Answering questions....

We have enjoyed talking to people about our trip and there have been some common questions. Here's the questions and our thoughts.....

Why did you decide to pick Southeast Asia to travel?
Well, we had planned on taking a long vacation this summer, and so we started to think where would we want to go that’s pretty far away? Mark has travelled to Thailand and really enjoyed it, and I have always wanted to go too. We also thought about New Zealand and Australia, but decided to just do Southeast Asia.
We then added other countries in the area – like Vietnam and Cambodia. We have had friends that went there recently and said it’s pretty great, and we wanted to get to the areas before they become even more developed (and more expensive).

How did you plan the trip? Did you use a travel agent?
My wonderful husband planned the whole trip. He loves to research and spent a lot of time talking to other friends about their travels, researched things on the internet and Tripadvisor, and we combined our personal interests into a basic itinerary. He consulted a travel agent for some flights in and out of the countries in Southeast Asia, but ended up booking all the flights himself. The greatest part was that we used airline miles to get there and back and used our Starwood hotel points for most of the nights on the trip.
We had all of the flights and hotels booked before we left, but then just planned out our days once we got there. We had some general ideas of what we wanted to do (cooking class in Thailand, certain historical/religious sites, etc), but if something looked interested, then we did it.

What’s it like being back?
It is really strange. We had a bit of a culture shock when we returned. We had a couple days when we got back to regroup, do laundry, relax and set our bodies to the new time clock. But now that it’s over 6 weeks since we’ve returned, it seems like the trip was years ago. Weird.

Anything else?
I would want to highly recommend the company Blurb.com for a photobook! This was our first time using this company, but it definitely won’t be the last. We created this amazing 160 page book with dust jacket, hard cover, and full bleed color images of our trip. There are over 300 images and the book was about 50 bucks to make. It’s totally a coffee-table type of book and is way cheaper than sending your pictures to a Costco or something like it.

We are back on American soil!

The 12+ hour flight from Hong Kong to SFO went smoothly. Unfortunatlely we both got just about an hour of sleep, so when we got home at 9:30am Friday morning (which was about 12:30am Saturday in Hong Kong) we were a bit tired. Now we are trying to get back on California time.

Bags have been partly unpacked and we will give you a debrief soon. :)

Hong Kong!

For the last stop on our trip, we spent about 4 days in Hong Kong. Our good friend Navin moved there about 9 months when he took another position with Intel, so we came to visit him and see the area. We flew in late Monday evening and grabbed dinner at a local Cantonese place for some yummy food. Although, the complimentary appetizer was called a "Century Egg" or "Thousand year old egg," which is supposed to be some delicacy, but I (April) nearly lost it when I took a bite. The guys said it tastes like a normal hard-boiled egg, and if you close your eyes you cannot even tell the difference. Well, I could tell, and it was not good. It is preserved some how for a couple weeks, and it turns a nasty green color, and pretty much is really gross. I'll leave it up to the boys to eat them! The rest of the dinner was yummy though. After dinner we walked around part of the Lang Kwai Fong and had a drink at a chic bar. Everyone stays out pretty late, so the town was still having fun!

Navin took a couple days off work to show us around and our first adventure was heading to Lantau Island. We took a cab from his Mid-Level apartment (with an awesome view!) to the ferry station and then the fast ferry to Lantau Island where we caught a bus and headed up to see the Tian Tan Buddha, or Big Buddha. It's the world's tallest outdoor seated bronze buddha. It was made in 1993 and is almost 112 feet tall, and weighs 250 tons. The buddha on the top of the hill also has a great view of the island. We cabbed it back down the hill (instead of taking the bus with a BUNCH of people squished on small seats) and ferried back to Hong Kong Island. We grabbed a dim sum lunch, got a reflexology foot massage at Happy Foot and then back to Navin's place to rest for a bit.


The weather has been spectacular while in Hong Kong (best in years, supposedly) and we headed out that evening to the Kowloon waterfront to grab and drink and watch the sunset from the InterContinental hotel. It was a beautiful night. Navin had made a dinner reservation at the Aqua restaurant, which has a stellar view of the Hong Kong Island skyline and a very stunning interior.

The skyscrapers along the waterfront give a little light show nightly at 8pm, and we were perched at a little table with an amazing view. Probably one of the best views of the city, and the food was great too! The cuisine is a Japanese and Italian combination, and it's definitely worth it! We walked around the area a bit after dinner and grabbed a night cap at the Felix bar, located in the Peninsula hotel.


The next morning we headed out to Hollywood Road, where there are some antique and furniture shops. We also walked around SoHo (South of Hollywood Road) with lots of restaurants and little shops. The area is very ExPat oriented, and also boasts what was the world's longest escalator system that takes you through the old streets. After walking around there we took the tramway to The Peak, or the highest mountain on Hong Kong Island. The tramway drives right past Navin's apartment, on this VERY steep uphill climb. It's well worth the trip up, as the views of the city are amazing. Again, this has been some of the best weather Hong Kong has seen in years, so it was very picturesque. We lunched at the top of the hill and then came back for a little rest and pool time before dinner out.


Mark has been looking forward to eating Peking Duck in Hong Kong, and we had some of the best at Peking Garden. We ordered a whole duck and they bring it to a carving station and cut up bit size pieces, displaying them beautifully on a duck platter. They also give you amazing little pancakes to wrap it in, along with the traditional hoisin sauce, cucumber and onions. Yummy!!! We thoroughly enjoyed the meal! Navin had to head out on a business trip, so we ended the night a bit early before our last day in Hong Kong and on vacation. (Insert tears.)

Mark and I wanted to do a little local shopping for our last day, so we cabbed it out to the other side of the Island in Ap Lei Chau to a large warehouse type shopping building that offered Chinese furniture and home items. It's about a 30 story building, so we started at the top and worked our way down. We found many things we would be willing to take home, but they will have to wait until the next trip when we actually have a home for them.

Late in the afternoon we went to Kowloon for some more local market shopping. Navin said that many people don't go from one island to the next very often, as there is plenty to do in their own space. Hong Kong island offers the City life with chic upscale shopping and many more well known businesses are located there. Kowloon is somewhat more of of what you would expect for a Chinese city. It has local markets, more stalls with street food, and the like. Seeing as how we wanted to experience everything while we are in town, we headed to Kowloon via the subway or MTR and shopped at the Ladies Market and the Temple Night Market. We grabbed dinner on the street at a busy restaurant and enjoyed our last night in Hong Kong.

Overall, we thought Hong Kong was an amazing city. It's bustling with people, activities, shopping, and business. It has a amazing skyline views, and is a hub of many things chic. It was definitely a great last stop before coming home.

We packed our bags for the final time Friday morning and headed to the airport to come back to reality.

Relax! This is a vaction after all!!

I am actually writing this AFTER the 5 days in Krabi, so I have a tear running down my eye. The time was great.....

We travelled from Chiang Mai to Bangkok to Krabi and then took the hotel shuttle bus to the Sheraton Krabi Beach Resort where we would spend the next few days relaxing as we wound down the trip. Mark had been to this resort before, and when he was travelling last, they upgraded him to the nicest room in the hotel, because of his Starwood Platinum status. Somehow he was able to pull some strings and get the same amazing suite at the hotel. It had a sitting room and bedroom, divided by a full height sliding paneled door, 2 bathrooms, and a balcony (where we had an amazing dinner...more later on that) with sunbathing chairs and umbrella. Just great.

We walked around the hotel and had a late lunch at one of the many resort restaurants (with an amazing view of the ocean), and then rested before going into town to Ao Nang. The resort is actually between the 2 towns of Ao Nang and Krabi, so it's nicely secluded and away from business. But, we headed into town to grab some dinner and shop at the little stores and stalls along the beach strip. We walked into a CD/DVD store just minutes after getting busted by the police (and watched them bag up tons of DVDs that had been pirated). (FYI - If you choose to buy pirated DVD's, you run the risk of buying crappy copies, hardly worth watching, along with the illegal aspect, of course.) Anyway, the town was fun, and we got out just as it was starting to pour down rain!

The next couple days were spent just relaxing at the resort. They recently built another pool, so we spent a few hours there there most days. It's also just a short walk to the beach. Gorgeous! The resort also has a baby elephant named RaRa in residence, and they have a morning time with him where you can feed him bananas and hang out, and an afternoon time for the same and to help give him a bath in the ocean. I got to have a ride on RaRa for a few minutes, which was really cool. One of the hotel bars named Martini's had a happy hour with 2 for 1 drinks, so we caught a couple sunsets there as well.

One day we ventured to the town of Krabi, which was actually a bust. It's the main area where you can catch a boat to other islands, but the main town was terribly sleepy and no real souvenir shopping. Our recommendation - skip it!

A final highlight for this part of our stay was the offer to have a balcony barbecue at our suite. It's only reserved for the few rooms that have the patios, and we decided to take advantage of the opportunity and do it! We had a 9 course meal with appetizers, salad, 5 courses of meat including lamb, fillet, pork, chicken, prawns, and rice and then dessert! Mark had told the coordinator beforehand that my favorite dessert was mango with sticky rice and coconut ice cream, and although it wasn't on the normal BBQ menu, they came through for me! I was in heaven. We watched the sun set from our balcony as we were served our dinner. We had a BBQ chef, another chef, and a waiter....All for us! It was amazing.

We could have spent another week at the resort hanging out, reading more books and just relaxing. It was perfect and just what we needed.

Elephants and Tigers and Monkeys, Oh Mai

We arrived in Chiang Mai, located in the northern part of Thailand, on a short one hour flight from Bangkok. We were picked up at the airport by our hotel, the Rimping Village. The boutique resort of 27 rooms nestled around a central pool is less than a year old and is located about 20 minutes from the airport and a short walk from town. After getting settled, we walked to the night market and had dinner at a restaurant called Le Spice which was a mix of Indian and Thai food. The food was very cheap, and April had her new favorite dessert Mango with Sticky Rice and Coconut Ice Cream. Following dinner we walked all around the night market (which is several blocks of small shops that sell local handicrafts each night until midnight). We ended the evening with a Thai massage before turning in.

On Sunday, we hired a private taxi to take us to a road outside of town where they features factories of the many local handicrafts. Our first stop was at the Thai Silk factory where we saw the process for making silk from silkworm cocoons to hand looms where the threads are weaved into fabric. We were fascinated to learn that each cocoon (about the size of a peanut) produces a thread of silk 500 meters long! They boil a large cauldron of cocoons which allows the threads from each to meld together to create one larger strand of silk which is extracted easily with a wooden pedal powered spool.

We also stopped at factories where they make silver jewelry and handicrafts, teak furniture, celadon pottery, lacquer ware and a precious gems showroom. We really enjoyed the teak furniture, particularly the dry bar's that they had, and the celadon colored glazed pottery where we picked up a cool ceramic serving bowl + lid for $12.

For dinner, we went to a place called Jerusalem Falefel which had amazing middle eastern food (humus, taziki, baba ganoush, tabouli, tahini, falafel) all served with fresh made pita (still hot). Mark was in heaven. After dinner we walked around the downtown area where on Sunday nights they block the main streets and have a special market which we found to be the best quality and variety at the lowest prices that we have seen so far in Thailand. All the locals attend this market, so they can't easily gouge tourists.

The next day brings us to the title of this post. We hired another private taxi for the day, and headed out to the Maesa area north west of the city. Chiang Mai is located in a somewhat jungle like setting, particularly as you get outside of the city and into the hills. Everything is green and very beautiful. There are also many animals that are indigenous to the area, in particular the Asian elephant as well as several others. Our plan for the day was to see as many different animals that we could, and to be able to interact with them in ways that you can't do at a zoo at home.

Our first stop was at the Masea Elephant camp. Here, they have about 70 elephants of all ages. We were able to feed them bananas and sugar cane, take up close and personal pictures, watch them bathe, and then we watched a show. There were about 200 people at the show. The elephants dance, play soccer, give thai massages, and compete in a pick up sticks game. The most amazing thing is that they have trained them to paint, and they actually make quite beautiful pictures that you can purchase after the show for about $70.

The highlight for us was that April volunteered to play darts on center stage vs one of the elephants (popping balloons). There were about 7 balloons for each of them, and the Elephant got off to an early lead (April missed the first couple throws). However, she came back strong and ended up tying the Elephant (he does this every day - so I was proud of her). The crowd loved it.

Our next stop for the day was at the Tiger Kingdom. Here you can pay to play with tigers of all sizes. You choose whether you want baby tigers, cubs or full grown adults (you can do all if you want to pay). We selected the cubs, and were given 15 minutes to play with four tiger cubs in their cage. This was really great as we were able to hold them and play with animals like we would never be able to do back at home. While they were pretty docile when we were there, we maintained a healthy fear of them as even at this age they could bite you and do some serious damage. Their paws are HUGE also.

The next animal adventure was a Monkey show. We watched as the monkeys demonstrated their abilities in riding a bike, picking coconuts, playing basketball and other activities. Mark volunteered at this show and had his hands tied up. One of the monkeys untied him and gave him a big kiss afterwards. Yuck!

We also went to an Orchid farm (many beautiful varieties growing), a butterfly farm (we were able to catch and hold them in our hands) and finally as snake show (where the most amusing part was not the cobras, but the MC who made all kinds of funny sounds to jazz up the show - we have a video, it's hilarious).

We returned back to Rimping Village, swam for a bit and ate at the restaurant there (great Thai food). That night we had hired an in room Thai massage. The hotel coordinated bringing someone in from the local massage school, and each of us were treated to an hour Thai massage in our own bed. She was awesome and we had her come back the next night for 3 hours.

On our final full day in Chiang Mai, we attended Thai cooking school at www.thaicookeryschool.com. Chiang Mai is well known for having very good food, and we were not dissapointed in learning how to make some of it. The school has five different courses (each a day long) and you learn six different dishes at each. We were just there for a day, but learned how to make yellow curry with chicken, steamed fish in banana leaves, chicken with cashew nuts, fried big noodles with sweet soy sauce, spicy prawn salad, and bananas in coconut milk. First we went to the local food market and learned about all the ingredients and then we each bought one item that we would use for the day. Back at the school, they demonstrated how to make a dish, and then sent us each to our own station (where ingredients were waiting) to make it. Of course we ate all that we made also. It was really a lot of fun, and we were surprised that we could make such good tasting food! In addition, they gave us a recipe book that has all of the 30 recipes from all their courses in it. So, we look forward to making some good Thai food when we get home.

Our last night we relived some of our favorites. We made another stop at the Jerusalem Falafel restaurant and then had our in room Thai massage therapist again.

Now we're off to the beach, with a trip to Krabi on the south west coast of Thailand (near Phuket)

Four Days in Bangkok

We arrived in Bangkok on Tuesday afternoon from Siem Reap, Cambodia. We hired a taxi to take us to the Royal Orchid Sheraton, which is located on the Chao Phraya river. Our room had a nice view of the river, which is used extensively by the city. Boats move up and down carrying passengers and cargo in every direction. We couldn't wait to get our first massage (one of the key things about Thailand that we have been looking forward to are the cheap massages. The going rate in Bangkok is about 200 Thai Bhat for an hour, or roughly $6. In Chaing Mai, we've found places as low as 100 Bhat/hour) We headed out to dinner at a restaurant called the Mango Tree in the Shilom area of town which was recommended in some of the travel guides and also by the hotel. It was indeed very good. We had crab curry, pineapple fried rice, sweet and sour shrimp and April had her favorite soup Tom Kha Ghai. After dinner, we walked down the street and checked out the night market before choosing a place for a foot massage (which includes some work on the shoulders, neck and back). We also both had manicure's and pedicure's. Total bill was $12 each.

We woke up Wednesday and headed out to see some of the sights in Bangkok. We took a river taxi up the river a few stops to the area around the Royal Palace, which is where we planned to go first. As we were walking up to the palace, a man came up to us and told us that the palace was closed until 2pm for a royal ceremony, and suggested a few other places we might want to see nearby, pointed them out on our map and told us how much we should pay the Tuk Tuk (three wheeled taxi) driver to take us to all of them (about $1.50). We turned to the street & got into a Tuk Tuk to go and see one of the temples that he recommended. It was the sitting Buddha temple. While we were there, another tourist couple overheard our conversation and came up to us to tell us about some of the scams that they had experienced.

It turns out, that we were in the middle of a scam (a bit of a strong word to use since we were not in any real harm). The guy at the Palace (who looked official) was not an employee, and the Palace was not closed. It is a very common scam to get tourists to go other places by telling them that the place they want to go is closed. The tuk tuk driver then takes you to a couple of places and insists that you also stop by a couple of shops to check out jewelry, clothes, souvenirs, and the like. Each of the shop owners pays the driver a “commission” for bringing potential customers (this is what they use to buy gas, etc and is why the initial rate quoted for driving us around was so low).

After visiting the first temple (of three stops that were originally recommended), we told our driver that we wanted to go back to the Palace instead to see what he would do. We wanted to test the scam theory. He insisted that we go by a couple shops on the way back, just look, and they he would take us back. We did as it only took a couple minutes, and then we were taken back to the Palace (which had been open all along). Believe it or not, he was a bit surprised when I didn't tip him! Besides feeling like we were scammed, it wasn't really too big of a deal, but we learned our lesson.

We've found traveling around Thailand now a week, that there are all kinds of kickback's paid by merchants to taxi drivers, hotels, and the like for bringing in customers. This really has two effects. First of all, it causes you to question everywhere you are going and wonder if indeed it's the “best” place to buy something or just the place that pays the driver the most. Secondly, the prices at many of the places that they take you to to buy things are inflated to cover all the commissions (up to 30%) that they pay. So, the challenge is finding places that are off the beaten tourist path to buy things.

Back to the Royal Palace in Bangkok. The buildings are all adorned with gold and intricate carvings, paintings and statues. Buddhism is such a part of the culture and is pervasive throughout. It's often hard to separate what is religious vs government, etc. The Palace is right next to a set of Buddhist temples, in particular one that houses the Emerald Buddha. Men and women need to have their shoulders and knees covered to enter the area. April thought her capri pants were sufficiently below the knees, but she was asked to cover up a bit more and had to borrow some clothes when we entered. She doesn't like the pictures of her that we took there as a result. We walked around the grounds for about an hour and then went to find some lunch on the street. We shared some fried rice.

Our next stop was to the reclining Buddha temple, Wat Pho, which is just a few blocks down the street. This temple houses Thailand's largest reclining Buddha, which measures 150 feet long and 49 feet high and is plated in gold. His toes are huge! :)

Afterwards, we headed home on a water taxi and took a short nap before watching the sunset from the patio behind our hotel and on the river. It was very beautiful. For dinner, we headed to Chinatown and had a rather unexciting dinner – we choose the wrong place. Anyway, immediately after we headed out to get Thai massages before turning in for the night.

On Thursday, we went to the Jim Thompson house in the morning. Jim was extremely influential in bringing back and further developing the Silk industry in Thailand. He first came to Asia in his Army service during WWII and then was discharged after the War, but decided to stay in Thailand. It was during this time that he launched his business and revolutionized the Thai Silk industry. Unfortunately, he disappeared mysteriously in 1967, but left a wonderfully decorated traditional Thai house which we toured with an English speaking guide. It was very nice...April was in heaven so to speak, as she has known of and purchased Jim Thompson fabric for her Interior Design clients for years.

In the afternoon, we decided to move to another hotel in the center of the city for our last two nights in Bangkok. We used points and stayed at the Westin Sukhumvit. It was quite a bit nicer than the Sheraton we were in, and also a lot closer to the action of the city. We ate at the hotel's dinner buffet which was fantastic. Afterwards...you guessed it, another massage.

Friday we walked and shopped around town, and satisfied one of April's cravings from back home – Starbucks! It's amazing what an Iced Grande Vanilla Latte will do for a girl! Notice the traditional Thai decoration on the building – very cool!

On Saturday morning we got up early and took the Metro/Train to the Chatuchak weekend market. We heard this was the best place to buy the local handicrafts at a good price, but it didn't really meet our expectations – as it was kinda a lot of junk. The amount of vendors at the market was amazing though (about 9,000), and we got some exercise in before our next flight that afternoon!

Overall we found Bangkok to be interesting and fun, but we didn't need 4 days. 2-3 would have been better for us.

On to the North in Thailand to Chiang Mai!

Wat a Day!

We left Vietnam after a week for our 24 hour adventure to Cambodia (Yes, one day is a short time to go anywhere, but we had debated back and forth about going to Cambodia at all, and luckily decided to squeeze it in despite the high cost of getting there via air). Our main mission was to see Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, and we had heard and read that there were many other temples, but didn't know what to expect. Pictures cannot even explain the magnitude of this place, with hundreds of temples, many built 1,000 years ago, all out of giant stones that are carved with depictions of . Here's a little history lesson about this UNESCO World Heritage site.

The main temple is called Angkor Wat and is the largest religious monument in the world and is considered to be the ultimate example of Khmer architecture. Built between 1133 and 1150, during the reign of King Suryavarman II, Angkor Wat was originally dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu (though the whole area came under Buddhist rulers a few hundred years later until the present time) . The size alone is breathtaking - the outer walls stretch 1.5 km by to 1.3 km (nearly 1 mile square), and there is a moat over 650 feet wide surrounding the whole complex. The entire site takes up about 500 acres. In 2007 an international team of researchers using satellite photographs and other modern techniques concluded that the Angkor area had been the largest preindustrial city in the world with an urban sprawl of 400 square miles. The closest rival to Angkor, the Mayan city of Tikal in Guatemala, was roughly 50 square miles in total size.

Angkor is, quite simply, one of the most splendid attractions in all of Southeast Asia. Long considered "lost," the ruins of Angkor were never really lost to the Khmers, who throughout their history have used the monuments as a religious site. The myth of "Angkor's lost ruins" is more suited to a Hollywood film than the history books. The French botanist Henri Mouhot stumbled across Angkor Wat in 1860, and since then it has been a main attraction in the region.

We started our adventure on Monday afternoon, after arriving into Cambodia. We took a taxi to the Le Meridian hotel, and rested for a bit, as we wanted to spend the early evening at Angkor. The guide book said you could buy an entrance ticket at 4pm, and then it would be good for the next day. We hired a tuk-tuk (or little cart pulled by a motorbike), and went out to get our ticket.
The entrance discount started at 5pm instead, so our driver took us around down-town Siem Reap and gave us some history on the area. He also showed us the "killing fields" which was a monument to the millions of people that were killed during the Pol Pot regime. There were 3 million people killed that were counted for during 1975-1979, and many more missing. Our driver had a grandmother and some uncles killed during this horrible time.

We got our entrance ticket and asked the driver to take us around for a driving tour of Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples. We planned on getting up early the next day and spending the morning discovering the temples, so this was going to be a bit of a preview. The main, popular sites are Angkor Wat, Bayan (where there are budha faces carved in the rock), and Ta Prohm (which is the temple overgrown by large trees). We spent a couple hours riding around and getting out to take pictures and explore a little of the compound. After this little taste, we headed into town to eat at Khmer Kitchen for some traditional Cambodian food - very yummy. Off to bed early as we wanted to be up before sunrise.

Tuesday morning we woke up at 4:30am (ouch) and met our same tuk-tuk driver (named Kimleng), as we wanted to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat, which is a very popular thing for tourists to do here. We stumbled through the grounds and temple, by only the light of the moon, and then sat down by the pond to wait for the sky to open. Kimleng said the reflection of the sunrise off the pond is beautiful. The sunrise was a little more bland than desired, but it was still mystical and magical to be in this incredible space. After the sunrise, we explored the temple for an hour, where you could easily spend all day or more to see everything, before heading off to Bayan.

A couple months ago, I (April) had seen some amazing photos of monks wearing the traditional saffron-colored robes, sitting near these Buddha faces, carved in rock monuments - somewhere in the world. I googled the image and then found out that it was the very place I was going on my trip this summer. Needless to say, I was very excited about this site.

Bayan is one of the most written about and photographed of Angkor's monuments. Originally, this site had 54 towers, with 4 faces carved into them - facing the directions of the compass. Some people believe the 54 towers represented the 54 provinces of the realm of King Jayavarman VII, and that the faces were that of the King's, looking down upon the entire country. In any case, the temple is amazing and makes you realize the difficulty of it's execution.

According to our guide and driver, the stones were brought here by floating down rafts on the river, some 70 km away. And, not only are there the Buddha faces carved into the rock, but the whole site (along with most of the other temples at Angkor) are carved with relief designs of Hindu religious symbols and stories. And - this is was all done nearly 1000 years ago!













The last main site we toured was called Ta Phrom. The jungle covered Ta Phrom is straight out of an Angelina Jolie "Tomb Raider" film. It was decided to leave this temple in its originally found state, although the trees are slowly destroying the monument, as the roots grow on top of and in and through the monument's stones.

Ta Phrom was built by Jayavarman VII for his mother, and this was the center of a city of over 10,000 people and also an active Buddhist monistary. We were dropped off at the North gate, and then walked through the jungle (litterally) for a while before stumbling upon the main site. We imagined ourselves as the French botanist who found this place, and thought how crazy it would have been. While walking around, Mark made friends with a worker at the temple, who gave us a private tour of some hidden spots and pointed out the most important things to see. He took such pride in this ancient place of his people, and enjoyed showing us its splendor. One of the things he pointed out was this carving of a dinosaur. It is amazing to think that they knew about the dinosaur's back then.

Our time in Angkor was really great. Besides all of the temples, one of the real highlights were the people who we found to be extremely nice and very beautiful. The children were simply adorable, and like in Vietnam, they start working at a very early age selling things to tourists. They speak very good English, at least enough to give a full sales pitch. "Mr Mark, will you buy a water" "No thanks, I already have some." "Mr Mark will you come buy one from me when you are done". "Miss April, would you like a bracelet?" "Thanks but I already have one." "One is not enough, you need two or more. Please buy from me." Our hearts really went out to them (as did some of our money).

Mark also spent some time talking to the server at the hotel bar. She was 29, not married, and practicing her English so she could get a better job. Mind you, she had a very coveted job, working at the Le Meridian in Angkor which is a five star hotel. However, she works 60 hours a week (10 hours a day for 6 days) and gets paid $120 per month plus room and board.

Though we only had a day in Cambodia, we made the most of it, saw a lot., and felt like it was worth the trip We highly recommend for anyone to come here to visit. It is simply one of the most amazing places either of us have ever been!