Mandarin Kvetchin: The end of Southeast Asia.

Dear readers,

Sorry it has taken us so long to update the blog. We haven't had much internet availability, but get ready because this post is going to be a doozy. We are currently in Hong Kong (post coming late), but since we last posted we have been to 3 other cities: Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand and Siem Reap in Cambodia. I'll try to keep this concise, but no promises.

To start, Chiang Mai was great. Although Luang Prabang was beautiful and all over amazing, Chiang Mai was a great transition into Thailand. Chiang Mai's main attraction is their proximity to one of Thailand's national park and the availability of trekking and eco-tourism into the nearby rainforest. We took a day trip out to the forest through a program called Flight of the Gibbons where we went ziplining through the canopy layer of the trees. Lucky for us, we also got a glimpse of a gibbon chilling out in the trees while we were hiking from one platform to the next.

Chiang Mai also has huge weekend markets and fortunately we were able to catch the Sunday Market. There were all sorts of crafts, goods, and foods for sale and Michael and I took full advantage of the opportunity to try some new cuisines. In other words, we ate bugs. For those interested, the bees were like puffs and seemed to pop in our mouths- delicious, the grasshoppers were crispy like chips and had sort of a teriyaki/soy flavor, and the larvae tasted somewhat fishy. All in all, they weren't bad, however Feesh was too scared to try any insects, no matter how hard Gabe and Michael tried to pressure me (Danny).

After Chiang Mai, we took a very pleasurable overnight train south to Bangkok. Despite the smog, smut and prostitutes that line the streets, Bangkok has some beautiful things to see. The first site we saw was the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew which was absolutely amazing. The Grand Palace is the former royal residence and is filled with structures ranging from completely golden to covered in various reflective stained glass mosaics each accompanied by their own giant stone guards and buddha sculptures. The wat (monastery/temple) is home to the Emerald Buddha, which is in fact made of Jade and has moved all over Thailand through wars and changes in leadership. The Emerald Buddha was smaller than I imagined it, but it is a very important symbol within Thai history and culture. The coolest thing we saw here has to be Wat Pho where the world's largest lying Buddha sleeps. The Buddha is 46 meters long (just short of a half a football field) and 15 meters high. The Buddha is all golden except for the soles of his feet, which are black and covered with lines of mother of pearl.

We also headed over to Soi Cowboy, which is one of the many sleazy roads in Bangkok, but we thought we should check out at least one. Walking down the street was ridiculous. Every bar seemed to filled with an assortment of Thai hookers, old white men and lady boys. I don't know what Thailand's obsession with lady boys is, but they are everywhere and tend to say horribly uncomfortable things when you walk past them. However, the funniest cat called to us was around 4 in the afternoon when a hooker yelled "me love you long time." I didn't think this was ever said outside a joke, but I guess it had to come from somewhere.

The next day we took a bus ride to the border and crossed into Cambodia heading towards Siem Reap. Siem Reap, meaning Siam defeated, is home to the world's largest religious structure, Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is a huge temple built in the 12th century and is surrounded by a huge moat. It is hard to describe it in detail, but hopefully the pictures below will help. There are several temples nearby, the most notably being within Angkor Thom specifically Bayon and Ta Prohm. The temple of Bayon is filled with towers with faces of the king Jayavarman VII carved into four sides of each and Ta Prohm is literally something out of an Indiana Jones movie with giant trees wrapping their roots around the ruins of the temple. The temples are sort of spread out so we hired a tuk-tuk (pretty much a cart/truck sort of thing with no windows attached to a motorcycle) for the day. Lucky for us, we found a very nice driver who happened to be named Mr. Bona. Needless to say, we knew he was a good match from the start. Aside from the temples, Siem Reap has a great bar scene as well and there is an entire street appropriately named “pub street” filled with tons of very chill bars all promoting 50 cent draft beers, along with massage parlors offering an hour massage for 2 dollars. Cambodia also has their own type of barbecue that we obviously had to try. Lucky for us, they served some new meats we had never tried before specifically snake and kangaroo (Feesh partook). The kangaroo was kind of beef-like and the snake had a similar texture to alligator but was slightly chewier. We really enjoyed Siem Reap, but it was finally time to head back to Bangkok in time to catch our flight to Hong Kong.

In Bangkok part 2, we stayed in the backpacker area around Khao San road, which was a very cool area and seemingly less sleazy than the area where our 4 star hotel located before. We even stopped by the Chabad house, which happened to be right down the street from our guest house. We had one full day before our flight, so we took a trip to the Dusit Zoo where we saw all sorts of cool animals mostly indigenous to the Southeast Asia region. It’s always pretty sweet to check out a zoo in another climate because all their normal animals would be exotic if shown in the States. Additionally, we checked one of the huge malls they have here and we happened across a stand selling squid eggs. I didn’t even know squids laid eggs, but we ate them anyways. It tasted similar to squid but a little eggier. No surprises. Other than that, a delicious plate of Pad Thai cost about 1.5 dollars so needless to say that was consumed on a regular basis.

Although this is the end of our time in Southeast Asia, we are very excited to start the second half of our journey through China and Korea.

Until next time,
The Wolf Pack