The Forgotten Bag: Louise & Donald visit Asia

Cambodia with the in-laws! Now I can cross that one off the bucket list.

Donald & Louise arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed in Singapore on a Thursday and treated us to all the things in Singapore we can’t, ourselves, afford. We haven't shown you much about Singapore in the way of pictures, so we have included some here of the highlights of their visit. Highlights include: drinks at Ku De Ta atop the Marina Bay Sands, a tour of the Singapore Cricket Club (bigger highlight for some!), dinner at Samy's Curry, spending a day watching the England v. South Africa Cricket World Cup match, drinks at Boat Quay for Andi's birthday - and in general, lots of good food and drink!

On Monday, Julia and the McKenzie’s flew to Kuala Lumpur for a day trip before heading to Cambodia where I met them Tuesday morning. I was not in Kuala Lumpur so I can’t really speak to the experience but I know they lived well and that it rained. [Side note from Julia - we had less than 24 hours in KL but attempted to make the most of it, especially before the rain came. Had lunch at a hawker stall in Central Market, took the cab driver up on his offer to be our "tour guide" and walked around the colonial Merdeka Square before heading out to Batu Caves - really amazing size and scale - before the rain started. We headed back to our hotel overlooking the Petronas towers and took advantage of all it had to offer!]

Siem Reap is known for its temples (aka, “Wats”). As soon as you arrive in Siem Reap you are mobbed by taxi drivers looking to be your tour guide through the temples (technically, they want to actually be the driver and their buddy/cousin is the tour guide. To the country’s credit, tour guides are strictly regulated - it costs $3,000 USD to become a tour guide - and credentials are checked at the Wats). We found a duo immediately, negotiated a price (about $60 per day for driver and guide) and were on our way.

I will let the pictures speak for themselves – they are temples – about what you’d expect. Angkor Wat is the biggest and most famous Wat and was therefore a tourist trap. We tended to enjoy the smaller more remote Wats including Ta Prohm - where there are literally trees growing out the roof with roots wrapped around the pillars of the Wat like a beanstalk. Pretty remarkable. On a personal note, given that I have very little interest in religious history my mind would wander during our tour guide’s all-to-frequent seminars on the temples (“In 1293 so-in-so walked 100 kilometers to this point where he recited the such-in-such and his spirit ascended to the third dimension of gobildy-gook”). I am much more interested in the logistical element of the Wats and our guide would actually get offended when I would ask questions like “where did the monks go to the bathroom?”. The tour guide and I did not get along.

The town of Siem Reap is cool – more vibrant than Laos but cleaner and safer than Vientam. We ate well, drank cheap beer and had a nice experience. Thank you to Suma for directing us to Touich - a fantastic Khmer restaurant just north of old Siem Reap town. The dinner there was outstanding, not ot mention the Khmer mojitos that are their signature drinks!

Next we flew to Bangkok where, thanks to a friend, we were made aware of a promotional rate at a brand new hotel. When we arrived we got upgraded (we actually don’t think the rooms we requested have even been finished) so we got two rooms that each had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and dining room seating for six. We considered consolidating but the hotel told us that would be more expensive. Interesting math. Another brick in the Asian-Financial-Crisis-Wall.

The highlights of Bangkok were the Royal Palace (again, too much emphasis on religion and not enough on the actual palace – I was hoping for Bangkok’s version of a White House tour), weekend market and the canals. The Palace did turn out to be pretty impressive – see pictures. The weekend market has 15,000 stalls (allegedly). I didn’t buy anything but had a nice time walking around (I found some kid wearing a t-shirt that said “I sold my sister for a used video game” – that guy will do well). The men and women split up and before we left Julia asked for some money. I gave her 1,000 baht ($33) and what do you know, the item she found and decided she loved cost exactly $33. What a delightful coincidence. Marriage Lesson #18: Never expect change. The canals were Bangkok’s answer to Venice – see pictures.

Julia and Louise then went to get a massage and Donald and I went to the reported red light district, what I labeled “freaky street”. We were far too early (5pm) for the place to be freaky but you could definitely see how it could get freaky. For another time.

Bangkok has some great food and we relied exclusively on TripAdvisor and friend recommendations for restaurants and bars. We had a drink on the roof of the Banyan Tree Hotel - their bar/restaurant is on the 61st floor (Thanks for the recommendation Kiersten!) – offered a great view – see pictures. We also ate well – a constant theme of our trip – much better than if Julia and I were on our own.

Louise & Donald – thanks for the vacation – and thanks for tolerating such a brutal return itinerary (Singapore à Hong Kong à Vancouver à JFK à LGA à Cincinnati à Nashville).

Julia and I are off to Chiang Mai, Thailand tonight to go ride elephants and meet some friends from Duke.

Enjoy the pictures - we ran out of time uploading so will post more from Siem Reap and Bangkok when we return from Chaing Mai!