brochure touts..."magical illusions, 4-D effects, aerial ballet, acrobatics, pyrotechnics, special effects, exciting stunts, and an elephant circus". After much deliberation (it's 2000B = ~ $55), we decide to do it, too, and the agent books seats for the four of us.

We then walk down the streets looking for dinner, or late lunch. We all hadn't eaten since breakfast. We end up eating in this area with a row of outdoor "restaurants". Each one would be 'in your face' trying to get you to eat at them as you walk by. Checking out all the menus and somewhat randomly picked one. After dinner, K and I each buy a pair of water shoes. I wanted a pair because Sean recommended it for water trips and then K ended up buying a pair, too. Starting price 350B per pair and we ended up paying 200B per pair after friendly negotiations.

Side note: 7-Elevens are on almost every block (literally) near our hotel.

Sleep. 11pm.

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Day 16: Phuket, Thailand

On our plane ride to Phuket, we sat next to an Australian woman who was planning on sailing from Phuket to Crete! She was going with some friends who had already set sail from Australia a while ago and with whom she would catch up. She said their expected arrival in Crete was sometime in April... after 4 months of sailing!

I think we got overcharged for our taxi. Phuket was apparently the only place K didn't read about and prepare for because he said he wasn't really all too interested in it. So, the taxi counter inside the airport charged us 550 baht but supposedly just getting a metered taxi would only cost 450 baht ($3 rip off, bah). We're staying at a place in Patong, 40km from the airport.

Some of the streets look similar to Bangkok, except with fewer street vendors and many small shops. I'm hoping things aren't too much more expensive than they were in Bangkok though.

We're only a little late for the compulsory $68 (US dollars) Christmas dinner. I can't imagine any dinner being worth $68 per person, but that's just me. Everyone enjoys spending $ on different things I suppose. There was a lot of food to eat... seafood, satays, various salads, lots of fruit and dessert, etc.



The entertainment first started out with some fire twirling... then a dance and cabaret type show with transsexual dancers. K didn't believe the "girls" were transsexual at first (because their legs were too good/girly), but Beilie said she heard them talking to each other after the show and Ling said she saw their Adam's apples. After the cabaret part, there was traditional Thai music and dancing.



There were also games... like five couples chosen from the audience and the winner was which blindfolded girl could feed a banana to their guy the fastest, or musical chair chairs in which all the volunteers picked were little kids... prizes... and random music to which you could dance (with people lip-syncing and guitar-syncing to the music on stage... don't know why they couldn't just DJ the music without the extra people lip-syncing).

Prizes... they gave out some random prizes (each guest got a raffle into the drawing). A little after Beilie, Ling, and Xiao (finally arrived in the middle of dinner!) went back up to their rooms, they drew for the "grand prizes". Something like 10 of them. If they called your table and you weren't there, then they would draw again until they got to a table that was there. I counted something less than twenty or so tables left (out of over 15)... guess everyone thought there wasn't really much else... it was 9 or 10pm afterall. K said to me during the 3rd or 4th prize, "ok, the next one is ours, room 1213" and sure enough, it was! I was in disbelief for quite a while at the timing of his comment. We won some "James Bond 4 in 1 tour", whatever that meant.


A while later, table 5, Beilie, Ling, and Xiao's table also got a prize, for which I pretended to be one of them and went up to accept... it was a 3-night stay at the hotel between March and December 2007. Xiao ended up taking it since the island resort thing is right up her alley.

There was one table that won 4 prizes! They had 5 people all run up on stage to accept each prize every time... it was like a group of 10 people at the table.

The hotel room is "ok", almost three times as expensive and not as nice as our Siem Reap room.

Sleep. 12 midnight.

Day 16.02: Siem Reap => Phuket

The one thing I won't miss about Siem Reap (aside from the too many tourists) is the dust. There's sand everywhere... on the paths to the temples, on the sides of roads, on the roads... so that every vehicle driving by throws up a bunch of it towards you while you're walking.

For K and me, there were a bit too many temples... same general designs, images, etc. But we did get some variety and also some resting period in, which was good. (Beilie and Ling both said they would come back for a 7-day temple pass though).

We were really lucky with our pick of Mr Peou for our driver. (If anyone reads this who's going to Siem Reap, feel free to ask for his info.) He spoke decent English, knew various details (like when the best times to see each temple were), didn't take us anywhere we didn't want, didn't honk his car horn too much, parked in the shade, and his car had working backseat seatbelts (yay for K!). He took us to the airport the last day, too (standard price of $5).

Day 15: Siem Reap

7am. Wake.

Ling went out by herself to try to catch the sunrise again (the rest of us had given up). She says she's actually successful in catching it this time, so I just get her pictures ^o^

Today is a semi rest day for K and me. We spend the morning pretty much lazing about in the hotel, me writing and reading, him playing GBA. Beilie and Ling headed out for Bayon again.

Oh, a note... the air in Siem Reap is quite dry... which makes our laundry drying experience very good... a little over 24 hours for our stuff to dry. And, the hotel gave us hangers not stuck to the closet rod (we asked for extra hangers) so we can hang our wet clothes to dry on the bathroom shower curtain rod instead of the closet rod.

We head out to lunch at a restaurant, Amok, named after the Khmer dish.

Mr Peou picks us up at 3pm.

We originally intended to see the war and landmine museum, but Mr Peou says the museum is small and there's nothing much to see there. So, we head off to the hot air balloon instead. K decides last minute not to go on it, so it's just me. The aerial views are breathtaking, so much so that I only remember to take aerial pictures of the view and forget about asking someone to take a picture of me or to record a quick video.


The balloon ride finishes quite quickly... 15-20 minutes... and now that I think about it, I'm not sure whether the cost is worth it... $15 (was $11 a couple of years ago). It *is* really cool, but cost-wise... hmmm. A toss-up.

Next - back to Angkor Wat. Ling tells us the outer walls are supposed to have many carvings telling a story, but we spend a while looking to no avail. So, we head off to find the "Churning of the Sea of Milk" section of the bas-relief galleries, upon which we realize that those galleries are probably what Ling meant, not the outer wall as she said. Oops!

The gallery carvings really are quite amazing... not that deep like the carvings at Banteay Srei but very extensive in their storytelling. Too bad good pictures of the scenes are impossible to take with the low light of dusk. We sadly have to somewhat rush through them before the temple closes.



We then walk quickly out to the pond to prepare for more pictures of the lighted temple, which starts at 6pm and one has until 6:15 before they kick you out. After waiting past the expected time, we find out that there are no lights tonight. The lights are only turned on when there is a concert on the side courtyard of Angkor Wat and concerts occur a few times a month. So, I guess we were lucky to have chanced upon the lights two nights ago :-/

Dinner at another random restaurant ($2.50 a dish, $1.50 per drink). I get a noodle soup on the "traditional Khmer dishes" section of the menu. The soup turns out to be instant noodles in a broth! It even had instant noodle sauce packets on the side for extra added taste! After dinner, K and I check out the one juice bar in town and get a Pina Colada. Then, while walking back out, we spot a restaurant specializing in Cambodian BBQ (only became aware there was such a thing earlier in the night)... with interesting items like kangaroo and ostrich (also, rattlesnake, alligator, etc., which we've had before). Too bad we leave early tomorrow so we won't have a chance to try it.

Sleep. 10pm.