to get from malaysia to indonesia, i opted for a ferry from the malaysian island of penang to the indonesian island of sumatra...it's a fast ferry boat, but still takes 5-6 hours to do the crossing...(the body of water is called the malaysian straits, for those of you who care about such things)...it wasn't bumpy at all, thank goodness, as we were inside, there was no open deck on this ferry...
upon arriving at the port (i can't remember the specific name of the port, but it's just a few kilometers from the city of medan) we were greeted by lots of wanna-be porters, taxi drivers, etc...and this was all before going through immigration...coming out of immigration there were even more people waiting! we hopped on a bus filled with everyone else from the ferry, (ignoring all the touts) and it dropped us off just a couple hundred meters from where we wanted to be in medan...i should mention that on the ferry i met a dutch girl, who ended up being my travel buddy for the next 5-6 days...on the bus a local guy chatted up me and the dutch girl, as well as a couple british boys, we all ended up following him to a succession of guesthouses, and we all ended up staying in the cheapest place on the planet...(well, maybe not that cheap, but it was the cheapest place i've stayed in a long long time)...i went with the dutch girl and british boys to dinner in a nearby mall, it was the first time i'd been out past dark since the mugging!!
the next morning marije and i got up and made our way to the bus station, to catch a bus to bukit lawang...we got there quickly enough, but then had to wait 40 minutes for the bus to leave...when it left, it pulled out onto the street, drove a few blocks forward, and parked on the street, to wait for more passengers...and by wait, i mean WAIT...buses in indonesia often don't leave until they are full, regardless of any schedule that might or might not be posted...we ended up waiting over another hour on the street, and the british boys ended up on the same bus!! anywho, around 3 hours after we finally got going, we all arrived in bukit lawang...it's a small village at the entrance of a national park...people come to this national park to go trekking, in hopes of seeing orangutans...it's one of the few places in the world where you can still see them in the wild...i decided not to afford the trek, though it did sound interesting...(and later, i got mixed reviews...a canadian i talked to wasn't very fussed about his trek, but the dutch girl and brit boys had been chased by orangutans during their trek, and therefore loved it)...i went to a feeding at the orangutan rehabilitation center, but no orangutans showed up...definitely a disappointment, though i enjoyed the two monkeys that were there...we're so close to monkeys and orangutans genetically that i find it fascinating to watch them, and see similarities in our movements, and looks...there was howeva an orangutan at the entrance to the park who was clearly domesticated, and never likely to go back into the wild...i watched him (or her?) eating from the hands of a local, again, fascinated...
from bukit lawang i made my way to parapat, on the edge of danau (lake) toba...a huge lake in the middle of sumatra...it's supposed to be the biggest lake in southeast asia...one of the largest volcanic crater lakes in the world...it's supposed to be 450m deep!...anywho, from parapat i took a ferry to an "island" in the middle, called samosir...it's not really an island, as it is connected by a small causeway, but since people get to and from there mostly by ferry, it essentially functions as an island...one village, called tuk tuk has most of the accomodation, and the ferry stops as requested at each place...i ended up in a room with a western toilet, shower, two beds, and my own porch!!...all for $5...most of the accomodation in tuk tuk has a swimming area, mine did as well...mine even had a diving board set up...the diving board was high enough above the water and bouncy enough that i could actually get some height and distance...and the water underneath was deep enough that i wasn't worried about cracking my head...(even though with my hard head that would be quite a feat)...the temperature was slightly cool, and just PERFECT for playing around...i had a great few hours each day, praticing back and front flips, just enjoying the water...the dutch girl and i hired mountain bikes one day to go to a couple other villages and see a couple sights...stone chairs, traditional batak houses, a mausoleum...they weren't exciting, but we liked the riding and scenery as well...while huffing and puffing my way up various small hills (samosir is NOT FLAT) i realized that i'm not very fit at the mo...i can walk and walk and walk, all day long, but i have no aerobic capacity...eeeek!!
from danau toba i made my way to bukittingi...this involved a 15 hour overnight bus ride...the bus was all right, and even the road was all right...except that it was NEVER a straight road...i could actually see the bus sway from side to side as it went around each corner...when you see a name like trans sumatran highway, you'd think it would be a good HIGHWAY...but it's just a 2 lane road, not much different from any other sealed road in indonesia...in SLIGHTLY better condition, i suppose...this bus did drive over the equator en route, and i saw it coming slightly ahead of time...so i stood up, and danced a little, and danced my way over the equator...the russian couple sitting next to me thought i was crazy, but then again, what's new about that? hee hee...we were at the back of the bus, so the locals didn't even see me...i am a dork, i know...
anywho, bukittingi is another hill station, with great views over the surrounding area....my first day i just wandered, and my second day i got up early to take local buses to a nearby rafflesia sanctuary...rafflesia are the world's largest flowers...(actually a parasite, but that's beside the point)...when they bloom, the flower can be 1m across, with petals an inch thick...it also emits an awful odor...i'm told it's similar to that of decaying animals...EEWWWW!!...i got off the bus and ended up walking to a house, thinking it was a ticket office of some kind...but it wasn't...the lady told me the rafflesia had bloomed a couple weeks earlier and were now dead...which means the blooms were still there, but they were all black, and not very interesting...but i still wanted to see them, so the lady got her nephew/cousin to lead the way for me...5 other kids came along as well...none of them spoke any english...but it was still a LOT of fun...they kept fighting over who got to be walking right in front of me and right behind me...lots of "hati-hati" (be careful) as i kept them all entertained by stumbling over roots, logs and my own two feet...it ended up taking over an hour to get to the dead blooms, climbing some steep hills through the jungle!!! after arrivign back at the house, the girls and i played with the coffee beans that were drying out front, spelling our names with the beans...a great day, just one of those great days...i got back to bukittingi, walked around a bit more, got rained on, and hung out at my hotel...
from bukittingi, i started to make my way to jakarta, on the next island of indonesia, java...
Showing posts with label bicycle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bicycle. Show all posts
11 July 2009
16 May 2009
vietnam 3
after hoi an, it was a short bus trip (4-5 hours i think?) up to hue...another ancient city, it used to be an imperial city...it seems that whereva royals have lived in the world, the food is always better, even centuries later...there was certainly a lot more variety of food available in hue...YUM!!
before arriving in hue, i met a girl on the bus, we chatted a bit...thinking nothing of it, we both got off the bus and were approached by two representatives of the same hotel, offering a decent rate...we figured we would check it out, and if nothing else, take advantage of the free ride to the budget accomodation area...anywho, somehow we ended up deciding to share a room...and what a room it was...HUGE...HUGE...HUGE...the ceiling was equivalent to the 2nd floor ceiling...we both had queensize beds too...tv, a fan, a bathtub, towels, it was pure luxury...all for $7 a night, only $3.50 each...at that point we didn't even know each other's names, but why not? hee hee....i discovered later that night that she had taught english in japan for a year, so we spent a bit of time figuring out similarities and differences...fun...
anywho, the first place i decided to explore was the citadel...not in use anymore for the original purpose, but plenty of people still live within the original walls...i had to walk across a bridge to get to the citadel, and to hear all the offers from the motorbike and cyclo drivers, you would've thought it was a 3 hour walk to get there...but it wasn't...the largest flagpole in vietnam (37m, or something like that) is on the outer wall of the citadel...the vietnamese flag isn't anything exciting, just red with a yellow star in the middle...but it was neat to see it flying strong with the blue sky background...i wandered around the imperial city area of the citadel, with it's former temples, palaces, theaters, etc...there is a temple in there where women weren't allowed in!! not even the empresses...my favourite area was the living quarters of the empress mother, or whateva she was called...maybe i liked it most because it was totally deserted...while wandering through the imperial city i came upon the area where they keep a couple elephants...i don't know why the elephants are kept there, or what they do, but i decided to say hello, and perhaps have my picture taken with one of them...i tried to be polite, but apparently he didn't like me, because his hello consisted of shoving me away with his trunk...i tried again, but again he rebuffed me...sad...hee hee...the amusing part is that a british couple had volunteered to take my picture for me, and the guy took the picture just as the elephant was pushing me away...lol...
the next day i took a tour of various locations around the former DMZ...the DMZ (the 17th parallel, it basically follows one of the rivers in the country) was once the border between north and south vietnam...i got to see the rockpile, (there was a US base on top of it, reachable only by helicopter,) the former doc mieu base, (only the remains of a tank are left, it was part of the "electronic eye/wall" built by the US in an attempt to stop the north vietnamese from getting into the south,) the former khe sanh base, (sight of one of the largest battles, but the area really didn't mean much of anything, given where it's located...it ended up costing the lives of too many on both sides, for a hill that didn't matter,) dakrong bridge (over which the POWs were exchanged when the US pulled out of vietnam in '73) and the tunnels at vin mohc (sp?)...the DMZ area was bombed, a LOT, by the US, so villagers in several areas built tunnels...unlike the tunnels down south which were used more for fighting, these were used for living...people stayed in the tunnels for as much as five days straight...they're much bigger than the tunnels at cu chi...i could stand up properly through most of them, i only had to duck my head a little...they had family rooms, a school room, even a maternity room...17 babies were born there!!
my last day in hue i hired a bike and rode out to some of the tombs just outside town...(another advantage of imperial cities, there are often grand tombs to see...these guys liked to be buried in style!)...the tombs were great, and BIG...i again missed a turnoff, and ended up riding quite a bit farther than i expected...so i didn't see the three tombs i had intended to see, but i did see two others, so life was good...i was the first customer at one of them, the money guy had to get change from one of the local vendors...
that night i took a bus to hanoi, the capital...i arrived just after 0900 the next morning, to more touts...one showed me a brochure for a hotel, and we settled on a price that sounded good to me...($6) but, surprise surprise, when i got there, they said they didn't have any of those rooms left...but, golly gee, they could give me one of their $15 rooms for $12...ummm, no...i told them the reason i went there in the first place was for the price of the room, not the hotel itself...so i picked up my stuff and left...i've heard about that scam before, and i'm sure that it works much of the time...but i'm too cheap...so i started walking, and soon enough found a room for $6...it wasn't great, but i knew i'd be meeting up with layna again that night, so i only needed one night...
hanoi is supposed to be laid back compared to saigon...i was expecting a big difference between the two cities...but i didn't feel much of a difference...traffic was slightly less crazy, but that's about it...there is certainly a lot more to see in hanoi and it's a lot more aesthetically appealing...the vendors are more apt to try to charge foreigners high prices though, which is always disappointing...and by high prices, i mean even higher than the tourist norm...after being in vietnam for three weeks, i know what most prices are supposed to be (well, at least what a tourist can get) so i know when to walk away...
while in hanoi i visited the mausoleum of ho chi minh...when he died, his wish was to be cremated...but the government wasn't about to respect the wishes of their idol, so they built a HUGE mausoleum for him...it's a lot like lenin's mausoleum in moscow, russia...you're not allowed to take a camera or handphone in the mausoleum, they've got a check area for those...you walk in, walk past several military guys in dress whites, then enter the room itself...i counted the number of military guys in dress whites in the room itself, 13!!!! the room is temperature and humidity controlled, it's pretty chilly...it's total silence, except for the whir of the air conditioner...the guards aren't moving or talking, so it's all a bit creepy...plus uncle ho looks rather uncomfortable, and waxlike...no one stays in there for long, it's not a place for lollygagging...by the time i walked out, my camera had already been transferred from where i turned it in!! later that afternoon i visited the literary temple...i've forgotten the history, but needless to say, it's been around for a while...there were a number of temples in the complex, and since it had been used as a university at one point, there were also 82 stelae, one for each of the professors...that was probably the most crowded sight in hanoi...from there i walked south, and saw the former prison at hoa lo...most people wouldn't recognize that name, but during the war, it was known in the states by a different name...the hanoi hilton...it was originally built by the french to house rebels, and communist supporters...the north vietnamese government used it to house american pilots shot down during the war...there were pictures of many of the former inmates, from communists to pilots...they even have the flight suit and parachute that used to belong to john mccain, the former candidate for president of the US...there are also a couple pictures of him...one during his visit in 2000, and one of him being hauled out of a river after being shot down...(in that one i have no idea how they know it's him, cause the picture isn't clear, and the angle is terrible)...there was an entire video dedicated to the american pilots who lived there, telling how they had great living conditions...lots of smiling photographs...i felt like it was more propogandized than the war remnants museum in saigon...
we were sad to be leaving vietnam, as neither one of us felt like we had seen enough of the country...another country we'd both like to return to...
before arriving in hue, i met a girl on the bus, we chatted a bit...thinking nothing of it, we both got off the bus and were approached by two representatives of the same hotel, offering a decent rate...we figured we would check it out, and if nothing else, take advantage of the free ride to the budget accomodation area...anywho, somehow we ended up deciding to share a room...and what a room it was...HUGE...HUGE...HUGE...the ceiling was equivalent to the 2nd floor ceiling...we both had queensize beds too...tv, a fan, a bathtub, towels, it was pure luxury...all for $7 a night, only $3.50 each...at that point we didn't even know each other's names, but why not? hee hee....i discovered later that night that she had taught english in japan for a year, so we spent a bit of time figuring out similarities and differences...fun...
anywho, the first place i decided to explore was the citadel...not in use anymore for the original purpose, but plenty of people still live within the original walls...i had to walk across a bridge to get to the citadel, and to hear all the offers from the motorbike and cyclo drivers, you would've thought it was a 3 hour walk to get there...but it wasn't...the largest flagpole in vietnam (37m, or something like that) is on the outer wall of the citadel...the vietnamese flag isn't anything exciting, just red with a yellow star in the middle...but it was neat to see it flying strong with the blue sky background...i wandered around the imperial city area of the citadel, with it's former temples, palaces, theaters, etc...there is a temple in there where women weren't allowed in!! not even the empresses...my favourite area was the living quarters of the empress mother, or whateva she was called...maybe i liked it most because it was totally deserted...while wandering through the imperial city i came upon the area where they keep a couple elephants...i don't know why the elephants are kept there, or what they do, but i decided to say hello, and perhaps have my picture taken with one of them...i tried to be polite, but apparently he didn't like me, because his hello consisted of shoving me away with his trunk...i tried again, but again he rebuffed me...sad...hee hee...the amusing part is that a british couple had volunteered to take my picture for me, and the guy took the picture just as the elephant was pushing me away...lol...
the next day i took a tour of various locations around the former DMZ...the DMZ (the 17th parallel, it basically follows one of the rivers in the country) was once the border between north and south vietnam...i got to see the rockpile, (there was a US base on top of it, reachable only by helicopter,) the former doc mieu base, (only the remains of a tank are left, it was part of the "electronic eye/wall" built by the US in an attempt to stop the north vietnamese from getting into the south,) the former khe sanh base, (sight of one of the largest battles, but the area really didn't mean much of anything, given where it's located...it ended up costing the lives of too many on both sides, for a hill that didn't matter,) dakrong bridge (over which the POWs were exchanged when the US pulled out of vietnam in '73) and the tunnels at vin mohc (sp?)...the DMZ area was bombed, a LOT, by the US, so villagers in several areas built tunnels...unlike the tunnels down south which were used more for fighting, these were used for living...people stayed in the tunnels for as much as five days straight...they're much bigger than the tunnels at cu chi...i could stand up properly through most of them, i only had to duck my head a little...they had family rooms, a school room, even a maternity room...17 babies were born there!!
my last day in hue i hired a bike and rode out to some of the tombs just outside town...(another advantage of imperial cities, there are often grand tombs to see...these guys liked to be buried in style!)...the tombs were great, and BIG...i again missed a turnoff, and ended up riding quite a bit farther than i expected...so i didn't see the three tombs i had intended to see, but i did see two others, so life was good...i was the first customer at one of them, the money guy had to get change from one of the local vendors...
that night i took a bus to hanoi, the capital...i arrived just after 0900 the next morning, to more touts...one showed me a brochure for a hotel, and we settled on a price that sounded good to me...($6) but, surprise surprise, when i got there, they said they didn't have any of those rooms left...but, golly gee, they could give me one of their $15 rooms for $12...ummm, no...i told them the reason i went there in the first place was for the price of the room, not the hotel itself...so i picked up my stuff and left...i've heard about that scam before, and i'm sure that it works much of the time...but i'm too cheap...so i started walking, and soon enough found a room for $6...it wasn't great, but i knew i'd be meeting up with layna again that night, so i only needed one night...
hanoi is supposed to be laid back compared to saigon...i was expecting a big difference between the two cities...but i didn't feel much of a difference...traffic was slightly less crazy, but that's about it...there is certainly a lot more to see in hanoi and it's a lot more aesthetically appealing...the vendors are more apt to try to charge foreigners high prices though, which is always disappointing...and by high prices, i mean even higher than the tourist norm...after being in vietnam for three weeks, i know what most prices are supposed to be (well, at least what a tourist can get) so i know when to walk away...
while in hanoi i visited the mausoleum of ho chi minh...when he died, his wish was to be cremated...but the government wasn't about to respect the wishes of their idol, so they built a HUGE mausoleum for him...it's a lot like lenin's mausoleum in moscow, russia...you're not allowed to take a camera or handphone in the mausoleum, they've got a check area for those...you walk in, walk past several military guys in dress whites, then enter the room itself...i counted the number of military guys in dress whites in the room itself, 13!!!! the room is temperature and humidity controlled, it's pretty chilly...it's total silence, except for the whir of the air conditioner...the guards aren't moving or talking, so it's all a bit creepy...plus uncle ho looks rather uncomfortable, and waxlike...no one stays in there for long, it's not a place for lollygagging...by the time i walked out, my camera had already been transferred from where i turned it in!! later that afternoon i visited the literary temple...i've forgotten the history, but needless to say, it's been around for a while...there were a number of temples in the complex, and since it had been used as a university at one point, there were also 82 stelae, one for each of the professors...that was probably the most crowded sight in hanoi...from there i walked south, and saw the former prison at hoa lo...most people wouldn't recognize that name, but during the war, it was known in the states by a different name...the hanoi hilton...it was originally built by the french to house rebels, and communist supporters...the north vietnamese government used it to house american pilots shot down during the war...there were pictures of many of the former inmates, from communists to pilots...they even have the flight suit and parachute that used to belong to john mccain, the former candidate for president of the US...there are also a couple pictures of him...one during his visit in 2000, and one of him being hauled out of a river after being shot down...(in that one i have no idea how they know it's him, cause the picture isn't clear, and the angle is terrible)...there was an entire video dedicated to the american pilots who lived there, telling how they had great living conditions...lots of smiling photographs...i felt like it was more propogandized than the war remnants museum in saigon...
we were sad to be leaving vietnam, as neither one of us felt like we had seen enough of the country...another country we'd both like to return to...
25 April 2009
cambodia 2
after phnom penh, we took a bus to siem reap...the town itself isn't any great shakes, but about 6km outside town are the ruins of angkor...angkor is actually several former royal cities, built by a number of different khmer rulers...
to see all the ruins you have a number of choices...first, how to get there...we decided to hire bikes, and pedal ourselves around...apparently this isn't a common choice, because we didn't see anyone else doing the same...we saw a lot of people who had hired tuk tuk drivers for the day...the second choice is what kind of ticket you want to buy...1 day, 3 day, or 7 day...we went with the three day...there are over 100 ruins in the area, and we figured 3 days would be good to see a few of them...(as it was, after three days, we were more than templed out)...the tickets were expensive, but angkor is easily the most well known thing in cambodia, so we didn't have much of a choice...
the city first built was called hariharalaya (yeah, you have to slow down and read it a couple times before saying it out loud, correctly) but the area is now called ruolos...there are about 3 temples worth seeing in that area...i did it on day 3 of our ticket...riding my bike out i missed the turnoff the first time, and rode an extra 5km or so...not a good thing, since that involved turning around and riding back, and the day was HOT...oh well...the ruins at ruolos were similar to all the others i had seen, but that was expected...not very crowded, which was nice...one of them has a still active wat right next door...it was on this day that i ended up with severe heat exhaustion...since the ruolos ruins are a bit farther than the rest, i rode farther on the totally exposed highway, in the 40-42 degree heat...HOT HOT HOT...apparently, drinking 6L a day of water wasn't enough, even with taking breaks under trees every now and again...i had to cut this day short because i realized i wasn't feeling well at all and still had to get back to town...i couldn't cool down, despite taking several showers, and sitting in front of a fan for a while...ugh...that night i couldn't sleep much, because i still wasn't cool...ugh...
the first day we went to the ruins we started with the most famous of them all...angkor wat...the profile of angkor wat is on the cambodian flag...it's beautiful, no doubt...but after all the hype, neither layna nor i felt it matched up...(or maybe we've seen too many temples during this trip)...angkor wat was built by suryavarman II, who was one of the greatest khmer rulers...it "only" took 40 years to build, and afterward was a city whose population was at least 750,000!! this guy was a pretty good ruler...he rewarded those who were good at their jobs, like artisans, ministers, courtiers, etc...he built up a good relationship with the chinese, but didn't like his next door neighbors, the chams...he wasn't so good militarily...he tried to go after some cham (current vietnam) lands and failed...anywho...not far from angkor wat is the former city of angkor thom...built by another ruler (one of the jayavarmans i think?) the most famous temple in the city is the bayon...with 54 towers on the third level with four faces each, you always feel like you are being watched...there are 216 faces in all, and it feels like you can climb all over the temple for quite a while...also in angkor thom are the elephant terrace, and leper king terrace...(and a bunch of others)
i could go on and on about all the temples i saw, but it gets a bit boring...lots of temples, lots of ruins...the ones i liked best were the ones that didn't have a lot of people hanging about...several of the ruins have trees growing in them, and through them, and under them, and over them...beautiful...i wonder if they'll ever do anything to stop the eventual takeover by the jungle...
one of the days i was riding around i met three peace corps workers...currently, the only peace corps program in cambodia is teaching english, though these three said some health care workers will be coming in july...they said it really was a good idea to wear long sleeves, but i just couldn't do it...too HOT!!
after three days of templing, we decided to stay in town and actually see the town...i read about a silkworm farm just outside town, so i caught a shuttle out there, and learned all about silk...a labour intensive process, to say the least...we got a chance to see the silkworms eating, you could even hear it!! they eat for 24 days, all mulberry leaves...yum...hee hee...walking around town was nice too, though there wasn't much to see...it's relaxing though...
our last stop in cambodia after siem reap was sihanoukville...no one really comes to cambodia with the idea of spending time on a beach, but this is the place to find a cambodian beach...we came because we heard it was the quickest and fastest place to get a vietnamese visa...it was certainly fast, it only took about 10 minutes!!! i loved the market, sooo much good food to choose from:)
to see all the ruins you have a number of choices...first, how to get there...we decided to hire bikes, and pedal ourselves around...apparently this isn't a common choice, because we didn't see anyone else doing the same...we saw a lot of people who had hired tuk tuk drivers for the day...the second choice is what kind of ticket you want to buy...1 day, 3 day, or 7 day...we went with the three day...there are over 100 ruins in the area, and we figured 3 days would be good to see a few of them...(as it was, after three days, we were more than templed out)...the tickets were expensive, but angkor is easily the most well known thing in cambodia, so we didn't have much of a choice...
the city first built was called hariharalaya (yeah, you have to slow down and read it a couple times before saying it out loud, correctly) but the area is now called ruolos...there are about 3 temples worth seeing in that area...i did it on day 3 of our ticket...riding my bike out i missed the turnoff the first time, and rode an extra 5km or so...not a good thing, since that involved turning around and riding back, and the day was HOT...oh well...the ruins at ruolos were similar to all the others i had seen, but that was expected...not very crowded, which was nice...one of them has a still active wat right next door...it was on this day that i ended up with severe heat exhaustion...since the ruolos ruins are a bit farther than the rest, i rode farther on the totally exposed highway, in the 40-42 degree heat...HOT HOT HOT...apparently, drinking 6L a day of water wasn't enough, even with taking breaks under trees every now and again...i had to cut this day short because i realized i wasn't feeling well at all and still had to get back to town...i couldn't cool down, despite taking several showers, and sitting in front of a fan for a while...ugh...that night i couldn't sleep much, because i still wasn't cool...ugh...
the first day we went to the ruins we started with the most famous of them all...angkor wat...the profile of angkor wat is on the cambodian flag...it's beautiful, no doubt...but after all the hype, neither layna nor i felt it matched up...(or maybe we've seen too many temples during this trip)...angkor wat was built by suryavarman II, who was one of the greatest khmer rulers...it "only" took 40 years to build, and afterward was a city whose population was at least 750,000!! this guy was a pretty good ruler...he rewarded those who were good at their jobs, like artisans, ministers, courtiers, etc...he built up a good relationship with the chinese, but didn't like his next door neighbors, the chams...he wasn't so good militarily...he tried to go after some cham (current vietnam) lands and failed...anywho...not far from angkor wat is the former city of angkor thom...built by another ruler (one of the jayavarmans i think?) the most famous temple in the city is the bayon...with 54 towers on the third level with four faces each, you always feel like you are being watched...there are 216 faces in all, and it feels like you can climb all over the temple for quite a while...also in angkor thom are the elephant terrace, and leper king terrace...(and a bunch of others)
i could go on and on about all the temples i saw, but it gets a bit boring...lots of temples, lots of ruins...the ones i liked best were the ones that didn't have a lot of people hanging about...several of the ruins have trees growing in them, and through them, and under them, and over them...beautiful...i wonder if they'll ever do anything to stop the eventual takeover by the jungle...
one of the days i was riding around i met three peace corps workers...currently, the only peace corps program in cambodia is teaching english, though these three said some health care workers will be coming in july...they said it really was a good idea to wear long sleeves, but i just couldn't do it...too HOT!!
after three days of templing, we decided to stay in town and actually see the town...i read about a silkworm farm just outside town, so i caught a shuttle out there, and learned all about silk...a labour intensive process, to say the least...we got a chance to see the silkworms eating, you could even hear it!! they eat for 24 days, all mulberry leaves...yum...hee hee...walking around town was nice too, though there wasn't much to see...it's relaxing though...
our last stop in cambodia after siem reap was sihanoukville...no one really comes to cambodia with the idea of spending time on a beach, but this is the place to find a cambodian beach...we came because we heard it was the quickest and fastest place to get a vietnamese visa...it was certainly fast, it only took about 10 minutes!!! i loved the market, sooo much good food to choose from:)
20 March 2009
thailand 3
after ayuthaya i went to lopburi...another historical town, with more temples/ruins...not too far from ayuthaya...i was excited when the bus dropped me off in town instead of at the bus station, saving me a 2km walk in the heat...i was not excited when the first place i wanted to see had an entrance fee WAY higher than i had expected...i had expected 50 baht, but it had increased to 150 baht...sad, but i walked away...the third place i visited was the best...as a set of ruins, it's not all that exciting, you can take all the pictures you want across the street...but you pay the entrance fee in order to hang out with the monkeys...for whateva reason, a band of monkeys hangs out at these ruins all day long...they're smart, or at least they've learned certain behaviors from being around humans so much...they know how to take food out of your hands, even if you weren't planning on giving it to them...they know how to drink out of a cup...they know how to peel the lid off a jello cup and eat the jello...they know how to take the wrappers off little lollies and eat them...they know how to eat corn on the cob...i loved it when they climbed on me...that's supposed to be dangerous, but nothing happened to me, and i loved it...they're cute:)...across the train tracks from these ruins is a shrine at which an old man gave me a fortune, which just happened to be the best fortune in the bunch...yay!! the second day at this shrine i saw a novice monk be ordained...he wasn't smiling, but everyone else was...he was dressed in a fancy white uniform, and carried on the shoulders of someone...there was even a band set up in the back of a truck!! lopburi doesnt have much to see or do, so i only stayed a day and a half...i didn't see any other westerners (well, none that i could visually identify as westerners) while i was there, which was fun...the town isn't nearly as touristy as ayuthaya, and the street stalls have GREAT food...i walked around for quite a while just checking out the food options..
after lopburi, i headed to sukhothai...my third city in a row of ruins/history...the fourth if you count the history of kanchanaburi...sukhothai was the capital of the first true thai kingdom...waaaayyyy back when...during the time sukhothai was the capital city, the nation grew quite a bit, a specific architecture style was created, and an alphabet was created...all in just 150 yrs:) ...nowadays, most visitors stay in new sukhothai, and go visit sukhothai historical park, which is about 15km out of town...again, it's a great place to rent a bicycle...the entire area is flat, and perfect for pedaling...the park is divided into 5 sections, and you have to pay an entrance fee for three of them...again, the entrance fees had increased quite a bit from what i had expected, which was hugely disappointing, but this time i didn't walk away...the temples/ruins are pretty impressive...it's a big area, and there didn't seem to be too many tourists...the ruins here are much better preserved than in ayuthaya...
another day i took a local bus 1.5 hours down the road to si sitchanalai historical park...very similar to sukhothai historical park...but even less touristed...and i got rained on...whoops...now that i've seen the ruins in different cities, i can sorta see some architectural differences...not many, but some...
after lopburi, i headed to sukhothai...my third city in a row of ruins/history...the fourth if you count the history of kanchanaburi...sukhothai was the capital of the first true thai kingdom...waaaayyyy back when...during the time sukhothai was the capital city, the nation grew quite a bit, a specific architecture style was created, and an alphabet was created...all in just 150 yrs:) ...nowadays, most visitors stay in new sukhothai, and go visit sukhothai historical park, which is about 15km out of town...again, it's a great place to rent a bicycle...the entire area is flat, and perfect for pedaling...the park is divided into 5 sections, and you have to pay an entrance fee for three of them...again, the entrance fees had increased quite a bit from what i had expected, which was hugely disappointing, but this time i didn't walk away...the temples/ruins are pretty impressive...it's a big area, and there didn't seem to be too many tourists...the ruins here are much better preserved than in ayuthaya...
another day i took a local bus 1.5 hours down the road to si sitchanalai historical park...very similar to sukhothai historical park...but even less touristed...and i got rained on...whoops...now that i've seen the ruins in different cities, i can sorta see some architectural differences...not many, but some...
14 March 2009
thailand 2
after our short beach time, we decided to head up north...as much as we love beaches, we know we'll have plenty of opportunities to see them...and really, does it matter how beautiful it is when i'm laying out, eyes closed? don't get me wrong, i love them, but i do the same thing on each one..hee hee...
we arrived in the town of kanchanaburi next...most of you probably don't know that name, or care for that matter...but you've probably heard of the movie "bridge over the river kwai"...right? i've heard of it, even though i've never seen it...apparently i should watch it...anywho, the bridge is in kanchanaburi...kanchanaburi is a town with a fair amount of WWII historical stuff to see...the bridge of course, which is where we started...just walking over it the first day...the bridge is part of 415km (i think) of track the japanese used forced labour to build during 1942-43...in normal circumstances, that length should have taken 5 yrs to build...the japanese (and their korean guards,) made their workers get it done in 16-17 months...the way they treated the prisoners/volunteers was awful...they broke the treaties which they had said they would abide by, the hague convention, i think? (it was signed and ratified back in the early 1900s i think)...(on a side note, they signed but did not ratify the geneva conventions)...they didn't feed the prisoners enough, they didn't provide proper shelter or clothes, and the work being done was definitely helping the japanese militarily...(the track was laid in order to give the japanese another supply line to help with their planned invasion of india)...at one point, they had workers working 16 hour shifts, round the clock...around 200,000 people worked on the line...90,000 "volunteers" died...these were locals, and natives of thailand, lao, cambodia, etc who had been recruited or voluntold to work for the japanese...16,000 allied POWs died...not only were they not taken care of well, but the equipment with which they built the line was practically non existent...cutting through solid rock with just hammers, drills, and some dynamite!! one of the days in kanchanaburi i took a bus out to what's known as hellfire pass...so called because of the way the fires looked at night when they were working round the clock...there is a very tasteful museum, and you can walk through hellfire pass itself...the track isn't there anymore...there isn't much in the museum in terms of items, simply because there wasn't much leftover after the war was over...the interpretive boards had a lot of information, but it wasn't overwhelming...i also road the train back to kanchanaburi, and that included riding over the famous bridge...others on the train included a group of russians, who were all busy drinking, or taking pictures...THE ENTIRE TIME!!
kanchanaburi also has a couple allied war cemetaries...they're taken care of really really well...they're quiet places, people don't talk much...one of them is slightly out of town, you have to hire a bike to get there...it's a lot smaller, but the gravestones look the same as in the cemetary in town...there was very little talking by anyone in either cemetary...no matter what side of that war you were/are on, there is a lot of emotion..
in kanchanaburi we stayed on the river...and i mean ON the river, not next to it, on the banks...our bungalow was made of bamboo, and sat out on the water...everytime a boat went by we could feel the bungalow rock in the waves...totally awesome...so quiet and peaceful...except for the karaoke boats of course...they started up each evening, just ask dusk was coming...as everyone knows, some people are good at karaoke...some are, well, not...
layna loved kanchanaburi, and wasn't interested in the next town i wanted to visit, so she decided to stay there an extra couple days, and i moved on...my next destination was ayuthaya...for whateva reason, there are several different spellings in english...i guess it depends on who is producing the postcards...(postcards in ayuthaya were expensive, for whateva reason)...ayuthaya is at the point where three rivers come together, which was supposed to create a natural barrier as well as encourage trade...at it's height, there were over a million people living in ayuthaya...ayuthaya was a capital city for over 400 years, during which time 33 kings reigned...and apparently there was a rule that you had to build several temples while you were king, because the temples (well, their ruins anywho) are EVERYWHERE in ayuthaya...EVERYWHERE...obviously, some are in better shape than others...on two days i hired a bike and spent 6 hours each day pedaling around town, investigating the ruins...ayuthaya is completely flat, so a cruiser bike is absolutely perfect...at one set of ruins two monks even asked to take a picture with me...i was thrilled, of course...i had wanted just such a picture, but since i'm female, didn't think that was okay...women aren't even supposed to directly hand something to monks...so i put my camera on the ground, and the one taking the picture picked it up...go figure, i look awful in the picture...but i didn't feel like i could turn around and say hey, can we do that again...hee hee...i was also interviewed by thai uni students (who said they were majoring in english, buuuuuuuuut i don't know about that) as to why i was in thailand, what i like about the country, where i'm going, etc...ayutthaya is quiet at night, for the most part...except for the karaoke at one of the bars not too far from my guesthouse...i was there three nights, and heard it each night, and it sounded like the same guy...so maybe that was his job? i seriously hope he had another job as well...some of his attempts weren't awful, but some....hmmm...well, i couldn't always tell what song it was he was trying to sing...
we arrived in the town of kanchanaburi next...most of you probably don't know that name, or care for that matter...but you've probably heard of the movie "bridge over the river kwai"...right? i've heard of it, even though i've never seen it...apparently i should watch it...anywho, the bridge is in kanchanaburi...kanchanaburi is a town with a fair amount of WWII historical stuff to see...the bridge of course, which is where we started...just walking over it the first day...the bridge is part of 415km (i think) of track the japanese used forced labour to build during 1942-43...in normal circumstances, that length should have taken 5 yrs to build...the japanese (and their korean guards,) made their workers get it done in 16-17 months...the way they treated the prisoners/volunteers was awful...they broke the treaties which they had said they would abide by, the hague convention, i think? (it was signed and ratified back in the early 1900s i think)...(on a side note, they signed but did not ratify the geneva conventions)...they didn't feed the prisoners enough, they didn't provide proper shelter or clothes, and the work being done was definitely helping the japanese militarily...(the track was laid in order to give the japanese another supply line to help with their planned invasion of india)...at one point, they had workers working 16 hour shifts, round the clock...around 200,000 people worked on the line...90,000 "volunteers" died...these were locals, and natives of thailand, lao, cambodia, etc who had been recruited or voluntold to work for the japanese...16,000 allied POWs died...not only were they not taken care of well, but the equipment with which they built the line was practically non existent...cutting through solid rock with just hammers, drills, and some dynamite!! one of the days in kanchanaburi i took a bus out to what's known as hellfire pass...so called because of the way the fires looked at night when they were working round the clock...there is a very tasteful museum, and you can walk through hellfire pass itself...the track isn't there anymore...there isn't much in the museum in terms of items, simply because there wasn't much leftover after the war was over...the interpretive boards had a lot of information, but it wasn't overwhelming...i also road the train back to kanchanaburi, and that included riding over the famous bridge...others on the train included a group of russians, who were all busy drinking, or taking pictures...THE ENTIRE TIME!!
kanchanaburi also has a couple allied war cemetaries...they're taken care of really really well...they're quiet places, people don't talk much...one of them is slightly out of town, you have to hire a bike to get there...it's a lot smaller, but the gravestones look the same as in the cemetary in town...there was very little talking by anyone in either cemetary...no matter what side of that war you were/are on, there is a lot of emotion..
in kanchanaburi we stayed on the river...and i mean ON the river, not next to it, on the banks...our bungalow was made of bamboo, and sat out on the water...everytime a boat went by we could feel the bungalow rock in the waves...totally awesome...so quiet and peaceful...except for the karaoke boats of course...they started up each evening, just ask dusk was coming...as everyone knows, some people are good at karaoke...some are, well, not...
layna loved kanchanaburi, and wasn't interested in the next town i wanted to visit, so she decided to stay there an extra couple days, and i moved on...my next destination was ayuthaya...for whateva reason, there are several different spellings in english...i guess it depends on who is producing the postcards...(postcards in ayuthaya were expensive, for whateva reason)...ayuthaya is at the point where three rivers come together, which was supposed to create a natural barrier as well as encourage trade...at it's height, there were over a million people living in ayuthaya...ayuthaya was a capital city for over 400 years, during which time 33 kings reigned...and apparently there was a rule that you had to build several temples while you were king, because the temples (well, their ruins anywho) are EVERYWHERE in ayuthaya...EVERYWHERE...obviously, some are in better shape than others...on two days i hired a bike and spent 6 hours each day pedaling around town, investigating the ruins...ayuthaya is completely flat, so a cruiser bike is absolutely perfect...at one set of ruins two monks even asked to take a picture with me...i was thrilled, of course...i had wanted just such a picture, but since i'm female, didn't think that was okay...women aren't even supposed to directly hand something to monks...so i put my camera on the ground, and the one taking the picture picked it up...go figure, i look awful in the picture...but i didn't feel like i could turn around and say hey, can we do that again...hee hee...i was also interviewed by thai uni students (who said they were majoring in english, buuuuuuuuut i don't know about that) as to why i was in thailand, what i like about the country, where i'm going, etc...ayutthaya is quiet at night, for the most part...except for the karaoke at one of the bars not too far from my guesthouse...i was there three nights, and heard it each night, and it sounded like the same guy...so maybe that was his job? i seriously hope he had another job as well...some of his attempts weren't awful, but some....hmmm...well, i couldn't always tell what song it was he was trying to sing...
06 December 2008
nepal 2
VI. THE SECOND CITY
pokhara is the second city of nepal...much more tame, though still touristy...the world peace pagoda overlooks the town...one day we rented a boat and went out on the lake...you can see the mountains behind the city while on the lake...gorgeous...pokhara was also our first opportunity to use computers in nearly three weeks...we were both a bit overwhelmed with being in contact again...as this was only three days after the events in mumbai, it was especially intense...while we were in pokhara, we found out the dates for something we had read about in the guidebook, and decided we had to go...
VII. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
after two days in pokhara, we rode two buses to the village of meghauli...it's just outside chitwan national park...there is only one time of year, and one reason that foreigners ever go to meghauli...each december, for a week, it hosts the world elephant polo championships...how awesome is that??!! on the second bus,i got to talking to the man sitting next to me, and he offered to let us stay at his house...so we did...his house happened to be a 30 minute bike ride past meghauli, in an absolutely tiny village...we got off the bus at the last stop, then walked 20 minutes through fields to get to his house...attracting attention EVERYWHERE, of course...it was a traditional house, one room downstairs, with a ladder leading up to the one room upstairs...it had electricity, but no running water...the kitchen was a straw covered shack of sorts...in the middle of the front "yard" was a huge haystack...that evening our host took us to the house (a 40 minute walk through more fields, we were totally lost) of one of his relatives...she served us local rice beer, and a fantastic curry...obvioiusly, i didn't drink the beer, but layna said it was good, and it certainly smelled good...kinda lemony, though he said there was no lemon in it...walking back to his house was interesting, as it was completely dark...walking where you can't see is difficult, and we all know my level of coordination, even when i can see!!! the following morning we got up, and our host led us (all three of us on bicycles) to the grounds in meghauli where we watched the WORLD ELEPHANT POLO CHAMPIONSHIPS...it was AWESOME...the game moves a lot faster than you would think...there are 9 elephants on the field at a time...4 for each team, and a huge referee elephant...each elephant had two people on it...a player and a handler...the players were using mallets with 2m handles...funny to watch them try to hit the ball and make sure it didn't hit the feet of the elephant...the elephants seemed to know not to use their trunks to do anything with the ball...occasionally they would step on the ball, which of course frustrated the players...hee hee...we saw a lot of missed hits, sometimes three or four times in a row!! there was a team from new york there, it was their first time in the tournament...lots of locals turned out to watch the tournament, it's probably the excitement of the year in that area...there was a british guy doing play by play, he was amusing...he kept referring to "the greatest nation on earth"...hee hee...at least he knew the important stuff...lol...we had so much fun watching that we watched the entire day's worth of games...as we were leaving, i couldnt help but wonder, how exactly does one get into elephant polo? it's not exactly a worldwide sport...
VIII. BACK TO KATHMANDU we hopped two buses again, and made our way back to kathmandu...we had lots of errands to do, and wanted to see a few more sights...laundry, email, etc...we took a microbus one day to a stupa called boddha...it's especially important to the tibetan buddhist community here...it's HUGE...anywho, as we got off the bus, the guy who collects money tried to tell us that the fare was 200NRps each...when he first said the number, we both thought he was talking about the entrance fee to the stupa area...but he was talking about the bus fare!!!! we were both shocked, and weren't about to pay that...it was just another example of a local trying to rip off a foreign traveler...we paid 20, and knew we had overpaid by 5 or so...in american dollars, 200 rupees isn't a lot...but it's more than 10x the fare!!! he had no choice but to accept the money we were willing, but as he got back on the bus he kept calling us idiot girls... we also visited several travel agents in order to get prices for the permits and tickets we needed for the next trek we had decided to do...the last agent we visited was by far the best...he explained what we needed, and even told us we could get the permits ourselves...he also told us that the TIMS (trekkers information management system) cards are actually free...the other agents were telling us that they could get them for us for 500 rupees each!! in addition to their markup on the permits...needless to say, to book bus tickets we were happy to go to the honest travel agent...he told us the price of the tickets, as well as the commission he charged...we were happy to pay that...
pokhara is the second city of nepal...much more tame, though still touristy...the world peace pagoda overlooks the town...one day we rented a boat and went out on the lake...you can see the mountains behind the city while on the lake...gorgeous...pokhara was also our first opportunity to use computers in nearly three weeks...we were both a bit overwhelmed with being in contact again...as this was only three days after the events in mumbai, it was especially intense...while we were in pokhara, we found out the dates for something we had read about in the guidebook, and decided we had to go...
VII. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
after two days in pokhara, we rode two buses to the village of meghauli...it's just outside chitwan national park...there is only one time of year, and one reason that foreigners ever go to meghauli...each december, for a week, it hosts the world elephant polo championships...how awesome is that??!! on the second bus,i got to talking to the man sitting next to me, and he offered to let us stay at his house...so we did...his house happened to be a 30 minute bike ride past meghauli, in an absolutely tiny village...we got off the bus at the last stop, then walked 20 minutes through fields to get to his house...attracting attention EVERYWHERE, of course...it was a traditional house, one room downstairs, with a ladder leading up to the one room upstairs...it had electricity, but no running water...the kitchen was a straw covered shack of sorts...in the middle of the front "yard" was a huge haystack...that evening our host took us to the house (a 40 minute walk through more fields, we were totally lost) of one of his relatives...she served us local rice beer, and a fantastic curry...obvioiusly, i didn't drink the beer, but layna said it was good, and it certainly smelled good...kinda lemony, though he said there was no lemon in it...walking back to his house was interesting, as it was completely dark...walking where you can't see is difficult, and we all know my level of coordination, even when i can see!!! the following morning we got up, and our host led us (all three of us on bicycles) to the grounds in meghauli where we watched the WORLD ELEPHANT POLO CHAMPIONSHIPS...it was AWESOME...the game moves a lot faster than you would think...there are 9 elephants on the field at a time...4 for each team, and a huge referee elephant...each elephant had two people on it...a player and a handler...the players were using mallets with 2m handles...funny to watch them try to hit the ball and make sure it didn't hit the feet of the elephant...the elephants seemed to know not to use their trunks to do anything with the ball...occasionally they would step on the ball, which of course frustrated the players...hee hee...we saw a lot of missed hits, sometimes three or four times in a row!! there was a team from new york there, it was their first time in the tournament...lots of locals turned out to watch the tournament, it's probably the excitement of the year in that area...there was a british guy doing play by play, he was amusing...he kept referring to "the greatest nation on earth"...hee hee...at least he knew the important stuff...lol...we had so much fun watching that we watched the entire day's worth of games...as we were leaving, i couldnt help but wonder, how exactly does one get into elephant polo? it's not exactly a worldwide sport...
VIII. BACK TO KATHMANDU we hopped two buses again, and made our way back to kathmandu...we had lots of errands to do, and wanted to see a few more sights...laundry, email, etc...we took a microbus one day to a stupa called boddha...it's especially important to the tibetan buddhist community here...it's HUGE...anywho, as we got off the bus, the guy who collects money tried to tell us that the fare was 200NRps each...when he first said the number, we both thought he was talking about the entrance fee to the stupa area...but he was talking about the bus fare!!!! we were both shocked, and weren't about to pay that...it was just another example of a local trying to rip off a foreign traveler...we paid 20, and knew we had overpaid by 5 or so...in american dollars, 200 rupees isn't a lot...but it's more than 10x the fare!!! he had no choice but to accept the money we were willing, but as he got back on the bus he kept calling us idiot girls... we also visited several travel agents in order to get prices for the permits and tickets we needed for the next trek we had decided to do...the last agent we visited was by far the best...he explained what we needed, and even told us we could get the permits ourselves...he also told us that the TIMS (trekkers information management system) cards are actually free...the other agents were telling us that they could get them for us for 500 rupees each!! in addition to their markup on the permits...needless to say, to book bus tickets we were happy to go to the honest travel agent...he told us the price of the tickets, as well as the commission he charged...we were happy to pay that...
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