Cambodia/Thailand or "Attack of the Selfie sticks"
The Cambodian adventure really starts with our Xmas Eve. The Chief Programme Manager who had actually organized the adventure was not well and really shouldn't be traveling. We had the table set for 14 guests but all family members pitched in and guests brought goodies as well so the food was under control. There was some debate later about whether that last bottle of wine needed to be opened but heck, it's Xmas
The next problem to be surmounted was the 06:30 flight out of Canberra the next morning, especially since the packing last night was a tad flakey. Alarms went off at 04:20, Alex and Nich turned up, Michael woke up, the X5 was packed to gills and we were off. Qantas and their partnership with Emirates has some idiocies in relation to our Qantas Club membership. We are both members, we are flying on their Aircraft, our boarding passes reflect both Emirates and Qantas flight numbers but they act like they are doing us a favor when they let us in. We will take this up with them later.
A quick top up in Qantas Club Sydney and then we are off on our 9 hour plus leg to Bangkok. The Qantas Airbus A330 is surprisingly comfortable in cattle class though is still hard to get out of seats to go to the loo. There are plenty of options on the in flight entertainment system so I caught up with some films that I had wanted to see (and was glad that I hadn't bothered with parting with my dosh to see at cinema). Food was ok but I noticed our side of plane missed out on formal dessert but we did get ice cream later.
We had a couple of hours on the ground, transiting to Bangkok Air and we had a slight hitch as Qantas had not been able to supply Boarding Passes for the last leg, even though they could check our luggage all the way through to Siem Reap. Security were reluctant to let us pass from the Arrivals level to the Departures level without the Boarding Passes but eventually our luggage docket convinced them that we weren't out to do them harm. Bangkok Air has their own little lounge where one could lounge and snack before our flight. Bangkok Air is a "boutique" airline whatever that means. I guess one attribute is to serve a meal on what was a 30 minute ish flight. Take note Qantas, they did it easily by having tons of aircrew on board and it put Qantas' effort on the CBR-SYD run to shame.
The arrival at Siem Reap international was remarkable as to how long it took to clear immigration. They had all the electronic gizmos including taking our finger prints but it took forever. Absolutely no one is checking passengers at Customs so we cleared that section quite clearly. The next hurdle was getting to our Hotel. The Hotel included airport transfers in its package but I guess we should have formally told them what flight we were arriving on. Once we had ascertained that there was no one to meet us, we then had to work out how to taxi. No dramas there and it was a reasonably short ride to our hotel, the "Royal Angkor Resort and Spa".
Very friendly staff and we were given a refreshing drink whilst they beavered away to check us in. Very majestic hotel, we managed to have one drink by the pool before turning in after what had been very long day.
One of the traveler's tummy woke very early for Breakfast (Cambodia is 4 hours behind Canberra) and had to wait impatiently for the spouse to also wake. I do love my Buffet breakfasts (in case you hadn't guessed, but it was me). Every day over our stay, there were slight tweaks to what was available but it was all good. The tropical fruits were delightful, as was the bakery section and the egg station pumped out worthy omelets. 5 kilos later it was time to work out what to do. The taxi driver had said don't use the Hotel services as they would rip us off. Far better for us to let him rip us off.
We decided to use a Tuk Tuk affiliated with the Hotel and the price difference was balanced by a greater sense of trust. Sockha was our driver and he did look after us over a few days with possibly only one blemish on the last day. The roads are jam packed with Tuk Tuk s, not going overly fast with the rest of the motorists being scooter riders. Helmets are optional, texting or speaking whilst riding is the norm.
We first headed into town to a Money Exchange. I witnessed someone come out and give our driver some cash which I guess is pretty much the norm around the world. Then headed off to the Temples region where we first needed to buy our passes. Impressed how quick the process was to buy our photographic 3 day passes. I'm not quite sure which temples we were seeing but Sockha was in charge and always kept an eye out for us when we were returning.
The Temples are magnificent! There, you need to go and check them out yourselves. Each Temple complex is different and has its own style. Some date back to 900 AD and it seems the rest are about the 1100-1200s. Be prepared to do a lot of walking and a lot of climbing of steep stairs. I am a bit surprised that they still let people literally climb all over them. In some places, they have installed wooden stairs but I'm sure the constant feet on stone isn't sustainable in the long run. Also be prepared to spend much time on board your Tuk Tuk. If there are more than 2 of you, you need to sit on a smaller bench with a mm of padding facing backwards. The facing forward possie isn't that's much more comfortable. The temple known as the "Lara Croft" temple (parts of the film were shot here) is spectacular because of the way the trees have overgrown the complex. It is also fun trying to find your Tuk Tuk amongst all the other Tuk tuks when you finish at a particular site.
I have to say something about the beggars and the general poverty that is Cambodia. I am the world’s largest softie and I don't handle the begging very well and probably come across as very callous and uncaring. It is very confronting with the young children in your face. We are now the proud owners on a new recorder and Nich did buy one of the guide books. We will revisit this a bit later on. Since 1992, 3,500,000 land mines have been removed from Cambodia but there is still much more work to be done. As an aside, I read that they have recruited a company of specially trained rats, that are excellent at sniffing out the TNT, however a few have been blown up in the process so they are looking to recruit a few more. The country does have some issues but the people are genuinely lovely and very friendly. 85% of the population is involved in agriculture but that is done in a very manual labouring way. It is good that most children attend primary school but some obviously don't and are put to work begging by their parents. In the Lara Croft temple, Krysia was approached by one of the un-official tour guides who adopted her and told her stuff and some hidden photo opportunities, of course for a price (later, at another temple, a police officer also showed her a good spot and put out his hand explaining that he had 2 jobs).
After a long hot day, we got back to the hotel on Sunset and hit the pool to relax. The rest of the tour group (everyone except for me) decided to hit the town and markets. Tuk Tuk was $3 US one way. I enjoyed a room service Hamburger that was very nice as I watched a game of American football with Cambodian commentary and was pushing Zs when the tour group returned. The beds in the hotel were as firm as a Tuk Tuk seat.
We had decided to hit the main temple (Angkor Wat itself) at dawn the next day. At 5:00 am, Sockha was waiting for us at reception and headed off in the darkness. Many were gathered as the sun crept up over the horizon. The hawkers were also there in force offering the usual but also coffee and teas. We had better plans, after the sun had risen, we Tuk Tuk’ed back to the Hotel for our buffet breakfast. After a leisurely breakfast, we boarded our luxurious transport and continued our tour of the temples. We started with Angkor Wat where we had started the day. This is the biggest of the temples and it is truly huge (and easy to get separated from ones traveling companions). After we managed to reunite ourselves, we headed off somewhere else. Our lunch break today was another place that our driver would collect a small commission from but it wasn't up to yesterday's standard. Surprisingly, the toilets out in the middle of nowhere were quite civilised. There are a few geocaches hidden around the temples. They really shouldn't be as they encourage exploring the ancient walls. They wouldn't be allowed in Australia. However, my country stats have increased by one. As we returned to the hotel, we noticed with each journey, our bums were getting more numb by the metre. The younger members of the party headed back to town for more markets but Krysia and myself made do with dinner from the hotel.
The next day, we declared a truce on the Temples and opted for pool and massages (after the buffet breakfast of course). I am so glad I didn't opt for the hero massage, my little Cambodian woman, even after I squeaked medium after she suggested strong, almost crippled me. My little toe will never be the same and there was giggling from the bed next to mine (Krysia) when I let out yet another groan of pain and explained I was a little stiff (Nich had an encounter of the closer unwanted kind in town the night before where a masseuse thought he might like a happy ending-he didn't ). We all headed into town that night on the Hotel shuttle. The markets were ok, if you are into that sort of thing but nothing took my fancy though I did finally see my deep fried tarantulas for sale. We grabbed dinner at an Italian cafe, as you do before beginning the haggling task of getting a good Tuk Tuk price for the ride back to the hotel.
After breakfast, we headed off at 9:00 am to use the the last day of our 3 day Temple pass. Krysia had done the research and we were off to the oldest of the temples for starters. The bad news was, it was the furtherest away of our explorations to date. In Tuk Tuk numb bum terms, it came close to extraordinary on the pain scale. This temple was the most Hindu of the lot and I guess, it also set the standard that every following temple had to beat. The next temple we visited was the most photogenic of the lot (in my humble opinion). It also had one of the biggest fleets of sellers and beggars. After the next temple, our driver said we should really see the floating fishing village which was way back on the other side of Siem Reap. Officially, my bum was declared dead at about the 3/4 stage of the journey.
I think our Tuk Tuk driver over stretched our trust on this occasion. The boat trip was expensive by Cambodian standards. The 4 of us boarded the boat with the driver and his 5 year old son. It was noisy and smelly, the water was the color of the most foulest of sludges. The 5 year old wanted to give back rubs for a US$1, mid journey out, another little lad boarded the boat from another boat with his basket of warm soft drinks, the Capt wanted to know which charity we were going to support but ended up taking us to the floating crocodile farm where we could pay to feed the big old crocs or buy some food for ourselves. The buying rice for the school kids is quite an established scam (we should have paid attention to all the warnings on “Trip Advisor”). Capt then got quite narky with us because we didn't want to tip him. With hindsight, most of the Trip Advisor reviews of the floating village are not good and is not recommended which is a pity because it really is a little interesting. Wouldn't eat any of the fish caught in the lake though as I don't quite think the houses have put too much effort into the sanitation aspects (the lake is huge, almost a sea).
The young’uns headed back into town one last time for dinner where we opted for dinner by the pool. We both ordered pizza and Krysia was a bit perturbed that her vegetarian had little meat like objects in it. She marched back inside to ask what they were and was told "Mam, it's ham". I don't think they quite understand the concept of vegetarian. She changed her order to a vegetarian red curry and to wait almost 30 minutes for it to arrive. At least we weren't charged for it. Not a good end to our stay
One last buffet breakfast and then an 8:00 am transfer to the airport. The airport is really quite an impressive bit of work for Cambodia. A short Bangkok Air Flight and we arrived at Bangkok's huge airport. Lots of moving walkways so it is quite quick to transverse but a huge bottleneck at Immigration. Eventually we cleared and made our way to the taxi rank. Managed to squeeze our luggage into a van and we were off for the 45 minute drive to our hotel. Driver spoke no English, indicators were used sparingly and he liked to straddle the lanes of the freeway to keep his options open. His fuel warning light was on the entire journey. Once off the freeway, there were many parking lot moments where we did not move for ages. Eventually arrived at our very modern hotel in Ploenchit. Interesting that there is no alcohol available and I think it is something to do with some Islamic connections. The majority of the travelers wanted to visit some markets and this little bunny couldn't work out why! So they went, and I grabbed some lunch from the hotel cafe. Afterwards, went for a walk to the nearby shopping mall that was full of all the top designer shops with lots of Porsche and other exotica cars around. Not short of a dollar is this part of town. Surprised that the majority of cars on the road in the city are all late models.
A good giggle to start the day. Allow me to set the scene. Our tour group is sharing a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment. I am in the bathroom having a shave when I hear the phone ringing in the bedroom. I can hear Krystyna having a sort of awkward conversation. I ask who it was. She says it was Nich, I ask what did he want; she says she is not sure as it sounded like he just woke up. It appeared to be one of those conversations that just wasn’t leading anywhere so they agreed we would see each other at breakfast. Still thought it a bit strange that Nich would ring from a bedroom 2 metres away. We went down to breakfast and were joined by Nich and Alex some 30 minutes later. Some 15 minutes later, Alex blurted out “Why did you ring Nich?” A very interesting conversation followed where we finally worked out that neither party rang the other but the phone decided to ring in each bedroom. Both parties answered, assuming the other party had initiated the call. No wonder the conversation was stilted!
After breakfast, we got a taxi from the Hotel to the Grand Palace. There was some confusion when the driver ended up dropping us at yet another market street. By the way, when our tour group went exploring the day before, they told me they got stuck in a traffic jam where they literally didn't move for 30 minutes. Driver turned the engine off and went for a smoke. Downtown Bangkok is just one big traffic jam but I am surprised to say I didn't see any accidents (plenty of close calls though). We eventually made our way to the Grand Palace where the crowds were massive. One needed to Q to get in, Q to security, Q to borrow clothes if one was too scantily clad and q to leave the joint because you found the place too chockers. We then wound our way to a nearby temple complex. That was also overrun by crowds. The others Q'd so monks could hit them on the head and spray them with water. I stood near a water feature where a number of different tour groups smiled sweetly at me and asked me to take their photos, except for some horrible Indian people who wanted me to stand somewhere else.
The tour group then split into two parties with the more senior group opting to head back to hotel. Well, that was fun. Couldn't get a taxi who would take us, we thought we would then walk to what we thought would be a nearby train station, errrr, we were nowhere near any said train station. We finally got a Tuk Tuk driver to take us to a train station which was much further than we thought. The train is fast and soon had us near our hotel. We grabbed some curries from the big Western style department store and headed back to Hotel to eat them. Krysia couldn't help herself and had to head back to do some pillaging at Zara but she did bring back some green tea flavoured Cornettos which also had a Kit Kat sticking out of it. Spent most of the evening reading Trip Advisor reviews of places we had been and I think we both passed out by 11:00 pm. Nich and Alex managed to stay out on the town until the wee early hours.
Last morning, Krysia is off too some markets to try to find some "things" that are the real reason we came to Bangkok apparently. I've been banished to hotel lobby where I am continuing to write this. She had success with her market purchases and before long, taxis were arranged and we were off to the airport and the overnight flight back to Oz.
Reflections? We did enjoy Cambodia and we think we spent the perfect amount of time for Siem Reap and the temples. If one wanted to see more of the rest of the country, then certainly allow more time. The people are generally friendly and the pace is not too hectic. Bangkok? Does nothing for me but you will need to make up your own mind on that.
And I will finish this by a comment on the title of the piece. I was gob smacked by the ubiquity of the selfie-stick. People seem to prefer taking a bad photo of an attraction and include their mugs in shot, than actually compose a shot that captures the essence of the location. Beats me. It was really hard to take a photo of the temples when there were no other people in frame.
The Cambodian adventure really starts with our Xmas Eve. The Chief Programme Manager who had actually organized the adventure was not well and really shouldn't be traveling. We had the table set for 14 guests but all family members pitched in and guests brought goodies as well so the food was under control. There was some debate later about whether that last bottle of wine needed to be opened but heck, it's Xmas
The next problem to be surmounted was the 06:30 flight out of Canberra the next morning, especially since the packing last night was a tad flakey. Alarms went off at 04:20, Alex and Nich turned up, Michael woke up, the X5 was packed to gills and we were off. Qantas and their partnership with Emirates has some idiocies in relation to our Qantas Club membership. We are both members, we are flying on their Aircraft, our boarding passes reflect both Emirates and Qantas flight numbers but they act like they are doing us a favor when they let us in. We will take this up with them later.
A quick top up in Qantas Club Sydney and then we are off on our 9 hour plus leg to Bangkok. The Qantas Airbus A330 is surprisingly comfortable in cattle class though is still hard to get out of seats to go to the loo. There are plenty of options on the in flight entertainment system so I caught up with some films that I had wanted to see (and was glad that I hadn't bothered with parting with my dosh to see at cinema). Food was ok but I noticed our side of plane missed out on formal dessert but we did get ice cream later.
We had a couple of hours on the ground, transiting to Bangkok Air and we had a slight hitch as Qantas had not been able to supply Boarding Passes for the last leg, even though they could check our luggage all the way through to Siem Reap. Security were reluctant to let us pass from the Arrivals level to the Departures level without the Boarding Passes but eventually our luggage docket convinced them that we weren't out to do them harm. Bangkok Air has their own little lounge where one could lounge and snack before our flight. Bangkok Air is a "boutique" airline whatever that means. I guess one attribute is to serve a meal on what was a 30 minute ish flight. Take note Qantas, they did it easily by having tons of aircrew on board and it put Qantas' effort on the CBR-SYD run to shame.
The arrival at Siem Reap international was remarkable as to how long it took to clear immigration. They had all the electronic gizmos including taking our finger prints but it took forever. Absolutely no one is checking passengers at Customs so we cleared that section quite clearly. The next hurdle was getting to our Hotel. The Hotel included airport transfers in its package but I guess we should have formally told them what flight we were arriving on. Once we had ascertained that there was no one to meet us, we then had to work out how to taxi. No dramas there and it was a reasonably short ride to our hotel, the "Royal Angkor Resort and Spa".
Very friendly staff and we were given a refreshing drink whilst they beavered away to check us in. Very majestic hotel, we managed to have one drink by the pool before turning in after what had been very long day.
One of the traveler's tummy woke very early for Breakfast (Cambodia is 4 hours behind Canberra) and had to wait impatiently for the spouse to also wake. I do love my Buffet breakfasts (in case you hadn't guessed, but it was me). Every day over our stay, there were slight tweaks to what was available but it was all good. The tropical fruits were delightful, as was the bakery section and the egg station pumped out worthy omelets. 5 kilos later it was time to work out what to do. The taxi driver had said don't use the Hotel services as they would rip us off. Far better for us to let him rip us off.
We decided to use a Tuk Tuk affiliated with the Hotel and the price difference was balanced by a greater sense of trust. Sockha was our driver and he did look after us over a few days with possibly only one blemish on the last day. The roads are jam packed with Tuk Tuk s, not going overly fast with the rest of the motorists being scooter riders. Helmets are optional, texting or speaking whilst riding is the norm.
We first headed into town to a Money Exchange. I witnessed someone come out and give our driver some cash which I guess is pretty much the norm around the world. Then headed off to the Temples region where we first needed to buy our passes. Impressed how quick the process was to buy our photographic 3 day passes. I'm not quite sure which temples we were seeing but Sockha was in charge and always kept an eye out for us when we were returning.
The Temples are magnificent! There, you need to go and check them out yourselves. Each Temple complex is different and has its own style. Some date back to 900 AD and it seems the rest are about the 1100-1200s. Be prepared to do a lot of walking and a lot of climbing of steep stairs. I am a bit surprised that they still let people literally climb all over them. In some places, they have installed wooden stairs but I'm sure the constant feet on stone isn't sustainable in the long run. Also be prepared to spend much time on board your Tuk Tuk. If there are more than 2 of you, you need to sit on a smaller bench with a mm of padding facing backwards. The facing forward possie isn't that's much more comfortable. The temple known as the "Lara Croft" temple (parts of the film were shot here) is spectacular because of the way the trees have overgrown the complex. It is also fun trying to find your Tuk Tuk amongst all the other Tuk tuks when you finish at a particular site.
I have to say something about the beggars and the general poverty that is Cambodia. I am the world’s largest softie and I don't handle the begging very well and probably come across as very callous and uncaring. It is very confronting with the young children in your face. We are now the proud owners on a new recorder and Nich did buy one of the guide books. We will revisit this a bit later on. Since 1992, 3,500,000 land mines have been removed from Cambodia but there is still much more work to be done. As an aside, I read that they have recruited a company of specially trained rats, that are excellent at sniffing out the TNT, however a few have been blown up in the process so they are looking to recruit a few more. The country does have some issues but the people are genuinely lovely and very friendly. 85% of the population is involved in agriculture but that is done in a very manual labouring way. It is good that most children attend primary school but some obviously don't and are put to work begging by their parents. In the Lara Croft temple, Krysia was approached by one of the un-official tour guides who adopted her and told her stuff and some hidden photo opportunities, of course for a price (later, at another temple, a police officer also showed her a good spot and put out his hand explaining that he had 2 jobs).
After a long hot day, we got back to the hotel on Sunset and hit the pool to relax. The rest of the tour group (everyone except for me) decided to hit the town and markets. Tuk Tuk was $3 US one way. I enjoyed a room service Hamburger that was very nice as I watched a game of American football with Cambodian commentary and was pushing Zs when the tour group returned. The beds in the hotel were as firm as a Tuk Tuk seat.
We had decided to hit the main temple (Angkor Wat itself) at dawn the next day. At 5:00 am, Sockha was waiting for us at reception and headed off in the darkness. Many were gathered as the sun crept up over the horizon. The hawkers were also there in force offering the usual but also coffee and teas. We had better plans, after the sun had risen, we Tuk Tuk’ed back to the Hotel for our buffet breakfast. After a leisurely breakfast, we boarded our luxurious transport and continued our tour of the temples. We started with Angkor Wat where we had started the day. This is the biggest of the temples and it is truly huge (and easy to get separated from ones traveling companions). After we managed to reunite ourselves, we headed off somewhere else. Our lunch break today was another place that our driver would collect a small commission from but it wasn't up to yesterday's standard. Surprisingly, the toilets out in the middle of nowhere were quite civilised. There are a few geocaches hidden around the temples. They really shouldn't be as they encourage exploring the ancient walls. They wouldn't be allowed in Australia. However, my country stats have increased by one. As we returned to the hotel, we noticed with each journey, our bums were getting more numb by the metre. The younger members of the party headed back to town for more markets but Krysia and myself made do with dinner from the hotel.
The next day, we declared a truce on the Temples and opted for pool and massages (after the buffet breakfast of course). I am so glad I didn't opt for the hero massage, my little Cambodian woman, even after I squeaked medium after she suggested strong, almost crippled me. My little toe will never be the same and there was giggling from the bed next to mine (Krysia) when I let out yet another groan of pain and explained I was a little stiff (Nich had an encounter of the closer unwanted kind in town the night before where a masseuse thought he might like a happy ending-he didn't ). We all headed into town that night on the Hotel shuttle. The markets were ok, if you are into that sort of thing but nothing took my fancy though I did finally see my deep fried tarantulas for sale. We grabbed dinner at an Italian cafe, as you do before beginning the haggling task of getting a good Tuk Tuk price for the ride back to the hotel.
After breakfast, we headed off at 9:00 am to use the the last day of our 3 day Temple pass. Krysia had done the research and we were off to the oldest of the temples for starters. The bad news was, it was the furtherest away of our explorations to date. In Tuk Tuk numb bum terms, it came close to extraordinary on the pain scale. This temple was the most Hindu of the lot and I guess, it also set the standard that every following temple had to beat. The next temple we visited was the most photogenic of the lot (in my humble opinion). It also had one of the biggest fleets of sellers and beggars. After the next temple, our driver said we should really see the floating fishing village which was way back on the other side of Siem Reap. Officially, my bum was declared dead at about the 3/4 stage of the journey.
I think our Tuk Tuk driver over stretched our trust on this occasion. The boat trip was expensive by Cambodian standards. The 4 of us boarded the boat with the driver and his 5 year old son. It was noisy and smelly, the water was the color of the most foulest of sludges. The 5 year old wanted to give back rubs for a US$1, mid journey out, another little lad boarded the boat from another boat with his basket of warm soft drinks, the Capt wanted to know which charity we were going to support but ended up taking us to the floating crocodile farm where we could pay to feed the big old crocs or buy some food for ourselves. The buying rice for the school kids is quite an established scam (we should have paid attention to all the warnings on “Trip Advisor”). Capt then got quite narky with us because we didn't want to tip him. With hindsight, most of the Trip Advisor reviews of the floating village are not good and is not recommended which is a pity because it really is a little interesting. Wouldn't eat any of the fish caught in the lake though as I don't quite think the houses have put too much effort into the sanitation aspects (the lake is huge, almost a sea).
The young’uns headed back into town one last time for dinner where we opted for dinner by the pool. We both ordered pizza and Krysia was a bit perturbed that her vegetarian had little meat like objects in it. She marched back inside to ask what they were and was told "Mam, it's ham". I don't think they quite understand the concept of vegetarian. She changed her order to a vegetarian red curry and to wait almost 30 minutes for it to arrive. At least we weren't charged for it. Not a good end to our stay
One last buffet breakfast and then an 8:00 am transfer to the airport. The airport is really quite an impressive bit of work for Cambodia. A short Bangkok Air Flight and we arrived at Bangkok's huge airport. Lots of moving walkways so it is quite quick to transverse but a huge bottleneck at Immigration. Eventually we cleared and made our way to the taxi rank. Managed to squeeze our luggage into a van and we were off for the 45 minute drive to our hotel. Driver spoke no English, indicators were used sparingly and he liked to straddle the lanes of the freeway to keep his options open. His fuel warning light was on the entire journey. Once off the freeway, there were many parking lot moments where we did not move for ages. Eventually arrived at our very modern hotel in Ploenchit. Interesting that there is no alcohol available and I think it is something to do with some Islamic connections. The majority of the travelers wanted to visit some markets and this little bunny couldn't work out why! So they went, and I grabbed some lunch from the hotel cafe. Afterwards, went for a walk to the nearby shopping mall that was full of all the top designer shops with lots of Porsche and other exotica cars around. Not short of a dollar is this part of town. Surprised that the majority of cars on the road in the city are all late models.
A good giggle to start the day. Allow me to set the scene. Our tour group is sharing a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment. I am in the bathroom having a shave when I hear the phone ringing in the bedroom. I can hear Krystyna having a sort of awkward conversation. I ask who it was. She says it was Nich, I ask what did he want; she says she is not sure as it sounded like he just woke up. It appeared to be one of those conversations that just wasn’t leading anywhere so they agreed we would see each other at breakfast. Still thought it a bit strange that Nich would ring from a bedroom 2 metres away. We went down to breakfast and were joined by Nich and Alex some 30 minutes later. Some 15 minutes later, Alex blurted out “Why did you ring Nich?” A very interesting conversation followed where we finally worked out that neither party rang the other but the phone decided to ring in each bedroom. Both parties answered, assuming the other party had initiated the call. No wonder the conversation was stilted!
After breakfast, we got a taxi from the Hotel to the Grand Palace. There was some confusion when the driver ended up dropping us at yet another market street. By the way, when our tour group went exploring the day before, they told me they got stuck in a traffic jam where they literally didn't move for 30 minutes. Driver turned the engine off and went for a smoke. Downtown Bangkok is just one big traffic jam but I am surprised to say I didn't see any accidents (plenty of close calls though). We eventually made our way to the Grand Palace where the crowds were massive. One needed to Q to get in, Q to security, Q to borrow clothes if one was too scantily clad and q to leave the joint because you found the place too chockers. We then wound our way to a nearby temple complex. That was also overrun by crowds. The others Q'd so monks could hit them on the head and spray them with water. I stood near a water feature where a number of different tour groups smiled sweetly at me and asked me to take their photos, except for some horrible Indian people who wanted me to stand somewhere else.
The tour group then split into two parties with the more senior group opting to head back to hotel. Well, that was fun. Couldn't get a taxi who would take us, we thought we would then walk to what we thought would be a nearby train station, errrr, we were nowhere near any said train station. We finally got a Tuk Tuk driver to take us to a train station which was much further than we thought. The train is fast and soon had us near our hotel. We grabbed some curries from the big Western style department store and headed back to Hotel to eat them. Krysia couldn't help herself and had to head back to do some pillaging at Zara but she did bring back some green tea flavoured Cornettos which also had a Kit Kat sticking out of it. Spent most of the evening reading Trip Advisor reviews of places we had been and I think we both passed out by 11:00 pm. Nich and Alex managed to stay out on the town until the wee early hours.
Last morning, Krysia is off too some markets to try to find some "things" that are the real reason we came to Bangkok apparently. I've been banished to hotel lobby where I am continuing to write this. She had success with her market purchases and before long, taxis were arranged and we were off to the airport and the overnight flight back to Oz.
Reflections? We did enjoy Cambodia and we think we spent the perfect amount of time for Siem Reap and the temples. If one wanted to see more of the rest of the country, then certainly allow more time. The people are generally friendly and the pace is not too hectic. Bangkok? Does nothing for me but you will need to make up your own mind on that.
And I will finish this by a comment on the title of the piece. I was gob smacked by the ubiquity of the selfie-stick. People seem to prefer taking a bad photo of an attraction and include their mugs in shot, than actually compose a shot that captures the essence of the location. Beats me. It was really hard to take a photo of the temples when there were no other people in frame.
