Angkor Wat?

We boarded a very small plane for the short jump to Cambodia. Cambodia very quickly became the best place I have ever been. Most of us have learned about the Roman Empires in high school history - about their empire and their amazing advances in architecture - raise your hand if you can tell me about the 12th Century Khmer Empire - anyone? Bueller? Angkor Wat is a temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia, built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation—first Hindu, dedicated to Vishnu, then Buddhist. The other temples...not so preserved...

Early on the first day, we found a tuk tuk driver to take us to the ruins. He was a nice teenage boy who quickly secured his place as our "driver" for our entire stay. For just $10 US he spent 8 hours shuttling between all of the temples. We gave him $15 at the end of the day - you should have seen the smile! That first day we went to all of the temples aside from Angkor Wat, including Ta Prahm (as I affectionately came to call Ta 'Shrimp'). It is most famous as the setting for Tomb Raider. When they discovered it the forest had over taken it. Some of the tree couldn't be removed during when they were excavating it because they had become part of the structure.

Our most loyal readers know by now that we fly by the seat of our pants when it comes to our travels. In most cases, that suits us well. This isn't one of those cases...after our day of exploring and climbing old temples, we went to the concierge to book our flight to Vietnam for the next day. And that's when we learned we need a Visa for Vietnam?! Uh-oh...okay we'll get visa, we just need to go to the Vietnam consulate - easy. What, there's no consulate in Siem Reap? hmm...how much do we want to go to Vietnam? My determination led to what could have been a very stupid choice. We sent our passport via air courier to the closest city that had a consulate. Yes, you read that right. We gave our passports to some stranger while in a foreign country. With a bit of a pit in our stomachs we went into town (w/o our passports) to enjoy dinner at the Red Piano - a favorite spot of Angelina's.

The next morning we got up in the dark to get to Angkor Wat in time to see the sunrise. Amazing! We spent hours exploring the temple - they say 80,000 people staffed it back in the day. On the way back, the tuk-tuk needed some petrol. We had to wake up a guy from his nap in a hammock so he could pour a coke bottle's worth of oil into the motor bike.

Siem Reap Day Three - The schedule has officially changed. We're still waiting for the Vietnam visa's to be returned Monday night so we've extended our Cambodia portion an extra two days. We spent the extra touring the neighboring villages/farms while on horseback. This was very exciting as I've never ridden before. We were fitted with Cambodian horses - somewhere between a pony and normal sized horse. My horse always had to be in the lead - even ahead of our guide (who by the way didn't speak a word of English).

Day four - Sean headed into town to pick up our passports (PHEW!)- this time with visas - and to book our flight to HCMC. Booking flights via the internet are not always possible. Furthermore, the prices quoted online are typically more expensive than when you find in here. We packed and headed to the airport.There was a Dairy Queen in the Siem Reap airport. Needless to say, we split a kit kat blizzard.

Christmas in Thailand

This year Christmas fell perfectly - a four day weekend! Given this stroke of luck, we decided to take a trip to southeast Asia. It would allow us to stay in time zone so I could work between Christmas and New Year's (CEB's busiest time), but we could take advantage of the extra days off with a bit of a trip. We took off for Bangkok on Christmas Eve after work. Lucky me, the middle seat. But for real good luck, Mama Mia was playing. I had been wanting to see that movie for ages, but Sean would never see it. Now I know why - it was absolutely horrible! Sean was very satisfied with his choice - the Batman series. The Bangkok airport is sooo big. It felt like we walked several miles before finding the way out. Mental note - arrive early for the flight out or we'll never make it. The taxi ride to the hotel was exhilarating. Never did the driver drop below 110 and rarely did he spend more than a few seconds in any one lane. We soon learned that was normal in Thailand.



Thursday, Bangkok Day One - Merry Christmas! Is it really Christmas though? There are no lights, trees, santas, really anything that would lead you to believe it was Christmas. We woke early to get a good brekky and find our way across town to a Catholic church (thanks Catholictraveler.com) close to the sites. The church was beautiful - the mass, a little long - and there were more people filling the pews in a non-Christian country than you would think. We were not the only westerners there, that's for sure and to top it off the priest opened the service with a G'day. An Aussie!



After church we took off on foot to make our way to Banglamphu. Along the way, we were going to catch a glimpse of our first Buddha - the golden buddha. This attraction was not in our guide book but made on the hotel's tourist map. It was also in the direction of our walk so it seemed like a no brainer. This ended up being a very bad decision. Sean had no idea where we were going, although he refused to say so. Who uses a cartoon map as their only means of direction?! We finally found the water taxi and set off for a day full of Buddhas (one reclining, one emerald, one golden, on standing, one sitting - you get the point) and Phos.









On Friday we started with the Teak Mansion. Sorry, they don't allow pictures of the mansion as members of the royal family still live there. It was beautiful though. A colonial house that looked completely out of place among the Buddhas. Same with the Parliament building.





As we were walking out of the Parliament building, we were approached by a tuk-tuk driver. He said that it was too far to walk and that he would take us to see all of the sites we had mapped out for just 40 baht (a couple of dollars). Here is a lesson to all - if it sounds too good to be true, IT IS! Always the optimist (or naive), I said, let's do it! All is well, he took us to see a temple that wasn't even on the map. Very cool and no one was there. Then, the next stop was what? A shop? He took us to three other shops to browse and buy Thailand goods - made-to-specification suits, jewelry, and other hand crafted goods. The deal -that he later shared after we spent only 4 minutes in a jewelry shop - was that he receives a government petrol voucher for taking tourists to these spots. The rub - we didn't want to go there and had no intention of buying anything. After leaving the first two after only 5 minutes, he told us we needed to stay inside for 10 min in order to get the voucher. The voucher was worth way more than our fare for the day so we helped him out.







*Note - right after we left. Protesters over took the airport and their are still riots going on in Thailand.

The Melbourne Cup

OK, let's start with the basics. The Melbourne Cup is a horse race. But not just any horse race. It is the race in Australia. This race is the pinnacle of a eight-week barrage of horse racing around the state known as Spring Carnival. But unlike most major races that occur on the weekend, this race takes place on a Tuesday. And furthermore, Tuesday is a public holiday in Victoria! You don't have to be a racing fan to appreciate the day off. No complaints here - a public holiday and a day-time drinking event mid-week... good-on ya! Although its not a public holiday in other states, the whole country pauses to watch the Cup race. In addition to the races, people tune in to catch the winner of the 'Best Dressed' competitions. Men in their best party suits and ladies in anything fashionable that goes along with their hat. That's right, a hat. [See Melissa's right] I had an idea what to expect, but I had no idea how over-the-top the day would be.

So if this is the race of the year that every Melbournian flocks to you're probably wondering how we got in. Well, not due to any of my efforts - that's for sure. A friend from work was hoping to pull us in through general passes he had. [we basically would have been in the parking lot tailgating] Unfortunately, he didn't have enough to spare, and we're not that good of friends. So Melissa to the rescue. Melissa works with all of the major companies in Australia. Her relationship paid off and she was offered two tickets.

Now any tickets are good - even general admission would have been fun. I was floored when I got the email from Melissa: two tickets... TabCorp Marquee... Birdcage. To decode that cypher, TabCorp is the major gambling company in Australia that operates casinos, slot machines, and off track betting. We would be spending the day in the TabCorp Marquee which is like a small restaurant - food, tables, open bar, wait staff, elevated view of the track, and best of all - in house access to the betting counter. Its TabCorp after all! The Birdcage is the name of the exclusive VIP section where all the best marquees are. Its the last frontier at the Cup. Every major retailer [Lexus, Myer, Saab, Emerites, Hilton, etc] and Australia company has a marquee set up. Each with their own guest list and bouncer. Each marquee that is trackside - like ours - is elevated so you have an unabstructed view of the track. Our tickets weren't just good - they were freakin' awesome! We enjoyed the full hospitality of the TabCorp marquee. I couldn't even get my full name out to the receptionist before a waitress was in my face with an option of beer, wine, or champagne. [the day is already starting off well]

We mingled with others at TabCorp, explored the other marquees in the Birdcage, and even spotted some local b-list celebrities. It wasn't until we left the Birdcage to meet friends (who were not lucky enough to have Birdcage access) that we ran into the real celebrity. As we approached the secuirty gate to re-enter, we were stopped by a group of large security guards. Uh, oh. Was our cover blown? Did they realise we didn't really belong there - Americans in the Birdcage, something must be wrong?! After some internal discussion, they decided to let us reenter. Good thing, I was sure out day was about to be cut short. As we entered and walked down the small laneway, we noticed it was packed with race-goers and everyone was looking at us. Most had cameras ready, but all were softly muttering and obviously excited about something. Now this is the kind of greeting I could get used to! As we walked through the crowd, putting forth the best smile possible and even strutting a bit, we realized they weren't looking at us. They were looking over our shoulders at the real attraction. Just then, we turned around to see three very large black men dressed in all white. Now they were struttin'! The cameras started popping. These three were protecting a much smaller man whose face is unforgettable... it was Snoop Dogg. That's rigth, Snoop was the Cup main attraction for the Birdcage. He didn't perform; he just showed up, giving added cred to the experience of Cup day.

Needless to say, my horse racing experiences at the Preakness Stakes were a little different. We did those outings on the shoe-string budget of a college student. General admission to the infield, cases of Natural Light, and a couple of shorties from Wawa to last the day. That said, there are some similarities. Preakness, like the Cup, is focused in social day-time drinking. Preakness, like the Cup, also has a focus on clothing, however its not what you wear that gets you the attention ;-)