Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Cambodia: Seam Reap, The Temples of Angkor, and Phnom Penh

Seam Reap

We left Surin on a bus at 6:30am heading to the border of Cambodia. As our guide book had said it's not a very popular crossing for tourists, and in fact we were the only ones we could see there. Luckily the border officers spoke English and there were of course plenty of offers for "assistance" from the locals. We once again paid way too much for the Visa, as our book said it was only $20 USD, but we didn't have US currency, paying in Thai Baht we had to pay the equivalent of $33. There were no ATM or banks for hours, so we had to grumble and pay what they were asking, wondering once again how much we would have saved if we had arranged Visa´s beforehand.

Once across the border, which was quite a painless procedure, a young man offered to drive us to Seam Reap, of course he started by asking for way too much money, and we didn't have a lot on us after paying for the visas. We eventually got him to agree to a fair sum, letting him know we were giving him every last penny of cash we had on us. As we weren't paying top dollar we agreed to share the back of the car, although for most of the trip it was just the two of us in the back. There were two young Cambodian girls in the front seats though, and we tried to converse with them during the long road to Seam Reap. Only 5 minutes into the trip and we pulled into a gas station.

Our driver then asked us for money to pay for the gas. We refused as we had heard of a scam where they get the money from you and then refuse to bring you to where you want to go, or they take you to a hotel they are in cahoots with. You never pay until you get to where your going, that's the rule. We overheard him having an argument with the guy at the gas station, then he begged us some more, apparently he really didn't have the cash for the propane he had just been given. After refusing again, he left and sulked while sitting on the curb.

Realizing after a good 5 minutes that we weren't going anywhere fast we finally agreed that the girls in the front would pay for half the gas and we would pay the rest. We made sure he knew he wasn't getting the rest of the money until we arrived in Seam Reap. The guide book said it would take about 7-8 hours, although it did not mention road conditions. For the next 4 hours we drove down probably the worst roads we have seen on the whole trip. The road was made of red dirt and it twisted back and forth, and it was just FULL of big pot holes. I had taken motion sickness medication, but still felt queasy, Jes even had to take one after a bit. Our driver had stopped at the beginning and picked up some small plastic bags, and we soon found out what they were for. When the poor girls in the front started to lose their breakfast, we offered them some of our medication but they refused.

Oh, and not only were we on terrible roads, but we were in the middle of nowhere. We would pass one small village after another. These villages reminded us of Laos. The people were extremely poor and seemed to be living in one-room houses made of bamboo, leaves, and if they were lucky corrugated tin, which was often rusting. We were a little nervous that our driver was going to take us somewhere to be robbed or worse as there were no signs on these roads; near the start of the trip Jes grabbed the bear repellent and stuck it in his pocket, just in case. Boy were we ever relieved when we pulled onto a paved road and began to see ridiculously huge hotels on either side of us. It was hard to believe that there could be so much wealth after seeing so much poverty. It appears we took the short cut, as we arrived after only 4 hours rather than 7-8.

Our driver dropped us off at a gas station, passing us onto the local tuk-tuk drivers who started telling us they would take us to our guest house for free. This was of course too good to be true, so we refused despite their insistence. We decided to go into the truck stop, get some local currency from the ATM, and try to get our bearings. After talking with a couple locals who knew some English we found we were not within walking distance of our guest house. Skeptical, we took a free tuk-tuk to our hostel. We found later that many tuk-tuks will offer free trips so they can attempt to win contracts for taking tourists to Angkor Wat, which is where the real money is. Jes gave the guy two dollars which he did not want, but we were still too skeptical and didn't want to agree to use him for Angkor until we were sure it was the best option.

Speaking of a money, in Cambodia the bank machines will only give out US currency. Although Cambodia does have it's own currency which is about 4000 riel to 1 USD. So if you need change you get riel, otherwise everything is US dollars. Our guest house in Seam Reap was great. The Golden Temple was the name of the place. We had a private room with on suite, t.v. and A/C for only $15/night. But the extras that were included, get this.. free internet, two free bottles of water every day, free 20 min massage, and then only $3 for a 1hr massage, a movie about Cambodia playing nightly, friendly staff, and a restaurant with amazing food. Needless to say it was an incredible find.

After getting settled we went out in the sweltering heat to check out the old city. As we walked around we met a tuk-tuk driver named Rity. He spoke pretty good English and we agreed to go with him to a floating village after we walked around a little more. We took the long road out to the water's edge. There we were to buy tickets from some state officials. Our hostel said it should cost us about $18, but they wanted $30. They would not budge lower than $25, so we said we would not go on the boats, after all we had refused to spend that kind of money in Europe why would we agree to it in S.E. Asia? So instead we drove towards a large hill with a temple at the top, Rity told us it would cost nothing an we could watch the sunset from there. Once at the bottom of the long staircase we got discussing the cost of the boat ride and what we were missing, Rity informed us we could go still go to the pier and then see if any of the locals could offer us the boat trip for cheaper, plus we didn't really want see the temple so we went for it. The road to the docks was so bumpy I thought the poor tuk-tuk might fall apart. It was also a dirt road, so we had to cover our mouths with our hands to breath, and luckily we were wearing our sunglasses which protected our eyes.

All along the road were little bamboo houses on stilts. We are told the water in the rainy season is extremely high and that is why the huts are up on stilts. Again we saw incredible poverty. Unfortunately after much haggling with some locals at the boats we could only get the price down to $22, but after the long trip an all the work we decided it was worth it. Rity joined us and we enjoyed talking with him as the boat passed a floating school, and headed out toward the very large floating village. It was basically a mass of houses on the water. Most families have a boat of some type, but the poorest children swim to get to school we were told. The people live off of fishing, and any money they can get from the tourists who come to check out their village. A few times we had children speed up to us in small boats and try to sell us snack food, Jes gave in and bartered with a young boy who leapt from one boat to the other like a tiny pirate.

We saw a little church in the village, and Rity told us that it is completely run on solar power; we noticed the roof covered in solar panels as we went by. We then docked at a restaurant, which we did not eat at, but enjoyed the roof top view to watch the sun set. We also took some pictures of the crocodile pit, apparently crocs they had pulled out of the lake in fact. Returning to the dock we talked quietly among ourselves, it had been such a neat experience seeing a whole village that lived in the middle of a lake.

Dusk had fallen and although we were back in the safety of our tuk-tuk we had a new problem.. bugs. There were an enormous amount of bugs from the water that kept hitting us in the face as we drove back toward Seam Reap. We gave Rity my sunglasses as we had no idea how he could keep his eyes open to drive without them. Rity dropped us off at our guest house, and we made plans to meet him in the morning to go to Angkor Wat. We were surprised and honored when he even invited us to come to his home for dinner and to meet his wife and 2 kids. He said he would talk to his wife and pick a day later in the week.

The next day we were back in our little tuk-tuk with Rity. We were amazed as we pulled up to the famous Angkor Wat, which is only one of many, many temples in the area. We thought Rity was going to come with us, but he pulled up along side the many other tuk-tuks there and told us where to go and that it should take about 2 hours and he would meet us in the parking lot when we were done. As soon as our tuk-tuk had stopped we were swarmed by kids trying to sell us things. Everything from water, postcards, jewelry, a guidebook (which we bought), and t-shirts. The kids were very smart, although we were pretty sure the majority of them did not go to school. Their English was incredible, and they would ask "where you from" always as the first question. When we said Canada they would tell us our capital is Ottawa, and one girl even named about 20 of our cities. They know the capitals of pretty much every country. We met an Aussie lady who said one kid told her the name of her prime minister and the last one, and some of the things the new guy had done recently.

The kids would also always say "you remember me, buy my items, I remember you". They would say this over and over as part of the guilt trip they were planning on laying on you as you attempted an escape, mostly though they were harmless and we enjoyed interacting with them. The funniest thing was watching what happened to the swarms as we approached the entrance of the temple, the kids would stop following as if there was an invisible line, apparently they would get in big trouble by the police if they got too close. We learned this little trick quickly and would often jump out of the tuk-tuk and head straight for the entrance knowing the longer we lingered the worse we would get hassled. On a side note, all Cambodians can get into the temple grounds for free, only foreigners have to pay.

One of the neatest things we saw as we walked up to Angkor that first day were the children jumping into the large moat that surrounded the temple, they were flinging themselves off the large bridge and swimming in the water. Our guide book warned unless we figure we have the same immune system as the Khmers that we should avoid the public swimming holes, so despite the heat we stayed at the bridge and just watched the youngins jumping in. We spent most of the day exploring every inch of Angkor Wat, and then we moved onto the north complex called Angkor Thom.

The highlight there was a pyramid-like temple that is famous as it has four faces on the tops of the temple peaks. It was called the Bayon. The climb was pretty insane, very steep steps. We really enjoyed it though as it had some very intricate masonry, and the faces were cool.

Jesse was throughly enjoying himself, pretending he was Indiana Jones around every new corner. It was unbelievably hot that day, and the heat radiates off the stone temples. So despite sunscreen and hiding under our umbrella we were hot; we drank enormous amounts of water to help. After the temples Rity suggested a dinner and dance show we could see with traditional Khmer dancers and musicians. After stopping and getting tickets he dropped us off at our guest house and said he would be back at 7pm to take us to the show. When Rity came back though he was not his usual smiley self. He was quiet and withdrawn and informed us that his wife's mother had just passed away. He wasn´t sure if he would be able to take us to Angkor the next few days, and told us that his wife would not stop crying. We told him we understood the situation and that whatever he decided would be fine, he promised to send someone if he decided to stay home with his wife, and after dropping us off at the dinner show we paid him for the day and suggested that he should be with his wife the next day, as it sounded like she needed him for support. We also told him we would walk home from the show.


The show was very good. There was a buffet where we tried some really weird desserts. The dancers and musicians although very young were good, and it reminded us of the Heritage Days festival back home. During dinner we met an older Aussie couple sitting beside us and made friends. We were still talking away with them when they turned off some of the lights in the building and started packing things up. We took the hint and left, and walked our new friends home to their hotel.

The next morning we found that indeed Rity had chosen to stay with his wife and family and we met Pracott our new tuk-tuk driver. We spent another swelteringly hot day exploring some amazing temples. Our first stop was Sra Srang, an artificial lake that the Khmer emperors of Angkor had built for irrigation. Despite its small size it was one of the smallest of these artificial lakes, although of the big ones only the west one remains. Across from the lake we visited Banteay Kdei, and then onto Ta Prohm. The latter had been left largely as it was found, in other words not fulled restored. It had large trees that had destroyed some of the temple, while other trees were holding the delicate stone structures together. It was truly awesome seeing the jungle intertwined among the ancient structure.

In the afternoon we went to the Cambodian Land Mine museum. It was both fascinating and sad. We saw many disarmed land mines, and a couple pictures of victims. We learned of the Ottawa agreement that countries signed, saying they will not make personal destructive land mines and will work to rid their country of them (with international help if needed). We also learned of the 3 major producers of land mines who have not signed it being the USA, Russia, and China as well some other countries who refuse to sign. The museum itself was set up by some Canadians which made us proud. All money from the tickets, gift shop purchases, and the donation bin goes to help land mine victims and to the work they do to disarm the thousands of mines all over Cambodia, mostly left from the Khmer Rouge.

After lunch we saw a temple complex called Banteay Srei which had the most intricate carvings of any of the temples at Angkor, it like some of the sites we had visited had been built with a moat around it for protection, however like most of the moats they had dried up and only a depression remained. After dodging the souvenir toting locals we jumped aboard the tuk-tuk and asked Pracott to take us to a river in the mountains called Kobal Spien.

It had a bunch of stone lingums (carvings) in and around the water, the place was a good distance away, perhaps 20km. We knew it was a little farther out, when he asked a local about directions he returned and explained that the area closed at 3pm, and it was 2:30. It would take 30 min to drive there. Our ticket for the park stated that all exhibits closed at 5:30, so we figured he was possibly just saying this as he did not want to drive all the way there.

When we arrived at 3:05 we showed our entrance tickets to the uniformed attendant and he pointed us to two younger men down the trail. They had limited English but explained to us that the site was indeed closed after 3pm. They explained further that the site closes early despite our ticket saying all locations were open until 5:30 because there was no police presence after 3pm. They said we could pay to have a police officer go with us for the 1 hour hike if we wanted. This sure seemed like a money grab and after refusing to pay for a police escort as we had paid quite a lot already for our tickets we told the two young men we were going in anyway. There were no signs, nor anything physically stopping us from entering the site, so we started walking up the trail. We told them we would just go to the pool which was at the beginning of the trail, and had some interesting stone carvings we had hoped to see. As we countinued arguing with these two teens we watched as two other tourists came walking down from the trail. This set Jes off as he figured if others can be on the trail why can't we, so he took off down the trail, figuring once we were far enough away they would stop following. The one guy yelled for us to stop and came running up, standing in front of Jesse. It was pretty funny as the guy was half of Jesse's size, like most Cambodians. He was visibly shaking and repeating we were not allowed on the trail as it was too dangerous. Not sure if things were about to get violent or not I urged Jes and he retreated, but we let them know we were upset and left saying we were going to the main office immediately to let them know what was going on. To our astonishment the two guys agreed we should go to the main office. So we got back in our tuk-tuk and drove back toward the city.

Jes talked to a manager at the main office, who said indeed that the place we wanted to go closes at 3pm, apparently because of wild life. He then told us that a few years ago a tourist was attacked by a tiger and killed in the area. The manager didn't seem to care that we were unhappy, although hopefully he took our advice to put up a sign somewhere so that others will not make the same mistake of driving all the way out there to be disappointed like we were.

On the way home we stopped at a flower shop and bought Rity some flowers, Pricott was such a good sport and he agreed to deliver the flowers for us, so we paid him well for his day. That night as we were sitting at a restaurant outside we saw one of the men that had been pictured at the land mine museum. He had no arms, and was selling copied books. It is hard to buy real books in Cambodia, as most are just photo copies. We said to him "we saw your picture today", and he smiled saying "at the museum", although he didn't speak much more English then that. The many kids who were constantly asking us to buy things as we ate dinner sure did not look happy when we ended up buying a book from the land mine victim, but after all he was a celebrity.

After dinner we went to a little cafe for desert and the promise of A/C. We were pleasantly surprised when the two Aussies from the other night before came walking in. We stayed talking with them until the cafe closed, funny enough this cafe just turns off the A/C and people disperse quite promptly. lol

Our third day of visiting the ancient temples of Angkor. We started the day at a group of temples called the Roluos group. We left pretty early to try and beat the heat, luckily it was cloudy for a change and we really enjoyed the morning. The first temple we say was another pyramid type called Bakong, it was pretty large and impressive, although many of the structures around the temple itself have collapsed. It didn't help that the Khmer Rouge had used some of them as target practice. After seeing two other temples in the area we decided to head back to the city as we wanted to break for a few hours to beat the mid-day heat. We decided to spend our free time looking at the market in town and having a leisurely lunch. Unfortunately we didn't find any deals to be had in Seam Reap, apparently with all the tourism because of the temples the locals felt they could get top dollar for their wares.

For lunch we went to a school that trains young adults in how to work in the tourism industry. It is a non for profit organization and the students are chosen from underprivileged families along with other criteria. We were shocked at the service and food, it felt like we had gone to a 5 star restaurant! We almost bought a recipe book to give further support to the organization but alas it was only in French. After walking back to our guest house it was already 3pm and we were back on the road heading toward the last two temples we were to see before watching the sunset.

Unfortunately though the morning clouds had broken up and the afternoon turned into a scorcher, we were soon fanning ourselves, breaking out the heat shield (umbrella) and drinking all the bottled water we could find. The place we went to was Neak Pean, a very fountain that had two snakes wrapping themselves around the tower in the middle. When the middle pool which was more shallow then the outer pools was filled it would then empty through complex stone alters into the outer pools, it was a very impressive structure. The second site was called Banteay Prei and it ended up being one of our most favorite although we practically rushed the whole visit as we wanted to be out in time for sunset. The ruins were very large and like Ta Prohm were only partially restored with many areas left in original condition. We had a lot of fun pretending the stones were falling all around us and exploring this very original like site. Even though we had seen over 8 other temples we were still impressed by this final one, the over two dozens temples vary so much that we could have stayed a week and not been bored. Well Jesse could have, I was getting a little bored. lol

As we arrived at the large temple of Phnom Bakheng to see the sunset we were quickly surrounded by other tourists climbing their way to the top for the evening "show". We scrambled up the big hill and then found ourselves climbing some steep steps up the side of this pyramid like temple, I was amazed that we were even allowed to climb all over it as the after effects of being such a popular spot were apparent. Still we enjoyed the beautiful sunset and after getting driven back into town we said goodbye to our new favorite Cambodian and driver for the past two days. He had enjoyed our company and had fun working on his English.

The next day was planned as a rest day to use the internet, do laundry, etc. but most of all not go outside between noon and 4pm, as the temperatures were daily in the high 30's. We received an e-mail that afternoon informing us that Jesse's Grandpa had passed away because of that and the fact that Jes really didn't want to go on a tour I wanted to go on, we decided the next day I would go on a tour on my own and Jes used the time to call home and figure out if we should head home for the funeral or not. He spent 2 hours on the phone with his family, went back to the school for lunch, and rested. After talking with his family it was decided that we would continue traveling.

The next day, our last in Seam Reap, I went on a "day in the life" tour. I was with an Irish couple and a lady from England. We got along really well, and our guide was awesome. We drove out to a village and first met the mayor who was an old skinny man. The NGO company goes out to this village three times a week, and each time the mayor will chose a host family. We met the woman who's family was chosen and walked for about 15 min on a small foot path, then arrived at her house. We were then shown how to sew bamboo leaves using bamboo vines. The four of us then spent the next 2.5 hours sewing leaves that would be used to repair the damaged roof of their house. The panels need to be replaced every year to 2 years, and many of this ladies were in desperate need of replacement. We were pretty slow as we were learning how to do it, but managed to complete 24 panels by the end of the day. We were told our host family needs about 200 panels, and they cost 10 cents to buy, but as they can't afford buying them they usually makes them by hand.

We learned our host had two boys, and that her husband worked as a janitor. He rides his bike about 2 hours daily to get to the city then 2 hours home. The money that we paid for the trip is divided with some going directly to the host family, some to pay our guide for the van, etc. The remaining money is put in a fund to buy water filters so that the villagers have clean drinking water. We were able to see one that was bought. We ate fresh fish for lunch, but if we did not like the fish there were some sandwiches. The left over sandwiches went to any kids in the village who were there. Of course around lunch time about 12 kids showed up. They were very polite and stood patiently waiting, then bowed before accepting their 1/4 of a sandwich each. After lunch and doing some more weaving we went to a silk factory and got a tour of how the silk is made. We then saw a huge man made lake that they use for irrigation, which was currently being used as a swimming pool. After returning home to Jes we shared our days events, and spent the evening relaxing. We went for a walk, did some shopping, and enjoyed the amentites at our guest house.

Phnom Penh
The next day we were off to Phnom Penh

We took a lovely VIP bus, which was actually quite comfortable, shocking after our first experience on the big roads of Cambodia. Phnom Penh (PP) is the capital of Cambodia and Seam Reap is the second biggest city, so of course there was a nicely paved road which we traveled on. Along the way we stopped in a small place for lunch, and found a local treat.. deep fried tarantulas and deep fried cockroaches. I had seen two kinds of fried cockroaches during my day in the life tour, but the tarantulas were new. There were huge baskets full of them. Although we saw others eating them we just couldn't bring ourselves to try.

Once in PP we got a tuk-tuk driver to take us to a guest house. That evening we went for a very long walk and found the night market, which was really quite small. The next morning we headed out to the killing fields. It was a cool day and started to rain lightly when we arrived. Very fitting for the somber experience. We had learned a lot about the Reign of Terror by the Khemer Rouge while in Seam Reap, but it was something else to be in the place where thousands of people were killed after being forced to evacuate and then live our their lives doing forced hard labour. It reminded us of Auschwitz in Poland in many ways. There is a large memorial full of skulls they had found at the beginning of the excavation. As you walk though the fields signs mark areas where mass graves were found and some of the horrible things that happened there. We would recommend watching the movie 'The Killing Fields' to understand more of what happened. It was a quiet 45 min drive back to the city, and we used the time to discuss what we had saw.

We were dropped off at the royal palace, but found it was closed from 11:30-2pm daily for some crazy reason. So we walked around, then decided to go to the central market. The central market was huge and very crammed. It mostly sold household items such as kitchen ware, towels, tools, as well as some jewelery and clothing. We did not find anything we liked, and were melting from the heat, so decided leave. As we were walking we saw a place with a sign that said ice-cream town. Sounded good, but we did not think it was open as there were just 2 huge glass doors and it looked dark inside. As we approached and Jes pulled on the handle a lady opened and we went in. We were the only people inside that we could see, yet there were about 7 young waitresses ready to serve us. The menu was extremely small and consisted of single ice-cream, or a "lovers" ice-cream to share. We sat down and as we looked around inside this very dark place with very secretive booths in the corners we began to think we were not in just an ice cream parlor. A group of about 6 people came giggling down stairs, from who knows where, then ran off into a back room. We were pretty sure "ice-cream town" was a cover for a brothel. We left feeling uneasy. At every major tourist attraction there are pamphlets that talk about the huge problem of child abuse, particularly sexual exploitation that happens in Cambodia due to immense poverty. An organization called Child Safe which is a partnership of other NGO's (including World Vision) had a pamphlet at our guest house. We sent them an e-mail about our experience, and they responded saying indeed it sounds like our gut feeling was correct and that they would send their investigation team to check it out.

After walking back from the market we decided to put off the palace for some reason or another. We spent the rest of the evening walking by the riverside before tucking into a restaurant for a cheap meal. It took some searching but we found some incredible restaurants, both for the prices and the food. A month later and Jes is still talking about the restaurants in PP. lol

The next morning we set off on a long walk towards the Royal Palace, as we had not gone in the day before. We found a place for breakfast, but by the time we were done, having slept in too long, it was 11am and the palace closed at 11:30. The restaurant we found was attached to a mall, and we enjoyed walking through a supermarket inside. It reminded us of home as it had been months since being in a supermarket. The only difference was that it was pretty dead inside, and most other shoppers were white. I then attempted to go shopping for clothes, but even when the ladies would say they had a "big size" for me it was still way too small. I left a little discouraged and wanting to hurry back to weight watchers, but realized the reason was simply that I was shopping in a third world country where most people simply can not afford to eat. Afterwards we headed to the Royal Palace. We chose not to get a tour guide, but later thought maybe that was a mistake, as we mostly were just looking a big fancy buildings, with no idea what they really were. Never-the-less, we did see some neat treasures.

After the palace we went to the small national museum, which housed mostly old artifacts such as pots that were found from hundreds of years ago, along with a beautiful court yard. Again melting from the heat we ran for cover in an air conditioned restaurant. We tried to sign up for a boat tour on the Mekong, but ran into difficulties, mainly not finding the ticket office. We did talk to a few guys that wanted to rent us a boat but after much walking, searching, and asking we could not find a tour. We settled in at an internet cafe and spend a few hours there burning our pictures to DVD, we had been having on and off success with the iPod and really didn't want to risk losing all our pictures. We also met another friendly tuk-tuk driver named Dan. He took us across the river and for a scenic drive and explained to us there were indeed no tours any more.

On the other side of the river, we went to a quiet park. Jes sat and chatted with Dan for awhile as I entertained three children who had come over begging for money. We shared our cherry tomatoes with them, they taught us Khmer numbers and we helped them practice their English numbers. We hit it off well with Dan and agreed to let him take us out of town the next day.

On the following morning we headed out of town to visit a shooting range. After going through a military checkpoint, which was operated by a guy who held a rope line taunt until we were given clearance to enter (lol) we drove through a small village, and finally to the shooting range. It was outdoors, with no fence around it or anything. At one point a cow wandered in front of the targets in the hand gun area. Luckily no one was shooting at the time or he would have been beef! The army guys working at this place did not need ID or anything to allow Jes to shoot the guns, they just handed us a sheet of paper that listed the guns as well as prices. Jes chose to shoot an AK47 as well as a hand gun. He also got to look at and hold other ones including an M16.

After shooting up some paper bad guys we paid the insane fees (but really where else can you just walk up and shoot an AK-47), we headed to a go-cart track that was next door. They wanted $15 for 10 min which was ridiculous. We tried to barter asking if Dan could come for free with us of if they could give us a discount, but they would not budge, so we left. Back in town we ate lunch and then walked around the Russian Market. It was much more tourist oriented and we bought a few things. It was also very cramped, and getting very hot again. Dan took us back to our guest house where we changed into our swimming trunks, and then we headed out to the pool. Well it wasn't exactly a public swimming hole, we went to one of the fanciest hotels in town, and it had a swimming pool you could pay to use! It was an expensive $5 USD each but for the next two hours we were in heaven. We had decided after staying in a so-so guest house that only cost $13 USD per night we deserved to treat outselves, not to mention we really needed the cooling down. After our pool fun we returned to the the main strip by the river and relaxed at our new favorite restaurant PP Pizza, which btw has the best $1.50 hamburger on the planet.

The next morning we were up bright and early at 5:30 am to get on a plane heading to Bangkok, and then onto Shenzhen, China. We flew both flights with our friends at Air Asia.

pictures to follow

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