--
For us, westerners some of the things asians do or don't do may seem a bit extraordinary. Below is a brief list of some of the things I personally found odd and different from what I am used to.
1.- The masks
The very first thing that stroke me when I got to asia was that some people were wearing a mask, masks like the ones surgents wear in an operating theater.
My first thoghts were...pollution and swine flu.
As it turned out, that wasn't the case, well a small minority may use them for one of those reasons but I did ask to one of our guides in Vietnam (I´m always the one making all these weird out-of-the-blue questions to guides and other locals). It seems that it is only or mostly women who wear the masks and that is because in Asia being brown is not attractive, being white is *VERY* attractive...yes, you have read that last line correctly. If you have a white skin and never get tanned on the beach...Asia is your place!!!
Women wear a mask, sunglasses and long sleves and long trousers or dresses. Being tanned means you're a farmer hence you are always under the sun, if you are white/er it means you spend a long time indoors, which means you're either rich or have a good job that allows you to stay indoors most of the day.
Our guide confided in us the little fact that Vietnamese men like Japanese women the most for three reasons. They are whiter, loyal and family oriented.Maria and Susana tried to push the guy to get the girls point of view...so what do Vietnamese girls like then? but the guy either didn't know or didn´t want to tell us.
2.- What´s with the pyjamas
This brought a few laughs during the trip. I think the three of us were really impress with this. People in Asia go out (specially at night) in their PJs...yes that's right Pyjamas and I´m not talking about something that looks like a PJ or just standing by the door at their house. I´m talking about wearing a fully fleshed Pyjama, the real McCoy! men and women go for a strall unashamely in their pyjamas, they travel by motorbike wearing nothing but their classic looking PJs and it is the most normal thing ever for them. In Hanoi, by the lake in the centre every night and morning you can see tens and tens of people exercising in their PJs by the lake.
It makes you wonder, doesn't it? there are lots of questions that spring to mind when you see something like that...do they have a spare pyjama for looking sexy on the street and then another for sleeping in or is it a two in one kind of deal? When they buy their PJs do they wonder how they´ll look in it walking by the lake? I wonder whether they give you one when you join the local gym...
3.- Haggling
This is not a curiosity or a past time you can endulge in when you feel like...no...this is a skill you need to learn and quickly if you don't wanna pay more than what you already pay in Europe. You have to come prepared for this...it's not something that you do when you fancy it's something you have to do all the time...you fancy a pack of chewing gums...well get ready for at least 10 minutes of haggling over the price...you are a forigner hence the initial price may be the equivalent to 2 € for example...I can't tell you the amount of times I past by a shop were I wanted to buy something like a bottle of water and because I knew the work involved in buying it I just prefered to go thirsty...too tired for haggling. On the other hand if you are prepared for it and rested, it can be quite fun and you can end up with amazing deals. I think the lessons and tecniques we learnt in this trip are worth a post of their own.
A word of caution, haggling on your own is very difficult, going with a partner in crime makes things much easier...they do it too...they always consult with their husband,brother,sister,whatever on the phone to "check" whether they can reduce the price and how much.It´s part of the theater that comes with their haggling tecniques.
4.- Chopsticks
You better learn how to use them back home because when you get to asia you won't have the chance to request a set of knife and fork you'll get a set of chopsticks and off you go mate!
On the 2 weeks we've spent in Vietnam I can't recall any one time where we were offered a knife and fork...it was always chopstiks...so now you know...start practicing if you're planning on visiting Vietnam.
5.- Bribing
Just get used to the idea you´ll do it at some point...or you´ll suffer the consecuences of not doing it. Corruption levels are quite high and western currencies are too strong so as far as they are concerned, we (westeners) are loaded so what´s a few spare dollars to us...when they can live for a month with those few dollars. Sometimes you´ll get people asking you to pay them, other times you'll make the suggestion just to avoid wasting lots of time or some other unpleasent consecuence...
Over here I would really get some problems to get to sleep should I have to bribe someone...over there I didn´t even flinch about it...it just came naturally... and I didn't lose any sleep over it. Everyone over there was expecting it.
Saturday, 26 December 2009
Monday, 14 December 2009
Siem Reap - Phnom Penh
--
It´s funny how we all start getting used to certain things that we would have thought impossible back home, like bribing all type of officials at the airports.
It's actually pretty hard not to do it! I think anyone travelling to or through Asia should make a special allocation on their budget for bribes.
The other day leaving Vietnam we paid to get our passports stamped without having the ridiculous piece of paper they gave us on the way in, and yesterday when travelling from Siem Reap to Phnom Pehn, at the airport when we were trying to check in our luggage, they official at the desk looked at us and told us we would have to pay $26 for excess baggage.
Pardon for my french but excess baggage my ass, 3 tourists, lets see how much money we can get from them. 57 Kg between 3 people was less than 20Kg each but after almost 3 weeks in Asia we didn't even flintch.
Susana started with the "Dickens' routine" and said we were poor, last day in Cambodia, we had no money and we had to buy food (as if it came straight from a Dickens' story), but the guy didn't take it so she went
to phase two. Diminish the reason for which they are asking you for your money.
She said no problem, opened her suitcase and for the guys amazement she took a loaded rucksack from the suitcase (taking 9 kg out of the total weight), so they guy immediately changed his song and said, ok, ok...you can put the rucksack back in, only $10 for everything...
and Susana moved to step three. "Always ask for a discount" and said 5$ with discount?, and the guy said...no, no, discount from 26 to 10...and that's when Maria came out of the blue and said ok, ok, how about if we meet half way: $7, no 5 no 10 and the guys with some resignation accepted (the resignation face is part of the acting routine they always do after any haggling...they always pretend you just robbed them).
This time we even haggled on the bribe they wanted us to pay them to take our luggage...I think we've reached a whole new level!
Mind you, all these negotiations are accompanied with a lot of conversations in Spanish among the three of us, pretending we are offended and even outraged sometimes, they are asking for too much, putting ugly faces etc... Serious haggling can only be achieved with a team...you need at the very least another person. They do it too...they pretend they confer with their sister, brother, husband, wife or whatever and they agree to reduce the price just a little bit more.
No wonder people complain when they try to open a supermarket with fix prices!
It´s funny how we all start getting used to certain things that we would have thought impossible back home, like bribing all type of officials at the airports.
It's actually pretty hard not to do it! I think anyone travelling to or through Asia should make a special allocation on their budget for bribes.
The other day leaving Vietnam we paid to get our passports stamped without having the ridiculous piece of paper they gave us on the way in, and yesterday when travelling from Siem Reap to Phnom Pehn, at the airport when we were trying to check in our luggage, they official at the desk looked at us and told us we would have to pay $26 for excess baggage.
Pardon for my french but excess baggage my ass, 3 tourists, lets see how much money we can get from them. 57 Kg between 3 people was less than 20Kg each but after almost 3 weeks in Asia we didn't even flintch.
Susana started with the "Dickens' routine" and said we were poor, last day in Cambodia, we had no money and we had to buy food (as if it came straight from a Dickens' story), but the guy didn't take it so she went
to phase two. Diminish the reason for which they are asking you for your money.
She said no problem, opened her suitcase and for the guys amazement she took a loaded rucksack from the suitcase (taking 9 kg out of the total weight), so they guy immediately changed his song and said, ok, ok...you can put the rucksack back in, only $10 for everything...
and Susana moved to step three. "Always ask for a discount" and said 5$ with discount?, and the guy said...no, no, discount from 26 to 10...and that's when Maria came out of the blue and said ok, ok, how about if we meet half way: $7, no 5 no 10 and the guys with some resignation accepted (the resignation face is part of the acting routine they always do after any haggling...they always pretend you just robbed them).
This time we even haggled on the bribe they wanted us to pay them to take our luggage...I think we've reached a whole new level!
Mind you, all these negotiations are accompanied with a lot of conversations in Spanish among the three of us, pretending we are offended and even outraged sometimes, they are asking for too much, putting ugly faces etc... Serious haggling can only be achieved with a team...you need at the very least another person. They do it too...they pretend they confer with their sister, brother, husband, wife or whatever and they agree to reduce the price just a little bit more.
No wonder people complain when they try to open a supermarket with fix prices!
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Sapa - Vietnam
SAPA PART 1
For me Sapa was the best part of the trip so far. By the time we started this excursion we already had our jobs assigned. I was the one taking care of the money, Susana negociating the prices and Maria was
managing the complaints department.
Sapa is a place in the montains known by its natural beauty, the rice fields and the spectacular views.
We took a night train from Hanoi. The trip lasted for about 10 hours or so and we were sharing a cabin with 4 beds (the forth one was for a german guy who wasn't exactly the chatty type). I wouldn't say the beds
were exactly clean but we've seen worse. If you ask any of us I'm sure the three of us will say without any doubt last year in Brazil, on a boat navigating the Amazon river...that was the worst time ever...but that's another story.
Anyway, we got to Sapa early in the morning. They picked us up at the train station and they drove us up the mountains for 1-2 hours...it turned out that Sapa is at more than 3000 meters over see level. For the metric system handicapped people, that´s about 10000 feet.
As soon as we got to Sapa, our van was quickly surrounded by odd looking women in some kind of what I could only describe as a local folkloric dress carring some kind of basket on their backs...we were like the objects on sale before the opening of Bloomingdale's on the first sales opening day. I suppose that's what it feels like to be a rock star. 20 odd looking women staring at you through the tinted glass of the van...
The first thing we've noticed when we got there was how cold it was. When we pictured Vietnam in our minds we also pictured ourselves in shorts and T-shirts but Sapa is close to the border with China up in
the north and it´s all high mountains.
But as we´ve learnt in this trip, Vietnamese people are always ready to provide whatever the casual tourist may require...for an overly inflated price you could get your hands on a good pair of woolen gloves, top end coats, trekking boots, woolen hats, ... anything really!!, and after some serious haggling you could get them for a very good price, so María and I decided to go to a local shop and get some much needed gear. 15 minutes later (10 of which were haggling for the price as usual) we came out from the shop with some amazing gear for a very reasonable price.
Once ready to go we went back to the hotel where we met the rest of the group. A couple of Canadians, brother and sister (Casey and Sam) and the guide, a tiny 18 year old and very funny girl called Zi and off we
went for the short trek.
As you can tell by the below picture, the weather wasn't the best but it got better during the day.
We did a short trek 2-3 hours thoughout the mountains and the rice fields where Casey fell into one of the rice fields and had to do the rest of the trek all soaking wet,
then we stop for lunch for a couple of hours (tradicional Vietnamese food, quite nice actually),
we did another hour after that and visited a couple of villages and schools and finally we got to our destination, the local house were we were to spend the night.
The house didn't have any insulation but they were using some kind of blankets thick as hell and heavy like made of lead...actually, takingthe covers off in the morning was the equivalent of a 15 minutes session at your local gym!
SAPA PART 2
Just a little bit before darkness i.e. 6 pm, they brought us dinner, and as always it didn´t disapoint us. After dinner with a lot of time to spare until bed time we decided to play cards for a while.
This is what a real Vietnamese kitchen looks like:
A couple of hours later one of the other guides brought her group to our house because in ours they could play Karaoke...between that and the nice apple rice wine that was passing around things started to get a bit more animated.
This is what happens when you drink apple rice wine:
Something that I found quite surprising not only in Sapa but generally in Asia is the lack of dairy products, everywhere we went in Vietnam for example, if you wanted milk they would bring you condensed milk because they don't sell fresh milk anywhere, you don't find it in the supermarkets (perhaps you can find it in a supermarket within a big town).
So, should you fancy a nice cuppa in the morning or the afternoon...be prepared to mix your tea with condensed milk or to have your tea with no milk...your choice.
Anyway, once we took care of the pankakes we geared up and started the walk...we went to visit a waterfall, then a village and finally we stop by some road where a van came to pick us all up and take us back to the hotel where we could all have the hot shower we had been dreaming a bout for 2 days. :-)
After the shower we got some sandwitches for the trip to the train, we packed our things and got into another van which drove us for 1-2 hours down the mountains until the train station where we took the night train back to Hanoi.
All in all I think this was the nicest excursion within this trip...for me anyway.
Halong Bay - Vietnam
This was our first excursion in Vietnam. It looked really promising on the prospect and it was nice but I got a bit dissapointed with it, not with Halong Bay which I think was really impressive but more with the fact that it felt like an excursion to Benidorm (but with a nicer destination). :-)
First they put us all in a bus for children (the leg room was worse than on a Ryan Air's plain). All the guys on the bus had our legs on the bus corridor. Then the bus trip lasted for 4 hours with a break in the middle. The stop in the middle was in a place where they take all the forigners going to Halong Bay a picturesc warehouse made of modern steel and concrete, an invitation to save battery for all the digital camera users within the confinement of this concrete marvel you could purchase heavely overpriced water, crisps and some Vietnamese objects.
After 4 hours on the bus they put you in a boat. Just like the one below:
Ours was nice and clean and the cabins were also clean and although not too spacious, good enough for a couple of nights, no complains there. Now the problem came with the food. We spent about 2 weeks in Vietnam and all the food we had during that time was great except on the boat. I suppose they were trying to save costs so lunch and dinner was the same food and it wasn´t something you would do a firework display about so sometimes, it felt like they were treating us like cattle. Now, cattle or not the places we visited were truly amazing.
Here we are the three of us ready to start the trip.
Halong Bay for who's never heard of it is a bay full of tiny rocky islands. On the way in it was a bit foggy but on the way back we had a much clearer view. See pictures below:
We had a brief stop before the end of the first day for visiting a cave. It was a huge cave with lots of stalagtites and stalagmites.
and just before the end of the day, we did some kayaking.
On the second day we had a small trek to the top of a small mountain following a path through the jungle. It was quite steep and the views from the top were really amazing although there was a tower on the top that didn´t look very safe, nonetheless Maria and I decided to climb it to the top and take a few pictures from there...
Definetely not for someone afraid of heights. Specially considering all the iron was rusted and the top was covered with a few wooden planks which looked like they were about to break at any minute.
All in all it was one of thouse MUST DO excursions which I would have prefered to have in a more "on your own" type rather than let´s take the cattle to this place.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Hanoi - Vietnam
--
You have to see this city to believe it.
The traffic is like nothing I´ve ever seen. Crossing the road is a heart pumping experience and you even require to learn how to do it since it´s not like we are used to back in Europe. You don´t let the cars and motorbikes pass and then you cross... nope...you walk and close your eyes while you pray and the motorbikes go around you, this is because there are no cars (except for taxis) people can´t afford them so everyone owns a bike and the traffic it´s a continuous flow. We took some pictures (because it was shocking) but you can´t really appreciate from a few pictures but I´ve found a nice youtube video where you can see what I am talking about.
Seeing is believing so here it is a youtube video showing the traffic in hanoi:
My first picture in Vietnam:
Fancy some local shoping?
You have to see this city to believe it.
The traffic is like nothing I´ve ever seen. Crossing the road is a heart pumping experience and you even require to learn how to do it since it´s not like we are used to back in Europe. You don´t let the cars and motorbikes pass and then you cross... nope...you walk and close your eyes while you pray and the motorbikes go around you, this is because there are no cars (except for taxis) people can´t afford them so everyone owns a bike and the traffic it´s a continuous flow. We took some pictures (because it was shocking) but you can´t really appreciate from a few pictures but I´ve found a nice youtube video where you can see what I am talking about.
Seeing is believing so here it is a youtube video showing the traffic in hanoi:
My first picture in Vietnam:
Fancy some local shoping?
And now, one of Hanoi´s specialities. 4 people on one motorbike and the driver talking on her mobile...Nobody would believe me without the picture to prove it!
Despite of the noise, the polution and the maddening traffic, Hanoi has at its very centre a very nice lake with a little bit of green all around it where people go to exercise in the mornings, and just chill during the day.
Siem Reap - Cambodia
--
That´s it! The three of us (Maria, Susana and myself) made it to Cambodia in one piece.
Leaving Vietnam was a bit tricker than anticipated. We forgot we had to return a piece of paper they gave us when we entered the country. Maria and myself had checked it with the rest of the luggage so we didn´t have it with us and Susana never got to even see it so there we were at customs and without the bloody paper.
It was my first bribe! I´m not very good at haggling and getting the best price but I think I was very smooth and convinced the customs officer to ignore the paper for $10 and after he accepted I asked him whether the deal could be extended to Maria and Susana, he chated for a little while with his colleague and said yes...so 2 minutes later and $30 lighter we left with our passports properly stamped.
Siem Reap it´s a big change to the system, quite different from Vietnam...it´s more tourist oriented, prices are all quoted in dollars and they are considerably higher than in Vietnam...goodbye to those lunches for 3 people for under 2 €. On the positive side...no more haggling to death for a pack of chewing gums...fix prices again...
I think I´m gonna miss all the theater that came with the haggling...:-)
We are fully booked for the next 3 days. We are gonna visit the Angkor temples. We´ve got our own guide (for the 3 of us) and a driver with a tuck-tuck for the 4 of us, Maria, Susana, the guide and myself. A very decent price for all that. After seeing the prices around I was expecting to pay an arm and a leg for visiting the temples.
UPDATE 14-JAN-2010
So we made it to Siem Reap and we had a car, sent by the hotel, waiting for us outside the airport.
Most of the time in these countries you get offered a car to pick you up at the airport for free, not because of your wonderful telephone skills or because your charming personality left a warm feeling in the hotel personnel and they can't wait to see you.
No... what *really* happens is that if you take a random taxi and tell the taxi driver where you wanna go...he'll tell you that that hotel you want to go to was burnt down last week (or some other natural or not so natural disaster) but don't worry, today is your lucky day because he knows of a good hotel, cheaper than the one you wanted to go...so he can take you there instead if you want...then the hotel owner pays the taxi driver his usual fee and the guy splits leaving you in your new hotel with your fingers crossed :-)
So in order to avoid this, in many occassions, reputable hotels offer to send you a free car to pick you up so that some sleazy taxi driver doesn't take you to some other hotel.
This time we had a good hotel, no swimming pool but we had wifi in our rooms, it was clean and it had a cool look and feel to it. The prices for excursions, tuk-tuks etc were among the cheapest we found in Siam Reap so, all in all it was a pretty good hotel.
This was the chilling out area...and chilling out we were...
Siem Reap it's a weird place since due to the tourism it has been developed much more than the rest of the country.
The whole town seems to have been "designed" to accomodate the influx of tourists pouring in every day. Lots of restaurants accomodating any and every flavour from Cambodian food to Italian, Indian, etc... Massage parlours, Apsara dancers, one zillion tuk-tuks, book stores with only foreign books...
Prices are also quite high in comparison with the rest of the country and always quoted in dollars.
You always had to use a mix of dollars and Cambodian Riels. The currency system worked like this: 4000 Riels were the equivalent to 1 dollar so if the price was $1.50 you would pay 1 dollar and 2000 Riels, or 2 dollars and they would give you back 2000 Riels.
Although prices were considerably higher than the rest of the country they were still quite reasonable for us, instead of $2-$3 for food per person in Siem Reap we had to start paying around $5-$10 per person. On the positive side, because all restaurants were for tourists, the service and the food was of a very high standard, some places even had a band singing.
They also had lots of places with these fish that clean up your skin (they eat all the dead cells of your skill), I had seen them before in Thailand but it seem to be far more popular here. You stick your feet in a small pool filled with these little fish and they come to your fish and start eating away...it doesn't hurt at all but it feels weird...you can feel them biting...
After haggling for a little while we managed to get the three of us in the pool with the fish + a massage for one dollar each. María was the first one to try them...unfortunatelly for her as soon as I put my feet in the pool all the fish in it came to me leaving María with two or three little fish circling around her feet. Clearly she takes too much care of her feet so the poor fish were starving with her...thank God I was there to feed them properly. :-)
I think after me they weren´t very hungry anymore...
Back to the trip. We spoke to one of the guys in the hotel and we were offered several excursions, in the end we opted for a three day visit to the temples...although in the end we only did 2 days but I'm getting ahead of myself...
Below is a map with most of the temples. The first day included a visit to the outter ring, the second day a visit to the temples which are the farthest away and the third day the rest.
So, the following day early in the morning, we had breakfast at the hotel... we met with our guide and driver, we hopped into the tuk-tuk and off we went to Angkor Wot...
There are way to many pictures from all the temples we've visited and it's hard to tell now which is which after all this time so this is just a small selection of some of the temples.
I think apart from Angkor Wot, the one that we found more interesting is the temple with the trees. All these temples were abandonned for hundreds of years and only when they were re-discovered the jungle was cleared out and the temples cleaned up and in more recent times they have started working on the reconstruction of some of the temples. In some cases, trees grew up in the middle of the temple and they did so for hundreds of years.
On the way back the guide stopped by the road where there were making and selling some products from sugar cane. They extract the contents of the sugar cane and put it to boil on a big wok, once it becomes liquid they either put it in pots like peanut butter or they let it cool down and cut it off as sweets which they then sell for 3 packets for a dollar...
I've always considered myself to have sweet tooth and everyone that knows me would testify to this, but I must admit that even I found these sweets extremely sweet. Nonetheless we bought 3 packets (one for each) and then María with the intent of killing everyone with some minor insuline deficiency at her work decided to buy 15 packets...The girl selling the stuff couldn't believe her luck! :-)
Packaging + sweets
That night when we got back to the hotel we decided to go and see the Apsara dancers so we went to a place our guide recommended. The place offered a big buffet, despite of the huge selection available to us, food wasn't as good as in the restaurants but we weren't there for the food. :-)
The folloing day we decided to have breakfast in a local bakery instead of the hotel...and it was so good we repeated the following day. :-)
After breakfast, back in the tuk-tuk and off to the temples although this time we decided to try the ballon. Fantastic views.
Angkor Wot seen from the ballon
We were tempted by the elephants...but we didn't do it in the end.
Random photo. Travelling by tuk-tuk
This is another random photo. Susana in her role as wedding photographer couldn't resist another bride. Apparently this is the typical wedding dress in Cambodia.
On the third day we had already visited all of the most important temples and it was so hot that we decided to stay in and relax, go for a walk in town and do some minor haggle-haggle-purchase...
When it was the time to flight to Phnon Penh, we got a car to drive us to the airport and we got ready for the last stage of the trip...the capital...
That´s it! The three of us (Maria, Susana and myself) made it to Cambodia in one piece.
Leaving Vietnam was a bit tricker than anticipated. We forgot we had to return a piece of paper they gave us when we entered the country. Maria and myself had checked it with the rest of the luggage so we didn´t have it with us and Susana never got to even see it so there we were at customs and without the bloody paper.
It was my first bribe! I´m not very good at haggling and getting the best price but I think I was very smooth and convinced the customs officer to ignore the paper for $10 and after he accepted I asked him whether the deal could be extended to Maria and Susana, he chated for a little while with his colleague and said yes...so 2 minutes later and $30 lighter we left with our passports properly stamped.
Siem Reap it´s a big change to the system, quite different from Vietnam...it´s more tourist oriented, prices are all quoted in dollars and they are considerably higher than in Vietnam...goodbye to those lunches for 3 people for under 2 €. On the positive side...no more haggling to death for a pack of chewing gums...fix prices again...
I think I´m gonna miss all the theater that came with the haggling...:-)
We are fully booked for the next 3 days. We are gonna visit the Angkor temples. We´ve got our own guide (for the 3 of us) and a driver with a tuck-tuck for the 4 of us, Maria, Susana, the guide and myself. A very decent price for all that. After seeing the prices around I was expecting to pay an arm and a leg for visiting the temples.
UPDATE 14-JAN-2010
So we made it to Siem Reap and we had a car, sent by the hotel, waiting for us outside the airport.
Most of the time in these countries you get offered a car to pick you up at the airport for free, not because of your wonderful telephone skills or because your charming personality left a warm feeling in the hotel personnel and they can't wait to see you.
No... what *really* happens is that if you take a random taxi and tell the taxi driver where you wanna go...he'll tell you that that hotel you want to go to was burnt down last week (or some other natural or not so natural disaster) but don't worry, today is your lucky day because he knows of a good hotel, cheaper than the one you wanted to go...so he can take you there instead if you want...then the hotel owner pays the taxi driver his usual fee and the guy splits leaving you in your new hotel with your fingers crossed :-)
So in order to avoid this, in many occassions, reputable hotels offer to send you a free car to pick you up so that some sleazy taxi driver doesn't take you to some other hotel.
This time we had a good hotel, no swimming pool but we had wifi in our rooms, it was clean and it had a cool look and feel to it. The prices for excursions, tuk-tuks etc were among the cheapest we found in Siam Reap so, all in all it was a pretty good hotel.
This was the chilling out area...and chilling out we were...
Siem Reap it's a weird place since due to the tourism it has been developed much more than the rest of the country.
The whole town seems to have been "designed" to accomodate the influx of tourists pouring in every day. Lots of restaurants accomodating any and every flavour from Cambodian food to Italian, Indian, etc... Massage parlours, Apsara dancers, one zillion tuk-tuks, book stores with only foreign books...
Prices are also quite high in comparison with the rest of the country and always quoted in dollars.
You always had to use a mix of dollars and Cambodian Riels. The currency system worked like this: 4000 Riels were the equivalent to 1 dollar so if the price was $1.50 you would pay 1 dollar and 2000 Riels, or 2 dollars and they would give you back 2000 Riels.
Although prices were considerably higher than the rest of the country they were still quite reasonable for us, instead of $2-$3 for food per person in Siem Reap we had to start paying around $5-$10 per person. On the positive side, because all restaurants were for tourists, the service and the food was of a very high standard, some places even had a band singing.
They also had lots of places with these fish that clean up your skin (they eat all the dead cells of your skill), I had seen them before in Thailand but it seem to be far more popular here. You stick your feet in a small pool filled with these little fish and they come to your fish and start eating away...it doesn't hurt at all but it feels weird...you can feel them biting...
After haggling for a little while we managed to get the three of us in the pool with the fish + a massage for one dollar each. María was the first one to try them...unfortunatelly for her as soon as I put my feet in the pool all the fish in it came to me leaving María with two or three little fish circling around her feet. Clearly she takes too much care of her feet so the poor fish were starving with her...thank God I was there to feed them properly. :-)
I think after me they weren´t very hungry anymore...
Back to the trip. We spoke to one of the guys in the hotel and we were offered several excursions, in the end we opted for a three day visit to the temples...although in the end we only did 2 days but I'm getting ahead of myself...
Below is a map with most of the temples. The first day included a visit to the outter ring, the second day a visit to the temples which are the farthest away and the third day the rest.
So, the following day early in the morning, we had breakfast at the hotel... we met with our guide and driver, we hopped into the tuk-tuk and off we went to Angkor Wot...
There are way to many pictures from all the temples we've visited and it's hard to tell now which is which after all this time so this is just a small selection of some of the temples.
I think apart from Angkor Wot, the one that we found more interesting is the temple with the trees. All these temples were abandonned for hundreds of years and only when they were re-discovered the jungle was cleared out and the temples cleaned up and in more recent times they have started working on the reconstruction of some of the temples. In some cases, trees grew up in the middle of the temple and they did so for hundreds of years.
On the way back the guide stopped by the road where there were making and selling some products from sugar cane. They extract the contents of the sugar cane and put it to boil on a big wok, once it becomes liquid they either put it in pots like peanut butter or they let it cool down and cut it off as sweets which they then sell for 3 packets for a dollar...
I've always considered myself to have sweet tooth and everyone that knows me would testify to this, but I must admit that even I found these sweets extremely sweet. Nonetheless we bought 3 packets (one for each) and then María with the intent of killing everyone with some minor insuline deficiency at her work decided to buy 15 packets...The girl selling the stuff couldn't believe her luck! :-)
Packaging + sweets
That night when we got back to the hotel we decided to go and see the Apsara dancers so we went to a place our guide recommended. The place offered a big buffet, despite of the huge selection available to us, food wasn't as good as in the restaurants but we weren't there for the food. :-)
The folloing day we decided to have breakfast in a local bakery instead of the hotel...and it was so good we repeated the following day. :-)
After breakfast, back in the tuk-tuk and off to the temples although this time we decided to try the ballon. Fantastic views.
Angkor Wot seen from the ballon
We were tempted by the elephants...but we didn't do it in the end.
Random photo. Travelling by tuk-tuk
This is another random photo. Susana in her role as wedding photographer couldn't resist another bride. Apparently this is the typical wedding dress in Cambodia.
On the third day we had already visited all of the most important temples and it was so hot that we decided to stay in and relax, go for a walk in town and do some minor haggle-haggle-purchase...
When it was the time to flight to Phnon Penh, we got a car to drive us to the airport and we got ready for the last stage of the trip...the capital...
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