Originally written on December 13, 2004

Point form for now… Heather puts her back out, while packing. Tiger balm saves the day. That and another incident described below. Kirk swears profusely while packing his backpack. The last time he did that it was because he got out of bed and almost stepped on a huge cockroach. This time he called me over to the backpack, and a giant toad jumped out of his backpack. My back was instantly better, and although I am a biologist, I ran promptly to the bathroom until Kirk removed it from our room. Taxi at 11 am from Khao Lak resort to Phuket Airport checkin and then satisfy western craving, hello burger king! gorgeous views (both sea and sky) as we fly over the ocean and back to bangkok airport shuttle bus to our hotel checkin to the “Regent Silom Serviced Apartments” Christmas shopping and browsing along Surawong Road, Central Department store (on Silom Road) and the Patpong night market. Somehow I did not read that the night market is amidst the the strip joint/sex show area. An eye opener. A good night’s sleep for a full day of shopping tomorrow.

Originally written on December 12, 2004

Spent the day on the beach. Walked north of our resort and found a shady spot on the beach. Crazy waves where they came back from the shore, and met with waves coming to shore. This occurred because the water was really shallow, then deep only 3 ft from the shore. The result, big waves that crash really fast, and happen in triples. You have to ride out the series of waves, as it the current was too strong to make it back to shore. Bathing suits were difficult to keep on. Evening. Celebrate our last night at the beach by bar/restaurant hopping. Kao Lak Seafood restaurant for Masamum curry and beer. Then bar, name escapes me for girly drinks. Then cheap mom and pop place, for french fries, beer, and chicken fingers. Yes, western food at your service, and cheap. Crawl to bed, and sleep well. Nite nite.

Originally written on December 10, 2004

I awoke early, as I had on the boat, at 7am. I let Kirk sleep and took a book to read and some yoghurt and museli for breakfast out to the front porch. At 8:30 am I was off to the supermarket to purchase an international phone card, and called my parents and my grandparents. Impressed with how much I had accomplished by 9:30 am I went back to the bungalow and slept till 12pm. And so the sleeping begins.

We went to the closest restaurant for lunch, and were pleasantly surprised to find it reasonably priced, you can always tell by the price of drinks (pop/alchohol etc). Grilled ham and cheese sandwich was on the menu and was promptly chosen, along with a new thai food (muslim origin) favourite, masamum. This is a creamy spicy stew with potatoes and either chicken or beef. With a pineapple shake and a diet coke the meal cost 5 CAD.

After lunch we checked out the facilities at our hotel, our bungalow is in a separate section from the main complex. We went past the pool, the restaurant, and down to the beach. During high tide the beach completely disappears, as told by the large breaker wall separating the beach from the resort property. The sand beach is intermixed with rocky outcrops, which we explored for sea stars and other intertidal animals. We found a sea slug, and lots of small fish in the tidal pools. The air was hot and still, really muggy. After a short walk down the beach it was time for a swim in the pool.

The pool has water jets to massage your aching muscles and ceramic elephants that shoot water into the pool from their nostrils. The water went only to my neck which was the perfect height for me! After swimming we went back to the bungalow, where we read (Kirk listened to an audio book), and then I layed down for another nap (3 hours!). Crazy~

Kirk woke me up at 7pm for dinner, and we headed back to the restaurant where we ate lunch. For dinner I had spaghetti, as I was craving it. Never crave western food in an asian country, because you will be surely disappointed. A 3 out of 10. Kirk had his favourite, Tom Yam Goon (coconut curry chicken soup) by default. He wanted red curry, but the curry dishes were in Thai and we were unable to communicate with the waitress, so Kirk decided on an all time favourite. After dinner to the internet to catch up on stories and then to bed.

Originally written on November 30th, 2004

Most of the day was spent phoning all over the place arranging cooking courses, and snorkelling trips. Today the heat was intense, 35C. And when you have spicy chicken curry for lunch in mid-day 35C heat, it is FRIGGIN hot. Thank goodness for cold showers. We spent the evening on the beach and took the photo below, among many others. For dinner we found a place that gave us free salad and bread, the fools! Perhaps they were thinking we would order lots of food. Nope, we did get some booze though. Heather wants everyone to know that she had good french toast with ‘honey flavoured’ syrup mixed with jam.

Originally written on November 27, 2004

We awoke feeling much better and certainly much better rested. We skipped the breakfast downstairs (where they were serving the pineapple) and decided to head for a fancy place. For breakfast we had: Hot Chocolate (the good kind, no powders) and orange juice to start, then some corn flakes and milk with banana, a fruit plate filled with pineapple (best pineapple ever! we were very brave, melon, and watermelon), croissant, toast, english muffin, and omelette with bacon and ham, and a butter and sugar crepe. And some tea. Oh, and heather ordered pancakes with cream and maple syrup as well. It was way too much but… and all for at a fancy place! After that meal we needed to sit and recover some more. We headed to the movies to watch Alexander in a comfy chair with AC. Movie bad to so-so, chairs and AC great! After dinner we pondered what to do next.

The storm was now gone (muifa) but travelling to the south last minute is hectic. We could take the train or bus. The bus was better although it required some craziness to get tickets — we had to travel far. The train was easier but took longer although we still had to get up early to make sure we got seats for the 11 to 16 hour trip. Finally, I decided to check out flying. A flight to Phuket cost was reasonable so we went for dinner and thought it all through. (dinner was some safeties: sheppards pie and a cheeseburger) After dinner we went and bought the tickets over the internet at about 10 pm and promptly went back to the hotel packed and fell asleep.

Originally written on November 18, 2004

After a crappy sleep, under oversized towels (provided as sheets), we awoke and realized that sometime during the night the air conditioner had turned off. We had our bread and jam breakfast and spent the morning looking for a better guest house in our price range. Perhaps not so far from the main road, as our current guesthouse is situated on a dark, dirt road created by tossing bricks, rocks, whatever and compacting it into a road. Much of the city is like this, dirty and kind of creepy, especially at night.

We went guesthouse/cheap hotel hunting closer to more restaurants in a nicer area of town, only a 20-30 minute walk away. Although the places we saw were on a paved back road, one block off of the main road, the condition inside each room was the same and the price was more. So, we decided to stay with our current residence.

We went to the international bookstore and bought a book on Angkor, with maps of each temple and a description of buildings and bas-reliefs (images carved on the walls). Further along the main street we found a quiet restaurant for lunch, curry soup and sweet and sour pork. Still expensive, but less than at some other places. The waitress negotiated a moto ride for us to the national museum, about 60 cents US for a 15 minute ride.

The national museum is dedicated to Angkor statues. Many of the statues have been stolen from the sites, so the museum was created to store the precious pieces. Kirk and I encountered the first of many flower offerings to buddha, and placed the jasmine flowers beside a statue. Statues date between 9th and 15 century, amazing. Other artifacts, bowls, etc from 9th to 20th century.

A short walk to the Royal Palace, where the newly crowned young King resides. Palace grounds are clean and buildings lovely, however none of them matched the beauty of the Laos temples in Luang Prabang or the Royal Palace in Thailand. Once you’ve seen the best it’s really hard to compare, or appreciate another similar place for its own face value. Within the palace grounds is the silver pagoda, which without reading the guidebook appears to be a pagoda (temple) full of silver coloured buddha’s and other gifts to the king. However, all of the buddha’s in the temple are made of silver, gold or bronze and the main life size buddha (gold) has hundreds of diamonds embedded in it, one is 25 carats! Their are two other smaller gold buddha’s also share the same feature. The floor itself is made of pure silver, 5000 tiles worth.

Upon exiting the palace grounds we made our way along the main streets taking in the sun set and enjoying the wide paved sidewalk and manicured walkway (trees, shrubs, fountains). We ate dinner, a set plate (.50 US per person). The food was good, (see tomorrow’s blurb for the after effect). We each had a soup (Kirk’s sour salty fishy yucky!!!, mine curry chicken!), vegetable plate (Heather fried mushrooms, Kirk mixed veggies), Kirk - fish cakes (actually good!), Heather barbecued pork ribs (yummy). For dessert, sticky rice (tastes like coconut with mango). Back home to bed.

Originally written on November 16, 2004

Got up early and had some breakfast at kims cafe, bacon and eggs and tea with condensed milk for Heather (barf says kirk). We then had another round of organizing finaces for most of Cambodia where they have no atms and getting at your money is trickier. We then purchased bus tickets to Phnom Penh through the travel agent portion of Kim Cafe. Next we took a taxi to jade emporor pagoda. Our driver was friendly and told us about his family, and how his baby has a birthday today. He works hard all day but when he goes home and see his babies he is very happy (he never mentioned the sex of the baby, and communication was difficult). Pagoda highlights include; the hall of many hells which depict all the ways you will be punished for different offences; the giant statues of guys who killed the tiger and dragon; great tiles on the floor; and the really scary scary fans on the ceiling.

Next we took two cyclos to reunification palace which is basically like a more open 60’s university building. It could be on york campus, ugly. Inside pretty nice although very cold in feeling, hot in temperature. Various rooms show how the place operated when the South was in power, things have been left as they where. The bunker was interesting as was all the old radio equipment.

The best part was the propaganda film at the end of the tour, actually the room at the end of the tour where you watch the film. It was air conditioned and set to keep a temp of 30 C, pure heaven compared to the rest of the building.

Next down the street to the war museum, lots of sobering pictures and information. Not over the top commie, but my no means fair. Still, the US did some bad things there, lots of facts about agent orange, and a really great display of press photographers in war zones.

Back to hotel, shower, then off to dinner of chicken in rice paper with lettuce and minty-licorice leafs, cucumber, all wrapped up and dipped into peanut sauce, pork rolls not deep fried, chicken with crispy noodles and vegatables and pineapple, very very good. Afer dinner catch up on internet and back up all photos to mp3. While walking the streets we saw a girl get taken away, the shop owner I was in said the girl was on heroin, looked like it to me.

Later, near the end of our evening, 10:30 or so, Heather was looking at shirts in a stall and my spidey sense went off. I turned around to see a big white guy chasing a small vietnamese guy around a taxi. The big guy was mad, but couldn’t catch the faster smaller guy so they just went around and around the car for 30seconds. Then the white guy sneered and shattered the passenger side door window. The street went quiet.

Then the big guy trotted off, and the small guy pulled out his phone and started diealing while saying, where you go? By the time we went 30m down the street the police had passed us. That dude was going to see some real Vietnam, no idea what it was about. Heather only clued in when the guy started yelling where you go?

But the shop owner and me watched most of it. I asked him what was going on and he says, “I didn’t see anything.” Hmmm I say, “I didn’t see anything either.” He looked and me and smiled patted me on the back knowingly. Off to bed.

Originally written on November 15, 2004

Woke up and dealt with various money issues surrounding how to pay, commision on exchange of TC’s CC’s seeing as how the resort only accepted “the cash”, after we had lunch (heather a wicked good clubhouse and the best fries in all of asia so far, me a crappy ham sandwhich and no fries as they forgot them). Over lunch realize no reciept for purchased ticket, had to go back to place and get it. Then back to room to pack with enough time before the bus came for a leisurely swim. When the bus did come we were the last to get on meaning we got shafted on seat selection. Heather took the 2nd last seat (2nd last row in the bus) and I took the last seat, the middle of the back row. A fantastic journey ensued, hot, sweaty and bumpy. But at least it was short (only 4 hours). We arrived in Saigon after dark at about 7pm and a quick walk to our Hotel Quanh Thanh. We checked in and showered immediately. Out to dinner at Allez Boo, unremarkable. Dead tired and to sleep.