Merry Election Eve

Hello from Thailand, where it is the eve of elections (overshadowing any reference to Christmas) and the selling of alcohol is forbidden (no, that’s not the only reason I’m in the hotel room updating the blog.) We’ve come a long way since Siem Reap. First, we did visit the temples of Angkor by bicycle, which was really great. The temple ruins were really beautiful, made even more pretty by the lush landscape. I thought it was going to be more crowded than it turned out to be, so I was pleasantly surprised by that as well. Pictures of Angkor are in their own online album (link to the left) because there were so many – and I only uploaded about half of the ones I took.


I have also added more pictures to the Cambodia album to include our boat trip to Battambang. The river ride was quite scenic, but it was long and kind of hot (an open air boat – but stuffy inside and too sunny up top.) But it was really cool (meaning, great) to see the landscape, the fishing villages and the people along the way. Battambang in itself wasn’t all that great, but we did find a nice hotel and took a fun cooking class. Now Matthias can make Amok – Cambodian curry with coconut milk – if he can find the ingredients.

The bus trip to Bangkok took a whopping 10 hours, and included a 2-hour border stop (we missed the first connection to Bangkok so we had to wait for another bus.) But the bus was pretty empty and traveled fast, so I didn’t have to endure the loud techno music and videos of sexy dancers playing on the bus TV for too long. We stayed in a very cheap and basic place in Bangkok, in the backpacker district of Banglamphu. Although they gave us a much better room after we complained about the bedbugs, we realized that our days of cheap and luxurious sleeps are over. It is high season here, so we are paying more for less.

That aside, Thailand is great. We spent some nice days exploring Bangkok – wandering around the various districts on foot and by boat, and enjoying cheap eats in the markets and street stalls. Actually, I’ve eaten more shumai (pork dumplings) here than in China, and the Pad Thai and curry dishes have not disappointed. Indeed, it's not only the food that's hot – we almost decided to skip the trip to the northern part of Thailand and head straight to the beaches to cool off, but I really wanted to see the north, and the fact that the beaches are REALLY crowded (and expensive) during the xmas/new year holiday helped us make our decision. So we have come to Chiang Mai in the north (where it is still hot) and we are going back to Bangkok for New Years via the ancient capital of Sukhothai. And in the meantime, we are looking into whether we can venture out to the countryside for a few days. Chiang Mai, though more laid back than Bangkok, is quite a metropolis – trying to escape the city on bicycle turned out to be more difficult and stressful than it was worth due to the traffic. But our hotel is comfy, air-conditioned, and quiet – with internet access, so I can keep up-to-date on the Thai national election results. And of course update the blog.