Boat Ride to Battambang

Meghan and Cameron, Christmas 2010

At 5:30am on Christmas Day we awoke to the sound of our little watch alarms. Not to open any Christmas gifts (otherwise Meg would have been at it by 4 of course) but because we had a boat to catch. After cycling fairly rapidly for half an hour (and saying "hello" to the local kids, of course) we arrived at the boat launch and with relief found that we were on time and in fact were some of the first people there.

The boat was taking us via a river to Battambang (pronounced Battambong) and had been reported by many people to be a highlight of their Cambodian trip (next to Angkor Wat) so we were pretty excited. Our excitement dimmed a little when, in order to leave the dock, the driver threw the propeller in reverse and floored the gas making the engine, which was about 6 feet behind us, scream (I guess reverse must have been pretty low geared). This process was repeated every time the driver had to back out. At first I figured backing out was probably pretty rare as we were basically traveling in one direction so I wasn't too concerned. As it turns out though another peculiarity of this boat was that it was very heavy and thus had alot of momentum while at the same time not having the best maneuverability. This became an issue as we made our way upstream and the river became more of a snaking creek. Soon we we were careening off or into the shore while narrowly avoiding other vessels and houses (it was the first time I actually observed a Cambodian get angry when we almost drove over a small fishing boat). One of my favorite parts of the trip up was actually after one of our many crashes into land with the boat screaming along in reverse when the fellow in the seat across from us turned to me and with a calm face asked "Why?"

Anyway enough about the crashing into things and loud noises. Actually one more thing about crashing into things. Early in the trip it appeared that the best route to take was actually through a bunch of trees so we went plowing through this forest and because the boat had open sides all of their branches came smacking in and hitting people in the boat, it was quiet the ride with everyone leaning towards the center, trying to escape the forests barrage.

Even without the crashing, loud noises and tree attacks the trip would have been good though. The country side was beautiful and there were many villages along the river with houses either on stilts or floating on the river itself (some people were actually just living in boats) which was really neat to see. The lake the river was draining into, Tonle Sap, and probably the river system itself play an integral role in the Cambodian story. The lake acts as a huge reservoir during the dry season, when it can get as low as 1m deep and then refills during the monsoon season getting up to 9m deep. The land which goes dry during the dry months are used to grow crops on the new rich soil and the lake provides 60% of the Cambodians protein intake!

House and addition on stilts

Floating Elementary School

Shops, houses and local conveyances

Young kids paddling around. Everyone is pretty adapt at paddling here, little kids to old women.

Temple on Stilts

Across the border, into Cambodia!

With a sad farewell to Shannon, we picked up our bikes and got ready to cycle! The next three months we will travelling primarily by bike, enjoying bus rides, boat rides, tuk-tuks and trains only if we need a break or if the bikes just can't go where we want to be!

We chickened out and took the train from Bangkok to the Thai border town of Aranya Prathet in order to avoid the chaos of exiting the city. The train was interesting as we travelled third class and we mushed in with all the locals....having our bikes on board didn't seem to bother anyone as they were used for back rests, hanging groceries off of, and general entertainment as some peole just liked to sit on them for fun. It was a hilarious ride all in all, and we spent our last night in Thailand with a good day behind us.

The border crossing was hectic but having armed ourselves with knowledge from the Lonely Planet, we were able to avoid all the VISA scams that people throw at you and paid only the required $20 US and not a penny more, for our Cambodian VISAs. Our bike journey started that day and we did 50 km into the first big town.

This isn't the highway...it's a road going out to some of the temples at Angkor

The highway we are travelling on is magnificent for biking...wide, smooth shoulders; some traffic, but not too much; and most importantly FLAT FLAT FLAT!!! There were little villages along the way and at every house the children would come running with huge smiles, shouting "Hello, hello!" The Cambodian people are so friendly, and we had non-stop smiles on our faces from them. We spent our first night in Cambodia in Sisophan, arriving just as we were both starting to get heat stroke (we've since cured that problem and have snacks, water, and fun straw hats with us at all times!).

We did a 100km ride the following day into Siem Reap, the home of Angkor Wat. Unfortunately, our camera died at this point and we have almost no pictures of Cambodia's biggest tourist draw. Siem Reap was crazy with tourists, and had way more money than the villages we cycled past (which were much, much poorer than the parts of Thailand we saw). We spent three full days touring the temples at Angkor, all from the 9-13th century. The ruins are stunning...some restored, some left alone...all beautiful. The first two days we toured the site on our bikes (temples are scattered over a 50 km radius...and there are a lot of temples!!)

For our last day we hired a moto driver so that we could see some of the outlying sights. Somehow we managed to have the only unfriendly Cambodian and he didn't say a word to us all day. Oh well. Our 5am attempt to watch sunrise was abysmal as the cloud cover prevented anything exciting from happening. Literally, it was the worst sunrise ever seen, basically it went from dark to light with no variations in color. Anyway, we explored the highlight temple, Ankgor Wat, and then drove an hour out to see carvings in a riverbed. A stopover at the Land Mine Museum was sobering, and we finished the day with a look around one or two more temples.

We enjoyed our time at Angkor, but were glad to leave Siem Reap and its monstrous hotels, big bus tour groups, and plethora of restaurants serving western food behind.

Into the hills...Mae Salong

Our last few days in Thailand were spent further north, in the hills near the Burmese border. We took a bus to the foot of the mountain, and a truck the rest of the way and were pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the area...pictures of Asia are often of lush green hills with a mist through them, some small villages scattered throughout...that is exactly where we were!

Looking down on Mae Salong from the mountain top Wat

Mae Salong is a Thai-Chinese village. Chinese refugees settled the village, though Thai are starting to move in. The Chinese influence is strong though and the food, language, and Wats were different to what we'd seen. We also drank ALOT of tea!

Local hilltribe farms

The area has many Hilltribe villages as well. These are people that live remotely in Thailand, with their own culture, language, religion. In more recent years, Hilltribe people have lost some of their identity as they become more integrated with the rest of Thailand. One of the King's projects has been to teach the hilltribe people how to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables (intead of opium!) to be sold in markets and therefore giving them a larger income. They come into the villages daily to sell their goods to the locals, and tourists like us :-) We went for a 5 hour walk through the mountainside, passing several of these little villages and enjoyed a brief glance into the way they live.

Hilltribe village that we saw along our walk

We got up early one morning to be at the local market for 6 am to catch the action. Chinese donuts and hot soy milk for breakfast is high on the "YUMMY" list! We had some time to relax, as it was a quiet place to be and after a couple afternoons of walking, there wasn't much else to see--ok with us as it was the end of Shan's trip and nice to just hang out together. We took an overnight bus...not as lovely as the first bus ride we took...back to Bangkok for our last day there.

Chiang Rai

After our time in Chiang Mai we decided to head úp north to Chiang Rai because the two cities names rhymed and Meg is writing a poem about our travels and thought it would make it easier. After an early wake up (it seems like you end up with alot of early mornings when you travel about. Catching planes, trains, or buses seems rarely convenient) we hopped on a bus up to Thaton. The bus ride was really nice, as we got more north the landscape was more forested hills/mountains and Meg even saw a monkey in the trees. This was a nice change from the flatness of central Thailand we saw on the way up from Bangkok. From Thaton we caught a long tail boat (so named because the propeller for the boat is attached to the motor by a very long drive shaft) down to Chiang Rai. The boat trip was beautiful, with the river winding through fields and forests and passed a temple or two. Our boat driver was also quiet adept and we were all impressed by how smoothly he navigated some interesting water.

Shan, feeling alone on our bus ride up to Thaton. Soon after this though, the bus flooded with locals and she had new friends to make.

Something I saw from a long tail boat on the way to Chiang Rai, Pt 1.

Something I saw from a long tail boat on the way to Chiang Rai, Pt 2.

Something I saw from a long tail boat on the way to Chiang Rai, Pt 3.

The Chiang Rai area is part of the "Golden Triangle" because it borders closely with Laos and Burma. That explains the triangle part though we weren't sure about the golden part until we realized that for a long time the region was a prime grower of poppies for opium. The Thai government is working hard to undermine the drug industry there by getting the locals to grow crops for food instead of poppies and from what we could see it seems to be working.

We arrived in Chiang Rai expecting it to be a laid back version of Chiang Mai. I think the reason we thought that was that we had read that "Chiang Rai is a laid back version of Chiang Mai". What we actually found was that Chiang Rai was like Chiang Mai except with nothing to do. That's not actually fair, there is this crazy town clock that, every hour in the evening lights up in crazy colors to some Thai music, but really that was only good for about five minutes of fun.

Colorful Clock Tower

We also visited an informative hill tribe museum which gave us the low down on the various small minority groups in Thailand called hill tribes (though as a documentary we watched told us, many of the tribes now have diversified into valleys). It also had a bit talking about the Karen "Long Neck" Tribes which are a tourist favorite, and which apparently are actually Burmese tribes that have fled across the border to escape the conflicts there. Some enterprising Thai's now pay them to wear their neck rings and that, and money from tourists who come see them, is how they survive.

Looking back actually Chiang Rai was pretty good. We also took in a fun little "Food Fair" with many stalls of random Thai food (not all of which we were brave enough to try) and the highlight of our stay was visiting the White Temple. The White Temple is a brand new (and still in progress) temple designed and implemented by a pretty amazing Thai artist, Chalermchai Kositpipat.

The temple is really stunning from the outside with strange gruesome statues and definitely unlike the other temples we will see. Inside there are paintings by the artist including scenes with Spider Man, Super Man, Avatar characters, George Bush Jr and Osama Bin Laden. Pretty crazy!

The White Temple!

Crazy @#$% at the White Temple

Bangkok

Arriving in Bangkok was like being slapped awake from a good dream. Cars, tuk tuks, and scooters flying through the hot streets following some secret laws (that superseded any signs or lines on the road), sickly cats and dogs wondering through the alleys and people offering to "help" scam you of money on every corner. This is my first time travelling overseas, but I get the impression this is pretty much par for the course in these major cities that tourists frequent.

As we settled in a little bit, we started to appreciate Bangkok a little more. The traffic actually did follow a pretty clear set of rules and was pretty civilized (people even flashed their headlights when they were about to overtake you in some illegal seeming fashion). People who approached you were usually there to scam you, but when people were approached they tended to be very friendly and have remarkably good English. The cats and dogs were still disgusting though.

We were in Bangkok twice on our adventure so far. We arrived there by plane and then came back after a week or so up north to drop Shan off for her flight. On our second visit we really started appreciating the city more as we got out of the Khao San Road area, where our hostel was and where tonnes of us tourists are, and visited the city more by public transit (including a really nice canal boat which got us out of the congested streets and onto a congested boat).

Highlights of our time in Bangkok include visiting many Wats (Buddhist temples), celebrating the Kings birthday (he's 83!), and visiting the area of town Shan had been staying in before we arrived.

The King and I (and Shan)

It turns out there are alot of Wats in Thailand. If I were to estimate, based on my observations, there are about eight Wat's for each Thai household. In Thailand's capital there were some really stunning Wat's including one with a really long reclining Buddha (shown below), one with a really tall Buddha (also shown below) and one with a jade Buddha (not shown below as we did not go there). The Wat's are all different (one of the things we now hope to take away from our time in SE Asia is a better understanding of the significance of various elements and images in the temples) but one thing they have in common is that they are extremely extravagant and pretty. Everything is gold or shiny red and green it seems like.

The Standing Buddha, it was actually a little underwhelming after we walked for an hour (with a very grumpy Meghan) to find this place.

The Reclining Buddha, very cool

The other big feature of our original stay in Bangkok was the Kings birthday. There was talk of it everywhere, including our flight into the city on Thai airways. There are also signs and posters of the King everywhere, but we came to realize that those are always there, not just during his birthday. During one of our walkabouts trying to find things in Bangkok (it turns out Bangkok is NOT a very walkable city, a sharp contrast to our time in New York. Much our time was spent walking past walled compounds and not finding what we were looking for) we came across the parade route for the King as well as a party street that included kids walking around dancing and singing, alot of food stalls and what appeared to be an electronics making competition (which I was particularly interested in, but Meg and Shan didn't seem to much care for). The highlight though was the nightly fireworks and then on the big day a huge set of fireworks and the release of paper lanterns into the air (they had candles in them which shot them up into the air like hot air balloons).

A bad picture but it shows how many of these flame filled paper lanterns were flying through the air (and crashing into each other) at the same time.

On our return to Bangkok we spent our last night with Shan over at her friend Joe's families hotel near the infamous Patpong street. The trip over from Khao San to Patpong gave us a chance to visit Bangkok's Chinatown which was really cool, with super narrow streets filled with every sort of useless thing you can imagine and packed with people and the occasional scooter. We also visited a big park near Patpong in which we got to see a large assortment of Thais doing aerobics to techno music, running through the park en mass, and some older fellows were even working out on some bars setup for the purpose. It was nice to see the healthy side of the city. Finally there was Patpong itself which we just walked through, but that lived up to the expectations one would have of a red light district in Thailand. We had several "menus" of sex shows thrown under our noses which induced feelings ranging from amazement, to disgust, to intrigue.

This is just a random picture. Meg sometimes gets up in my grill about taking photos without people in them, so I have decided to get into "photoshoping" the pictures to make her happy. This is my first (rather good I would say) effort.

Chaing Mai

From Bangkok we decided to head up north to Chaing Mai, roughly a nine hour bus ride from Bangkok. One would think this would be a bit dreadful but you'd be amazed what Thailand has to offer in terms of bus travel..it puts Greyhound to shame. Not only did we have a stewardess (aside from the driver) we were given breakfast as soon as we sat down. A little air conditioning, a comfy pillow, cozy blanket, reclining and massaging seats made it feel as we eating our breakfast at a luxury spa. Next came snacks, halfway through a free lunch at our stopover...nine hours didn't seem long enough!

What a perfect day on the bus...and the food is really good!

Chaing Mai was wonderful and we spent four or five happy days there. It's a mid size city, easy to walk around, enough English to make communication a breeze, and lots to see. Chaing Mai is known for it's numerous stunning Wats, of which we saw many!

A beautiful pagoda

A day was spent at a cooking school, Baan Thai and we all really enjoyed it. We each made an appetizer, 5 main courses, and a dessert...and since we made full sized servings each time we were stuffed beyond imagination by 4pm that day. A trip to the market started the course, and we learned what lots of the mysterious fruits and veg were. Between the three of us, our menu included red, green, and panang curry paste, Chaing Mai noodles, spring rolls, mango with sticky rice, papaya salad and more...

A fantastic day at the cooking school...and we didn't burn anything down!

Another "must" in Chaing Mai is to do a day trip to a much revered temple on the mountain overlooking the city. It was gorgeous. See below, enough said!

The King's Winter Palace

Lastly, we spent a day with our new friend, Mr. Noi. He was a private driver we hired for a day to take us to Doi Inthanon National Park, about a 1.5 hour drive south to the mountains. The day started at 6am so that we could see the monks making their morning rounds for food collection. Mr. Noi had brought an offering for us to give and we were blessed by them before heading off. The drive was beautiful, despite a little rain. We went to the top of the mountain thinking we'd be in a quiet, peaceful place but it was pure maddness! Despite our 6am start, there were hoards of tourists, mostly people from Asia, swarming the mountain top. It was a good laugh for us as many people were taking photos beside the thermometer which showed 8 degrees celcius, the coldest they've seen! There were a couple little walks through the jungle, and thankfully we did find a guide to take us on a longer hike of about an hour. There were waterfalls to see, Hilltribe villages to walk through, and stories from Mr. Noi to keep us entertained!

Shan and Cam drenched by the mist and rain on our forest walk

We learned how to pose properly for pictures from all the tourists around us...

Very nice!

Thailand

...Yes, we are in fact in Thailand..but just a liiiiitttttttlllle bit behind on our posts! We have been here for two weeks now, with my sister Shannon, and having a ball! Met her in Bangkok and have been up north to Chaing Mai, Chaing Rai and currently in Mae Salong for another day before heading back to Bangkok. From there, Shan goes home :-( and we head to Cambodia. Pics and stories to appear soon, promise!

New York City

Where to start? New York City was an absolute blast! The seven or so days we were there went by like lighting with early mornings and late nights. We were also fortunate enough to have my buddy Bryce come down and spend the week with us which added to the fun.

It's hard to tell but above is a picture of us, in a picture in Times Square on our first night in NY. They were filming the people on the street and putting it up on a screen. Can you spot us? (Hint: I am in red, Bryce is in Yellow and Meg is in Red)

I guess I will basically go over the highlights.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island: Since we were in NY we of course had to visit the Statue of Liberty (which included a little boat trip over to Ellis Island). It was a fun little boat ride over to the statue which gave us both a more close up view of the Statue as well as a good perspective on the NY sky line. At the statue we were able to climb up to the top of the monument on which she is standing (that accounted for one of our early mornings as we had to get up in time to get one of the limited numer of passes, passes to the statues crown sell out 3 months in advance apparently!)It was all pretty fun and we enjoyed getting a view of the inside of the statue and there was a pretty good little museum on the statue that we spent some time in. Ellis Island wasn't all we were hoping it would be, it played the same role as Pier 21 did for Canadians, a major port of entry for immigrants, but the museum was rather dry, not nearly as well done as Pier 21 in Halifax.....

.....it's Meghan taking over now so things are going to get a bit brief....Cameron needs a blogging break but will return soon!

As was said, it was a brilliant week...and thanks to Bryce for coming to join us! We did all the NYC highlights including the MET, MOMA, Empire State building, a walk through Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street etc etc! Our shoes were lucky to not have worn out, as we walked for hours each day. Frequently we'd start the day early in order to avoid line-ups, and have a plan to rest mid-day before heading out again at night....New York is so extrordinary that we never managed to pull ourselves into our dull hostel, and ended up wandering the city until the late night...happily though!

Times Square, pure craziness!

Bryce and Cameron with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background

Brooklyn Bridge

We had a beautiful walk over the Brooklyn Bridge with a perfect sunset. We even managed to find some time to explore Brooklyn a bit, and had the best Mexican food any of us have ever had in the Mexican area of Brooklyn, YUM! A little north of that area is Williamsburg, the hipster area, in which we caught a concert.

A great day!

College football

Not only were we busy during the day, but nights kept us entertained too. A college football game was good fun one night..more cheerleaders for us! We saw two musicals...Jersey Boys and In the Heights, both fantastic! The music concert one night, and the others we just roamed.

Strollin' in Central Park, and yes, we did get a run in too!

A 5am wakeup so that we could get up front for the big Thanksgiving Day parade...yes, even the boys enjoyed it!

The parade was impressive to say the least. Thousands of people out and about for it, and thankfully due to hard work and determination, we had the best view ever! The floats were incredible...and HUGE! There were many true American Marching Bands...highly entertaining in themselves.

Santa wound up the parade, and he was just brilliant

It was a sad goodbye to both Bryce and New York City, such a fantastic week and a highly recommended place for you all to visit!

Hello A!

From Maine we drove west into New Hampshire, and through the beautiful White Mountains, though all we saw was rain, rain and more...RAIN! We skipped the hiking, happily had our last night camping, and trucked down to Andrea's (Meghan's old roommate from uni days) in Lebanon, NH. Thankfully for A, she wasn't home when we arrived (and very kindly left a house key for her place!) so we spilled our 3 month camping stench out around the place and let all our wet goods dry, did some tent scrubbing, and sleeping bag cleaning! We had a wonderful visit with Andrea which included eating lots of Vermont cheese, having some real hard apple cider from a local farm, driving through the cutsie countryside and touring Dartmouth College. The highlight came on the weekend when we went to Boston for the annual rival football game between Harvard and Yale. So much fun to be part of a true American sporting event...cheerleaders, big bands to boot! It was a fantastic time, and Andrea...thank you for all! It was so nice to see you!!

The girls at the game

Cam enjoys cheering for Harvard