7/24/2011
7/23/2011
7/21/2011
Cambodia and Laos
Having been on the road for over 3 months now, it’s not all that often we still get one of those ‘were sooo not in Toronto anymore!’ moments… but we’ve had a few in Cambodia. One of which was only about an hour after we had arrived when an elephant strolled by on the street in front of the café we were sitting in.
We stayed in Phnom Phen for a just a couple of days, enroute to Siem Reap (Angkor). The capital has a few interesting tourist attractions; unfortunately many involve the Khmer Rouge atrocities. We visited S21, which was a jail and torture facility during the genocide and includes pictures of the 20K prisoners that were held there (and later killed – with the exception of 7 that were spared). On a more positive note, we checked out a few restaurants in the city that are run by an NGO that trains and employs former street kids… best service that we’ve had so far on our trip and the food was delicious!
After a long bus ride, we arrived in Siem Reap, which is a touristy town a few km from the Angkor Unesco site. We reserved a tuk tuk and the following morning we were speeding off to discover some of the more remote temples. Either because of low season or just sheer luck, we actually had some of the ruins to ourselves, which was pretty crazy. One of the temples we visited was where tomb raider was filmed… walking around the complex, which has sort of been reclaimed by the surrounding jungle, was a totally surreal experience.
The following day we were up (very) early to check out the huge Angkor Wat complex, as well as some of the other nearby ruins – our favourite was Bayon, which has 50 some odd gothic towers decorated with enormous smiling faces. We also encountered some of the habitants of the ruins… a group of monkeys that weren’t too friendly.
Craig and I are currently in Luang Prabang, Laos, which is a really beautiful little town. We’re enjoying a bit of R&R after all the temple-hopping, as well as a relatively cool climate of late 20s(finally!)… although it seems to come with a bit of rain, we’ll still take it! More to come on Laos in our next post.
It’s amazing how quickly time has flown by and that we can now count the number of days until we’re back in Canada on our fingers! Looking forward to seeing family and friends… and a comfy bed ;)7/06/2011
Good morning Vietnam
Happy belated Canada Day (and happy 4th to our neighbours)!
We've just about wrapped up our 3 weeks in Vietnam and can honestly say it's one of our new favorites... full of great food, shopping, and cheap beer... what more can you ask for?(other than maybe a tad less horn honking and fewer motor bikes)
Hanoi was a great introduction to the country. We ate more than our fair share of street food and visited a Bia Hoi (curbside bar) or two for 25 cent beers... Craig looks hilarious sitting on their kid-sized plastic furniture.
A pleasant surprise was that the Vietnamese have their french baguette down pat... so we had to sample a few doner kebabs (rotisserie pork stuffed into a baguette with green papaya, cabbage, onions, chili sauce and garlic sauce) as well as Banh My Pates (baguette with pate, cucumber, and chili sauce). We've also had some awesome Pho Bo (beef noodle soup), spring rolls (both fresh and fried), Bun Cha (BBQ pork patties served in a broth with noodles and herbs), Bun Bo (beef with rice noodles, bean sprouts, herbs, peanuts, and fried shallots in a bit of sweet and savory broth-like sauce)... the list goes on and on.
The capital was a lot of fun to explore and we had a chance to see some cool things, including Ho Chi Minh himself, whose body has been on ice for the past 3 decades. We also made our way up to Halong Bay for a 2 day cruise through karst islands and to visit a floating village.
After Hanoi, we flew to Hoi An, which is in the middle of the country. The old city itself is a Unesco World Heritage site and walking around it feels a bit like going back in time. There are no motorized vehicles and everywhere you look, women are wearing traditional cone hats and carrying produce in baskets hanging from their shoulders.
The city also happens to be very well known for its tailors, so we had some couture made for a steal of a deal (Craig got a trench and suit made and I got a skirt and dress). There's also a famous cooking school in town, so we had a chance to learn how to make some of our fav dishes. Hoi An also happens to have lovely beach about a 15 min bike ride from town, so we rented a couple of bikes and spent Canada day in the sun (or the shade, in Craig's case).
The next destination was Hue, about a 3 hour drive north. Hue was the imperial capital city from ~1800-1950 so we had a chance to learn a bit more about the Nguyen emperors and check out a few of their tombs as well as the forbidden palace (or at least what is left of it after French and American bombings in the last 2 wars).
At the moment we're amidst the chaos of Ho Chi Minh city (aka Saigon), where crossing the street is quite the adventure. We took a day trip to the Chu Chi tunnels, an important area in the Vietnam war (or as they refer to it here, the "Anti-American war"). It was really interesting to see the complex and unbelievably narrow underground tunnel system the Viet Cong constructed.
Time for a last bowl or two of pho and the next stop is Cambodia, first to the capital of Phnom Phen for a couple of days and then to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat...
We've just about wrapped up our 3 weeks in Vietnam and can honestly say it's one of our new favorites... full of great food, shopping, and cheap beer... what more can you ask for?(other than maybe a tad less horn honking and fewer motor bikes)
Hanoi was a great introduction to the country. We ate more than our fair share of street food and visited a Bia Hoi (curbside bar) or two for 25 cent beers... Craig looks hilarious sitting on their kid-sized plastic furniture.
A pleasant surprise was that the Vietnamese have their french baguette down pat... so we had to sample a few doner kebabs (rotisserie pork stuffed into a baguette with green papaya, cabbage, onions, chili sauce and garlic sauce) as well as Banh My Pates (baguette with pate, cucumber, and chili sauce). We've also had some awesome Pho Bo (beef noodle soup), spring rolls (both fresh and fried), Bun Cha (BBQ pork patties served in a broth with noodles and herbs), Bun Bo (beef with rice noodles, bean sprouts, herbs, peanuts, and fried shallots in a bit of sweet and savory broth-like sauce)... the list goes on and on.
The capital was a lot of fun to explore and we had a chance to see some cool things, including Ho Chi Minh himself, whose body has been on ice for the past 3 decades. We also made our way up to Halong Bay for a 2 day cruise through karst islands and to visit a floating village.
After Hanoi, we flew to Hoi An, which is in the middle of the country. The old city itself is a Unesco World Heritage site and walking around it feels a bit like going back in time. There are no motorized vehicles and everywhere you look, women are wearing traditional cone hats and carrying produce in baskets hanging from their shoulders.
The city also happens to be very well known for its tailors, so we had some couture made for a steal of a deal (Craig got a trench and suit made and I got a skirt and dress). There's also a famous cooking school in town, so we had a chance to learn how to make some of our fav dishes. Hoi An also happens to have lovely beach about a 15 min bike ride from town, so we rented a couple of bikes and spent Canada day in the sun (or the shade, in Craig's case).
The next destination was Hue, about a 3 hour drive north. Hue was the imperial capital city from ~1800-1950 so we had a chance to learn a bit more about the Nguyen emperors and check out a few of their tombs as well as the forbidden palace (or at least what is left of it after French and American bombings in the last 2 wars).
At the moment we're amidst the chaos of Ho Chi Minh city (aka Saigon), where crossing the street is quite the adventure. We took a day trip to the Chu Chi tunnels, an important area in the Vietnam war (or as they refer to it here, the "Anti-American war"). It was really interesting to see the complex and unbelievably narrow underground tunnel system the Viet Cong constructed.
Time for a last bowl or two of pho and the next stop is Cambodia, first to the capital of Phnom Phen for a couple of days and then to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat...
6/21/2011
Island Time (Thailand)
After being in Hanoi Vietnam for a couple of days, Aly and I are settling in and finally have had some time to organize a few thoughts about the second half of our Thailand trip...
Post Chiang Mai, we flew to Phuket for a night (since we missed the days last ferry to Koh Phi Phi). Phuket town isn't overly large and from what I can tell, people really just pass through on their way to a beach resort in Phuket or to catch the ferry to Koh Phi Phi... we were the later of the two.
Arriving in Koh Phi Phi Don the following morning, we got settled in to our room quickly, walked the (small) town, and visited one of the gorgeous beaches. Not sure how many people know much about Koh Phi Phi, but it was wiped out in the 2004 Tsunami and has been subsequently rebuilt and (as far as we could tell) life seems to have returned to normal and the Thai people are as happy and friendly as they come.
I had spent some time researching scuba diving certification on the island before we arrived and after speaking with a few shops, we (Kyla and I) settled on Phi Phi Aquanauts as our dive shop of choice. I'll be posting some pics from our underwater adventures, but they really don’t do it justice. After learning some of the basics, it took a total of 5 dives to get our diving licences. Some of the highlights included seeing a black tipped reef shark, a giant turtle, and swimming through a cave with a school of fish in it. The course itself took nearly four days to complete, so that took up most of my time on Koh Phi Phi Don. Aly had a bit more of a chance to explore the island... and also worked on her tan.
We did, however, manage to find time to hire a long tail boat to take us to Koh Phi Phi Ley (which is a protected national park without permanent inhabitants). We arrived first thing in the am - definitely a great idea, since we ended up having Maya beach to ourselves (this is the beach made famous by the filming of the movie "the beach"). Getting to the beach was a bit of an adventure though. After agreeing to a price with a long tail boat driver, we headed off towards Koh Phi Phi Ley. About half way through the journey, the drive informed us that the water was too choppy to enter the bay of the beach. So, we had to take the boat to another bay, swim through some pretty choppy waters, climb a series of ropes that were floating in the water, followed by some rickety stairs onto the island, and then we walk across the island to "the beach".
We obviously made it, but the downside was that we couldn't bring our cameras, but enjoying the beach to ourselves in the morning before all the tour boats made their way there, was a welcome trade off. We also did a little snorkelling afterwards, which was fun (although maybe but not as exciting after all the diving we had done over the previous few days).
After Phi Phi, we took a ferry to Railay beach, Krabi, where we transferred to a long tail boat and then waded (with our bags) onto the island through a mangrove. On Railay we finally got a chance to spend a few days relaxing from the hecticness of scuba diving. While in Railay, we did some kayaking, lounged on the beach a bit, and took it slow for a few days. The island and beaches are amazing, with karst mountains everywhere.
The slower pace continued when we flew to the opposite coast to Koh Samui for the last leg of our island time. Samui is the largest of the Thai islands - it’s really busy, full of resorts, and seems to sort of lack the Thai identity we saw in other places through the country. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our time there and visited a 5* resort called The Library for some fancy time - a few brightly coloured cocktails and some tapas. We also spent a few days on the less touristy side of the island, where the beach isn't as spectacular, but contains more locals, better food, and has a more relaxed feel.
Some of you may know that I've been growing my hair longer these past few months (to Alyson's delight - sarcasm). I didn't quite realize how long it was until a street vendor called me "Mr. long hair" when he was trying to get my attention. I'm thinking it might be time for a cut... or at least a trim.
Our journey back to Bangkok was a long one (consisting of a mini-bus, a large bus, a ferry, another, a taxi, and a shuttle bus) but since it was our final night in Thailand, we were determined to make our dinner a good one. When we arrived we found a local market and arguably had our best meal in Thailand that night.
For the equivalent of six dollars Canadian, we had a great green chicken curry, three orders of rice, chicken wings, a squid phad thai, and two large beers. The phad thai was likely the best phad thai I've had in my life, and it cost me 35 baht, or roughly $1.20 (I don't say this lightly, having eaten phad thai a minimum of once... but generally twice daily... for a month).
After spending so much time in Thailand, we accumulated a handful of phrases that really helped us out and Alyson even had a couple of Thai people switch to Thai mid conversation with her because they were convinced she spoke Thai. On one occasion in Samui, after receiving confused looks from both Alyson and I, our server switched back to English and complimented Aly on her pronunciation. He then asked where we were from, and after hearing we were Canadian, said "Yellowknife?". Some of you may know that my brother lives in Yellowknife, so this totally caught me off guard. Half way around the world, and it turns out the show "Ice Road Truckers" is one of his favourites. Crazy.
As I mentioned before, we've been in Hanoi for a couple of days now and are now starting to work on picking up some phrases in Vietnamese, which seems a LOT more difficult than Thai. That being said, I have a good feeling that Vietnam might be a new favourite... more to come soon.
6/08/2011
6/03/2011
Singapore to Bangkok
Hi everyone, apologies for our blog being dormat for the past few weeks. We're currently enjoying some morning rain (what else is new?) in Chiang Mai, Thailand and finally catching up.
Last post left at our departure from Australia. After landing in Singapore we quickly discovered the city's proximity to the equator and a few days of 40+ degree heat broke us in for the hot weather that lay ahead. Decided to stay in Little India and consequently ate a tonne of delicious chickpeas, lentils, and rice as well as the odd carniverous meal. We have yet to visit India in our travels, but our best guess is that Little India, Singapore is probably as close as you can get to actual India without visiting. For the most part we just wandered the city and checked out some of the different neighbourhoods. Found some time to go shopping on Orchard Road, but didn't buy much due to luggage restrictions (at this point, a purchase bascially means that something else needs to be tossed).
Aly had the chance to meet up with her friend Phil, who was attending NYU's Tisch School for the Arts at their Singapore campus. Conveniently enough, we were in town for his commencement ceremony, which was held at a swanky resort on Sentosa Island (essentially a theme park island just off the mainland). All in all, it was a pretty awesome event that included ice sculptures, great eats, bottles of Moet (popped by the dozen) and some interesting people. Thanks to Phil for sneaking me in with my fanciest backpacker outfit.
The following morning we caught the train to Kuala Lumpur to spend a few days in Malaysia's capital. Singapore is very westernized (clean and everyone speaks English), so this was our first jaunt out of Westernized nations. Again, the focus of our time there was on the food (surprise!): we had some fantastic Char Kway Teow (stir fried flat rice noodles in a chili and blackbean sauce), one of my new favorites. Also had a variety of great Malay curries. Funny enough, one of the highlights of the K.L. eats was a chicken wing meal we had at a restaurant on a chinese food street. They grilled them over a wood fire, fanning the embers and spinning the scewers of chicken wings like a swiss chalet rotisserie chicken.
Of course we did the usual tourist itinerary, checking out the Petras twin towers. Impressive, but moreso in the evening when they're all lit up. After our few days in K.L., we trained it onward to Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia. Georgetown is more a "foodie" town, specializing in a variety of cusines. Some of our favorites were Roti Canai, an extremely stretchy roti (think a cross between a croissant and naan) with dal to dip it in, more Char Kway Teow, and Hokkien Mee (curry shrimp broth noodle soup). After three days of gorging ourselves on street eats for less than $2/meal, we decided to fly to Bangkok before we put on too much weight.
I wasn't really sure what to expect from Bangkok, but in hindsight I probably could have spent a bit less time in the chaos. Our guest house (Wendy's) was great - clean rooms, hot showers, nice breakfast and centrally located on the Sky Train lines. Did a little shopping at some markets (which I am quickly tiring of as they all seem to have the same stuff), spent a day "wating" (checking out temples) and did a couple of days trips. After a couple of days in Bangkok, our friend Kyla showed up, to spend three weeks of her precious vacation time with us. With Kyla fairly adjusted (quickly I might add!) to the time difference we took a day trip to the floating market.
I had sort of anticipated that this would be one of the more touristy aspects of the trip, and indeed it was. Nonetheless, it was still pretty cool to float down the river and buy fruit from old ladies in boats (first time trying mangosteens, which are great) and being constantly hustled by vendors hawking just about everything under the sun. On our way back we stopped at a teak wood carving factory, which was a surprisingly interesting experience. All of their carvings were from one piece of wood and the relief work (Aly's words) was really impressive.
Since it was Tuesday evening, we opted to check out Lumpini Stadium to watch some Muy Thai. We arrived just in time to catch the main event of the night (ringside no less). The atmosphere of the stadium was interesting to say the least, with locals screaming bets at bookies between rounds (at least thats what it looked like to me).
After a few more servings of green curry, mango salad, and phat thai, we ventured off to Ayutthaya the next day, Thailands former capital city. Walking through the ruins was a pretty surreal experience and definitly worth the trip out there.
Our thai is coming along - we've learned a few key phrases such as "lo dai mai krup" (can you give me a discount?), "tao rai" (how much?), "Sawadee Krup" (hello/greeting), "aroi" (delicious), "kop koon krup" (thank you), and "Sabadee mai krup" (how are you?). All of which have come in handy and from I can tell, the Thai people seem to appreciate the gesture (or at least find our attempts at the language funny).
We'll post more about Chiang Mai and the Islands soon.
Last post left at our departure from Australia. After landing in Singapore we quickly discovered the city's proximity to the equator and a few days of 40+ degree heat broke us in for the hot weather that lay ahead. Decided to stay in Little India and consequently ate a tonne of delicious chickpeas, lentils, and rice as well as the odd carniverous meal. We have yet to visit India in our travels, but our best guess is that Little India, Singapore is probably as close as you can get to actual India without visiting. For the most part we just wandered the city and checked out some of the different neighbourhoods. Found some time to go shopping on Orchard Road, but didn't buy much due to luggage restrictions (at this point, a purchase bascially means that something else needs to be tossed).
Aly had the chance to meet up with her friend Phil, who was attending NYU's Tisch School for the Arts at their Singapore campus. Conveniently enough, we were in town for his commencement ceremony, which was held at a swanky resort on Sentosa Island (essentially a theme park island just off the mainland). All in all, it was a pretty awesome event that included ice sculptures, great eats, bottles of Moet (popped by the dozen) and some interesting people. Thanks to Phil for sneaking me in with my fanciest backpacker outfit.
The following morning we caught the train to Kuala Lumpur to spend a few days in Malaysia's capital. Singapore is very westernized (clean and everyone speaks English), so this was our first jaunt out of Westernized nations. Again, the focus of our time there was on the food (surprise!): we had some fantastic Char Kway Teow (stir fried flat rice noodles in a chili and blackbean sauce), one of my new favorites. Also had a variety of great Malay curries. Funny enough, one of the highlights of the K.L. eats was a chicken wing meal we had at a restaurant on a chinese food street. They grilled them over a wood fire, fanning the embers and spinning the scewers of chicken wings like a swiss chalet rotisserie chicken.
Of course we did the usual tourist itinerary, checking out the Petras twin towers. Impressive, but moreso in the evening when they're all lit up. After our few days in K.L., we trained it onward to Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia. Georgetown is more a "foodie" town, specializing in a variety of cusines. Some of our favorites were Roti Canai, an extremely stretchy roti (think a cross between a croissant and naan) with dal to dip it in, more Char Kway Teow, and Hokkien Mee (curry shrimp broth noodle soup). After three days of gorging ourselves on street eats for less than $2/meal, we decided to fly to Bangkok before we put on too much weight.
I wasn't really sure what to expect from Bangkok, but in hindsight I probably could have spent a bit less time in the chaos. Our guest house (Wendy's) was great - clean rooms, hot showers, nice breakfast and centrally located on the Sky Train lines. Did a little shopping at some markets (which I am quickly tiring of as they all seem to have the same stuff), spent a day "wating" (checking out temples) and did a couple of days trips. After a couple of days in Bangkok, our friend Kyla showed up, to spend three weeks of her precious vacation time with us. With Kyla fairly adjusted (quickly I might add!) to the time difference we took a day trip to the floating market.
I had sort of anticipated that this would be one of the more touristy aspects of the trip, and indeed it was. Nonetheless, it was still pretty cool to float down the river and buy fruit from old ladies in boats (first time trying mangosteens, which are great) and being constantly hustled by vendors hawking just about everything under the sun. On our way back we stopped at a teak wood carving factory, which was a surprisingly interesting experience. All of their carvings were from one piece of wood and the relief work (Aly's words) was really impressive.
Since it was Tuesday evening, we opted to check out Lumpini Stadium to watch some Muy Thai. We arrived just in time to catch the main event of the night (ringside no less). The atmosphere of the stadium was interesting to say the least, with locals screaming bets at bookies between rounds (at least thats what it looked like to me).
After a few more servings of green curry, mango salad, and phat thai, we ventured off to Ayutthaya the next day, Thailands former capital city. Walking through the ruins was a pretty surreal experience and definitly worth the trip out there.
Our thai is coming along - we've learned a few key phrases such as "lo dai mai krup" (can you give me a discount?), "tao rai" (how much?), "Sawadee Krup" (hello/greeting), "aroi" (delicious), "kop koon krup" (thank you), and "Sabadee mai krup" (how are you?). All of which have come in handy and from I can tell, the Thai people seem to appreciate the gesture (or at least find our attempts at the language funny).
We'll post more about Chiang Mai and the Islands soon.
5/13/2011
Kuala Lumpur
Hey everyone, we arrived safely (via train) to KL yesterday afternoon. Our first experience with legit Malay food was a memorable one - Char Teow Kway is a new favorite (stir fried noodles with chilli/black bean sauce). Unfortunately for me, its hotter in KL than it was in Singapore.
Write soon,
Craig
Write soon,
Craig
5/10/2011
5/09/2011
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