Cambodia

Due to the desturbingly poor internet here in Siem Reap, Cambodia, blogging has been somewhat of a luxury.

Chronological order.
Jasper, Nalnee, and I left Chaing Mai to Chaing Rai, one of Thailand's most northern cities. We spent some quality time there with Jasper's Aunt and G-ma, spending our days visiting the white temple, getting ourtdoor massages on the Mekong river overlooking Laos and Burma, and cleaning out the small guesthouse in the backyard.

Jasper and I left Chaing Rai, went back to Chaing Mai, then took a bus to Bangkok. We had a bit of a craving to see a movie. We were pleasantly surprised. Let me tell you about movies in Bangkok. The theatres in Bangkok compare to something like the opera house in Sydney. The seats recline and you can even get vip boxes with couches and a full bar menu. The Thais don't mess around when it comes to movie watching.

From there we took one of the most miserable trips of our lives.

-8:00am-meet at the travel agency for the bus to Siem reap

-9:10am-get on the bus and luckily get a seat as it was overbooked and 4 poor people had to sit on the floor

-1:00pm-Arrive at Thai-Cambodian border town and watch other tourists get sold overpriced visas while we buy food from the only restaurant around

-1:30pm-Arrive at the boarder and get lead through by 2 very sketchy locals who stop frequently to buy snacks (if you can call fried bugs a snack) and tell us to meet them several meters down the road.

-2:30pm-Leave the boarder town for Seam Reap

-6:30pm-Get stuck in a huge traffic jam which is stuck in the mud (true, the road isn't paved)

-9:00pm-We are told that we will have to spend the night on the bus (closer to a school bus than a vip air-con bus)

-10:30pm-The bus finally starts rolling to many cheers and we're on our way

-1:30am-we arrive at a guesthouse closely associated with the bus comany, obviously too tired to go to the one we originally wanted.

So now here we are in Siem Reap and loving it. The people are extremely friendly, much more fluent than the Thais, the city is cool, and the Temples of Angkor are simply stunning. We've spent the last 3 days wandering around them and even mustered up the discipline to see 2 sunrises. Yesterday we came across a pack of 25 monkies. We chilled out together and ate rasins. Jasper was lucky enough to get some special attention from one of the friendlier ones.