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Posts from — April 2010

Update from Siem Reap, Cambodia

Hello from Cambodia,
We’re in Siem Reap, home of the Temples of Angkor, for one more night then off to Bangkok and Paris!  We’ve been here for 4 days and have enjoyed exploring the ancient temples and cities (and the great food).  We haven’t had much chance to upload any more photos but trust me, we’ve taken a lot and they will be up someday soon :)

A very quick update: Since we last wrote…
The overnight Bus was not comfortable and we didn’t sleep much…
Hue was interesting and the Nguyen Dynasty tombs were really great…
The train to Danang was beautiful!  Coast on our left, mountains on our right.  Reminded us of Korea…
Hoi an was unfortunately pretty forgettable.  Mostly attributable to our poor planning, but it was reallllly touristy and mostly consisted of shopping and eating (which we like, but weren’t in the mood for just that).  Our hotel was great though and we had a nice bike ride through the country-side…
Booked the wrong day train tickets to Ho Chi Minh City so our Hotel in Hoi An had to help us rebook them.  All we could get was a Soft Seat (but we ended up on a better train, time-wise) and we didn’t loose any extra money…
The train ride was uncomfortable but an experience :)
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) was busy and crowded but not as much as Hanoi.  We enjoyed about 36 hours there and visited the War Atrocities museum about the Vietnam War.  Not the best museum but still eye opening.  They had a large exhibit about Agent Orange victims…
Took a bus over the border to Phnom Penh, Cambodia…
That same day we visited the Killing Fields and S-21 (a high school turned “security center” where the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed over tens of thousands people before sending them to the Killing Fields).  So, a long and depressing day…
The next day we took another bus to Siem Reap…
Rode bikes to the Temples of Angkor and toured Angkor Thom in the morning and Angkor Wat in the afternoon.  It’s realllly hot so we take a siesta around noon :)  …
Hired a Tuk-tuk to drive us around the “grand tour” temples (further away than the day before).  Started at Sunrise – 5AM!! …
Visited the Ruluos Temples (the oldest in the area) and were back to our hostel by 10:30am…
Took a cooking class and learned to cook some Amazing Khmer recipes! Can’t wait to share…

That brings us up to date!

We’ll spend one night in Bangkok then fly to Paris at 5:20 the next evening.
More when we get to Paris…  hopefully with more pictures…
Chad

April 10, 2010   Comments Off