Sign Thai

A quick note: I added a new page - Travel Tips. It is a work in progress and I have a lot to add/edit, but if you need a general overview, feel free to take a look!!!  Also let me know if you have any questions or comments!

Another installment of signs. Sorry about the photo heavy posts, but I finally uploaded some pictures! 

Here are a few signs from Thailand and Cambodia that made me giggle.

No....baby sex?

If you are 15, go to this bar!

Supposed to say "Baht".

I want a piece of this!

Actually, this restaurant was pretty fast.

Apparently towels are used differently in Cambodia.

Happy Hour: Open until Close. I like it!

No...coughing, shouting, singing?

And my FAVORITE. No standing on the toilet (people actually do this!!), no wearing boots, and no showers for little girls!!!

Ruined!

A few notes: firstly, I started this blog about 5 years ago from Cambodia to try to find out what was going on at home and share what I was doing abroad. HERE is my first post. I had no idea what I was doing. I thought you wrote the blog in the comments. I was clueless really. I guess what I thought was that I would ask a question and people would answer in the comments. Or we would have a dialogue in the comments. I am not really sure what I was thinking. Anyway, I just wanted to say that it seems I have come "full circle". I am back where I started from and this blog has become more (obviously) that I thought it would.

I have written about Angkor Wat before. But this is a place that not only can you visit again and again, and see new things when you do, but you can write about it several times with no problem. Every time I go to a place I learn something new that I didn't know before. For example Angkor Wat means "city temple" and was built in the early 12th century as the king's state temple and capital city.

It is huge. You could try to walk around the entire complex, but you would probably need many days to do so. We rented a tuk-tuk, which if you haven't heard of this, is an interesting way to get around. It is a guy driving a motorcycle with a people "trailer" (that fits 4) hitched to the back. No joke. I have a photo but have not downloaded them from my camera, so below is one I borrowed.

I got this photo HERE.

We rented a tuk-tuk for about 20 dollars for the day for four people and he took us around from temple to temple. The temples are all beautiful, although some of them are in worse disrepair than others. Actually, they are in the process of renovating many of them right now. We got to the main complex before sunrise, as the best views are during sunrise. There is a nice pool that reflects the temple in the water. I am sure you have seen photos of it. In fact, if you go to Wikipedia, you will see the very photo I am speaking of.

It was pretty hot, and soon we had seen enough ruins for the day. We headed back to Siem Reap for some 50 cent draft beers and some Khmer food (similar to Thai in many ways). The town of Siem Reap is quite bustling, with a range of hotels (they even have a Sheraton!) as well as many lower budget guesthouses (like where we stayed!) They have a range of food; we even had pizza one day. They have a lot of people begging, especially ones with no limbs. The Cambodians only recently ended civil warring, and there are still many unexploded mines in the countryside. Unfortunately, you are not supposed to walk off the beaten trail or you may have an accident.

So, second time around = still good. 

Cambodian Time

I am impatient. One of my biggest pet peeves is people who are late. People who have decided their time is more important than yours. People who say they are going to meet up with you and then don't come, don't call and obviously...don't care.

However, I have had to learn (a little bit) to be patient in Cambodia. The first day we arrived, we crossed over from Thailand with no problems, entered Cambodia fairly painlessly and then went to our bus which would take us to Siem Reap (home of Angkor Wat). Unfortunately, when you take a bus between countries, oftentimes you can't stay on one bus; you have to transfer once you cross the border and you end up using two different bus companies. We were told that the ride from the border to Siem Reap would take about 3 hours and that we would arrive around 5 pm. This seems simple enough -- we need to leave by 2 pm to make it on schedule.

We arrived at the border at 12:30 pm. There were about 5 of us and we were the first ones to the bus. The guy said, "lucky you, you are the first ones on the bus, you can pick whatever seat you want." We thought that was great. Then he said, "we are waiting for another group of people who are crossing the border now. We will leave when they get here. It should be about a half an hour". A half an hour went by. A few more people got on the bus. Then another half an hour went by, and a few MORE people got on....etc. This lasted until about 4:30 pm. We finally left then. We didn't end up arriving in Siem Reap until about 8:30 pm (we also stopped for dinner along the way as well).

The thing is, I don't mind arriving at 8:30. What I mind is that I got up at 6 to take a bus at 7 in order to sit and wait for...4 hours...at the border. If I would have known, maybe I would have taken the later morning bus, or maybe went and had some lunch instead of sitting on the bus thinking that we would be leaving "any minute".

This was not the end. From Siem Reap we took a bus to a town called Sihanoukville. A guy was supposed to come and pick us up from our hostel at 6:30 to catch a 7:30 bus. He ended up not coming until almost 8. We were freaking out...we didn't know if we should try to go to the bus station, whether or not we had missed the bus..or what. When we arrived at the bus station around 8:30, the bus didn't even leave for another half and hour! It's the same thing. I could have slept, or eaten (we didn't) or called my mom!

Anyway, I won't go on and on, but this has happened several more times over the last week and it is hard for me to get "used to" it. I mean, if the bus isn't leaving until 9, why can't I just come at 8:45? Why do you tell me it leaves at 7 when you KNOW it is not going to leave at 7? Do you think it EVER leaves on time? Or is "on time" actually 9? I don't know what they are thinking.

Have you ever been someplace where they are on "island time" or the equivalent? Do you cope well with that? How do you feel about tardiness?

View From The Lizard Bungalow

Wee Beasties

I have a lot to catch up on. I have been on an island with no power, and definitely no internet! We did some diving, which is probably going to be another post on it's own, and spent some time on the beach hanging out, meeting people, and trying to stay mostly in the shade.

We arrived in Cambodia and spent some time at Angkor Wat (this will be a future post). Then we came to the south, where we took a rickety fishing boat for two hours to get to the island of Koh Rong.

We stayed in a wood and palm thatch bungalow, which wasn't exactly what you would call airtight. However, it had a beautiful view of the ocean and a nice porch from which to sit and stare at said ocean.

The first night we heard a rustling sound in the middle of the night and were not sure what it was, since there is no power. We got out our headlights and searched around but didn't find anything. The next day in the middle of the day I found that the bag of peanuts in my backpack was chewed into and eaten. Also my bar of soap had what looked like teethmarks in it. I assumed it was a rat.

The next night we decided to trap the animal, whatever it was. We put the peanuts in the trash and the trash in a large bucket, thinking that the animal would get trapped in and not be able to climb out of the bucket. THe next morning, the peanuts had been eaten, but there was no animal in the bucket.

So I went about my business and was about to use the bathroom when I heard a scrabbling behind the door. I swung it open and there was a HUGE lizard behind the door eating a centipede. It was pretty cool actually. The lizard must have been about a foot long and the centipede was probably almost a foot as well. They were battling it out and when I opened the door the centipede got away! Oops!

Now we are back on the mainland, trying to stay away from large lizards. More about this later.

Cambodia (10-13 April)

Angkor What? It rises up out of the jungle.. It is something you can't even imagine building... It used to be a fortress where the people lived and worshiped and went about their daily lives. Whoa!

I was suitably impressed. I wandered around in the hot hot sun... I think it was about 100 degrees the day that I was there... I did have a nice little guy who drove me around on a motorcycle all day though. This was both exciting and scrary. He was a lot better driver than the guy I had in Vietnam, but still, there is something about going down a dirt road without a helmet on a bike meant for one person (you know, one of those little tiny ones...like a Honda 90). Anyway, for about 7 dollars, he would take me from place to place and wait for me to look around before taking me to the next one. He even got up at 4 in the morning with me so I could go and see the sunset. It was worth every penny.

Unfortuntaely, my stay in Cambodia was very short and so I only really had time to explore Angkor Wat and then high tail out of there so I could make in time to Thailand for Songkran, which is their New Years festival...I had a hard time getting out of the country, as what I did not know was that Cambodia also celebrates Songkran and all the busses are shut down for a 4 day period while they celebrate. Fortunately, I met a nice guy who was willing to share a cab with me to the border (a long, bumpy ride!), where we took a bus from the border to Bangkok. For some reason the busses WERE running in Thailand, thank god. We arrived in Bangkok and took a cab into the city, where we got drenched with water, as it is the tradition to soak everyone for 4 days straight.... What fun!