One last night in Bangkok

I had to add one more post, if only for my own memories, when I come back to read this blog months and years from now. Our last night in Bangkok we went to the rooftop patio of a skyscraper with the most amazing views of the city way down below. As the entire country celebrated their beloved King's 82nd birthday, we toasted him too, watching NO LESS than 22 fireworks displays going off all around us (I tried to count and lost track) ... fireworks everywhere from boats and docks along the river, to a huge public gov't sponsored celebration, to small village celebrations far in the distance... the "Sky Bar" was an expensive 5-star hotel/retaurant/bar/etc. -- expensive even by U.S. or Euro standards (!!) but so worth it for the views and for one last look at the city on our last evening. We made it back to the hotel around 10 PM and slept for 4 hours before taxi'ing it to the aiport at 2:00 AM for our 5:30 AM flight. Which is why I am now GOING TO BED!! But what a wonderful last night in Bangkok and what a way to go out with the King's birthday celebration.

Home sweet home

After 24 hours in transit from Bangkok to Tokyo to Atlanta, we are home safe and sound! Two weeks was just enough to see what we wanted to see, not feel rushed, and return just before we probably would have started to really miss the comforts of home. For a first trip to Thailand I think we spread it out just about right, spending the right amount of time in all of the various places we wanted to see. Were I to spend a month in Bangkok, I'd love to spend more time everywhere - it would be easy to chill out for a week at Ko Raya, snorkeling every day, and hitting the water and beaches before the tour boats arrive on Ko Phi Phi; and I'd love to do a Mahout training course in the northern country (Mahout's are the elephants' caretakers, and all the camps offer 1-2 week courses where you stay and liver there, and Enrique and I both said one day we think that would be awesome); and I'd love to see other parts of Cambodia - although for only having two and a half days there, I can't imagine I'd love anything throughout the country more than Angkor Wat, so I'm so glad we spent our time there exploring those temple ruins.
Speaking of Angkor Wat, which I never had a chance to post about... the temple complex is set in the middle of a jungle, complete with monkeys roaming around on the sides of the roads. When the temples were discovered in the 1800's, most of them were overrun with all sorts of jungle growth, expecially Sponge Trees, which have above-ground roots that drape and wrap over and around walls and monuments, eventually pulling sandstone blocks down and crumbling the structures, with the help of other forces, like time and monsoon season. Well one of the temples, which has a Cambodian name I can't recall and is also known as "The Jungle Temple" they left in tact with the sponge tree and their roots climbing the walls and draped around doorways and relics... and it is BEAUTIFUL. They have to be careful to cut back and remove any growth that puts the site in too much jeopardy, but what they are able to leave behind leaves plenty of opportunities for insane photos that look like they're from an Indiana Jones movie or an elaborate Disney ride. Actually, I think our tour guide mentioned that the movie "Tomb Raider" (the final scenes maybe??) were filmed in this temple (Angelina Jolie starred in it - I never saw it), which was no shock. The other two most famous temples in the complex are the actual "Angkor Wat" temple (which the entire area is named for), which is the one you see in most of the photos when you google the complex, because it is the largest by far and most well preserved. Centered with five towering hives, shaped to look like a closed Lotus bud, it reminded me on Kajuraho in India and no surprise, though Cambodia is mostly a Buddhist country today, this temple was built during the reign of a Hindu king almost 1000 years ago. All of the many temples ruins at Angkor Wat fluxed back and forth between Hindu and Buddhism, depending on the King at the time. That is why in many of them, Buddha's image and face has been meticulously destroyed (likewise many the Hindu symbols of God are also marred from the times of Buddhism)... but in the third most famous temple (along with the Jungle Temple and Angkor Wat), these huge faces of Buddha are remarkably preserved and it's amazing because they pop out at you from all over these towering structures and amongst all of these ruins, these faces still remain. Even though Angkor Wat itself was by far the largest and most well preserved, I loved the Jungle Temple and the Buddha face (my own name for it) temple more. We did go back to Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise as well on our last morning in Cambodia, before we went to visit a water village about an hour outside of Siem Riep (the town where Angkor Wat is located)... and that was definitely a postcard moment.
Our driver took us about an hour outside of Siem Riep to see a local water village. We took a boat out on a huge lake that grows by miles and miles during monsoon season and recedes again during the dry season. Our guide pointed out on dry land where this collection of floating homes had been during rainy season... they all have to move their homes when the rains stop and the lake shrinks, to deeper water... they are almost all fishermen and so go with the water and the fish. A collection of about 100 one-two room houses floated together on bamboo docks in the middle of this lake, and we were lucky enough to see a group of school children (the lucky ones who go to a private school) in their uniforms going from their floating classroom back to their homes (or maybe to lunch?), and we took some really amazing pictures of these Cambodian children in their uniforms, rowing their longtail boats (sort of like we'd see students leaving school on their bikes!). They all loved to wave at us and say "Hello"!
Our guide told us rather than give money to the children we'd see at the village (some of the children around the temples areas would ask for money or try to sell us postcards, etc.) we could buy them candy, something that wouldn't encourage them to beg, but that they'd still love to receive... so for about $1 we bought an entire bucket of lollipops and candies. We passed them out to the children who just LINED UP and smiled at us like we were Santa and Mrs. Claus, when we arrived by boat at a local Buddhist temple on the lake. And we threw candy to the children close enough to us while we were in the boats as well. One little boy from his house boat even jumped right in the water to go after a piece that had fallen in. We made sure after that point to only throw it where we knew we wouldn't miss!!
Anyways, it's 10:45 and I'm going to try to get back to our EST time zone and sleep through the night. I only took a 2 hour nap this afternoon, so it shouldn't be a problem.
I'll post a few pix here and more on Facebook soon!!
Love to everyone - thanks for staying in touch via the blog, Facebook, and email - it made us feel very close to home while we were far away! Love, Meagan

Ko Racha

Since I didn't have time before, I have to say a few quick words about Ko Racha, which I could not have loved more. It's also known as Ko Raya (not sure why the different spellings, but it is listed both ways, even within the area of Phuket, on local maps).

We decided to take a tour there on our last day because the beach sounded very much like Ko Phi Phi Lei ("THE"Beach) except a little less "discovered." Hardly any books mentioned it much at all (Fodor's, etc.) and the 1009 tour shops along the strip in Patong didn't really advertise it a lot. There might be 1 brochure out of 100 about Racha, while there were 90,000 posters/brochures/flyers about Phi Phi and James Bond Island. Which we LOVED and would not do anything differently, but it was time for a change!

Ko Racha was perfect. A whole day on one beautiful beach, with a 90 minute boat excursion, to go snorkeling by the coral reefs that surround the island. Where as Phi Phi had uncountable # of tourist boats lined up coming in and out (so many so that they had to rope off an area safe for swimmers, so you wouldn't have to worry about the boats), this island had no need to roped swimming areas... because there were only a handful of boats all day, and they all pulled up to the same floating dock. I stayed in the water most of the time, except for a few minutes here and there while I reapplied my 30 SPF sunscreen and let it soak in really well. We rented an intertube for $1 and two beach chairs with an umbrella for $2 and enjoyed peace and quiet. There were a couple of resorts situated on the island, and if I had to go back, although it's somewhat remote (about 45 minute speed boat ride from the south end of Phuket), I think it would be a wonderful place to call home while in Phuket.

We're at the airport now and many people are waiting for this computer, so I'll have to save Angkor Wat for another time, but we really are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy that we worked Cambodia into our trip. A 1 hour flight from Bangkok, Siem Riep was so worth the trip. Enrique compared the complex of temples ruins hidden in the jungle to the lost city of Atlantis. Our pictures from there MIGHT be the best of the trip, because the sites were so surreal; you really couldn't take a bad picture there.

I hope to post more tomorrow, either from Bangkok somewhere or from the airport when we get settled at the gate tomorrow night/Sunday morning! Our flight by the way leaves at about 5:30 AM Sunday morning (or 5:30 PM on Saturday EST in the USA). We'll arrive back in the ATL early on Sunday afternoon, and Sarah and Hank are picking us up from the airport (Sar, are you bringing Hank, Enrique would like to know? He really misses you too!!! hahaha).

Love you all!
Meagan

Koy Phi Phi, James Bond Island, and Koy Racha

I really want to talk more about our time in Phuket, before I move on to Cambodia... there has been so much to see and take in on this trip, and I feel like I really haven't done any of it justice with the short amount of time that I've had at the computer. I have 30 minutes right now, before our driver comes to take us to the airport, so I'll try to at least catch up through Angkor (with a G - I misspelled it before) Wat, where we've spent the last 2.5 days exploring in Cambodia.

Really quickly first... with minimal time to spend online, I just caught up a little... and I have to say TIGER WOODS WHAT???? WHAT??? And BILLY WAGNER, WHAT??? GO BRAVES! WOW, it is time for me to come back home and plug back into society I think!

OK, back to Phuket! On our first full day, we went to THE BEACH. Like, duh. No, I mean THE Beach, as in, the beach that was the set of the movie "The Beach"... if you haven't read the book or seen the movie, here is a quick synopsis... it's about a group of tourists who grow tired of well... other tourists and crowded, commericialized beaches (see: Patong) and are in search of the perfect, undiscovered beach in Thailand... there is a legend of one, but no one knows if it really exists until Leo Dicaprio is given a handdrawn map by a drugged out crazy person, just before he (the crazy person) kills himself and so Leo and a couple fellow travellers go off to find The Beach.

WELL, Ko Phi Phi Lei would fit that description (of paradise) perfectly, IF it were undisovered, because it is a crescent shaped cove of soft, white sand; perfectly clear and warm waters; and soaring limestone peaks, covered with tropical greenery. BUT, it's unfortunately been discovered for a long time, and because of the movie the Beach it's more popular than ever before (it was a popular site to visit before the movie too) and boatloads (literally) of tourists are dropped there for 30 minutes at a time, before reboarding their boats to go to the other side of the Island (Phi Phi Don). Despite the crowds, I still LOVED it because for some insane reason, not everyone wanted to swim, and I was in the water in about 2 seconds. Give me clear ocean water, and I want to be in it. So as long as I looked away from the beach iteself, and looked out on the limestone towers and ocean, I could forget for a while about the throngs of tourists snapping pictures behind me.

The following day we took a tour to James Bond Island (It has a "Ko"Thai name, that I can't remember at the moment). The thing to see in this bay is again the limestone towers that rise from the ocean and dot the landscape all around, instead of around just one bay, like on Koy Phi Phi. They're all around, rising up out of nowhere, like a giant chess set in the ocean.

I'm not even to Koy Racha, also known as Koy Raya, which was my favorite of the three days in Phuket, and our driver is here to take us to the airport!! I'll try to post again from Bangkok about Koy Raya, and the last few days in Cambodia - Angkor Wat is really a magical place!!

Love you all!
Meagan

Sa-Wa-Dee-Kah!

Or if Enrique said the same thing... Sa-Wa-Dee-Khrup! Which means, Hello or goodbye... It's a greeting we hear constantly! Men say "khrup"
at the end and women say "kah"... Same thing with "Thank you" which I would say... Kop-kum-ka and
Enrique would say kop-kum krap... Or something like that!!
I'm spelling these how they sound of course,
I've never seen them written down. I promised Mom a few days ago to share some of the words we'd learned, so there you go! Those are the two
we use every day. I'm typing from Enrique's blackberry whcih found the free wireless at the hotel, so this will be very brief so my thumbs
don't fall off. Phuket and the islands we've explored (or Ko - word for Island... Ko phi phi, etc) have been beautiful beyond words.
We have visited Ko Phi Phi, "James Bond Island" (where The Man with the Golden Gun" was filmed) and Ko Raya aka Ko Racha (my fav) today. We have
been snorkeling three times (twice today) and have spent more time in the ocean than on land I think. I wish I had an underwater camera to take pictures of the coral formations we've seen.
Amazing colors... Purples and oranges and bright blues, really incredible, like swimming in an aquarium. A really pychadelic aquarium. My thumbs now are about to fall off so that's it for now! We fly to cambodia tomorrow to see Ankor Wat (google it, I don't have time to go into it but I promise it is really neat)! Love you all! Xoxo!