Thailand - River Kwai

On our last day in Thailand, we decided to take a tour of the Bridge on the River Kwai. It was a cool trip, which included a ride on a bamboo raft, an elephant ride, a ride on the Death Railway... and a 2-hr tour bus ride to get there and back.

This is the actual bridge on the river Kwai. The part in the middle was rebuilt after bombing, but the rounded parts are from the original bridge.

One of the old guard towers at the bridge.

From there we took a bamboo raft up the river. The scenery of this part of Thailand is incredible.

We ended our rafting trip at this small camp where they have the elephant rides.

At this point in the elephant ride, our driver jumped off to take some pictures of us. This was a little freaky, seeing as how neither Jenn nor I know how to steer one of these things.

Jenn and her elephant. It actually looks like it's smiling.

We then got to ride on the infamous Death Railway.

This is a portion of the Death Railway. More than 16000 POW's died in the construction of this railway during WWII - that's around 38 deaths/km of rail. Most of these deaths were a result of sickness, malnutrition or exhaustion.

Someone looks a little TOO happy riding on the Death Railway...

Thailand - Floating Market

We took a side trip to the Floating Market Friday morning. I've been to a ton of markets since I've been here, but this one was completely different. We rented a small boat to take us up and down the canals, stopping at various vendors took look at their goods.

On the way to the market.

Some of the stalls are built on the edge of the canal and some of them are just people selling things off their boat.

You could buy all kinds of stuff: hats, wooden carvings, fruit, vegetables...

...even a meal cooked right in front of you!

By the time we left, it was starting to get really crowded. In some places you couldn't even see the water anymore.

On the way home after a morning of shopping.

Thailand - Bangkok

From Cambodia, it was off to Bangkok, Thailand. This is huge city - with around 8.5 million residents, has some of the most amazing temples in the world and the world's largest weekend market (with over 9 000 stalls).

This is Wat Arun - or the Temple of the Dawn, which we passed on the Chao Phraya river on our way to see the reclining Buddha and the emerald Buddha.

This is a view of the grounds of Wat Pho - the largest Buddhist temple in Thailand. It holds the largest number of Buddha statues and is home of the great reclining Buddha.

This is the reclining Buddha, a gold plated, 46 meter long and 15 meter high statue of Buddha.

From there, we went to the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew (the temple of the emerald Buddha). This complex was very impressive, housing some of the most important Buddhist icons in Thailand. The emerald Buddha is so revered, that photographs of it are not allowed.

The Golden Stupa, which is said to hold Buddha's ashes.

This is Phra Mondop, a library which was built to hold the Buddhist scriptures.

Since this temple complex is built inside the Grand Palace, there are no resident monks, but we happened to see three of them passing by.

If you look in the bakground of the last picture, you can see several of these little demon figures on the stupa. The detail and intricacy of these figurines was really quite impressive. In fact, all the buildings and statues were incredibly detailed.

The Grand Palace, which is only used for ceremonial purposes.

Cambodia - Angkor Wat

The ruins of Angor are absolutely amazing. Although most people only know Angkor Wat, the ruins are actually made up of over 35 different temple complexes dating from between 879 - 1200. The temples were built to worship either Buddhist or Hindu gods, or the ancestors of the individual Khmer kings. Even though they all lie within about 15 km of Siem Reap, there was no way that we'd be able visit them all in the 3 days we had. Instead, our tuk-tuk drivers tooks us around to the most impressive and interesting of the bunch.

The first day, we went to the early 10th century temple of Phnom Bakeng to watch the sunset. This picture is from the top of the temple overlooking Angkor Wat. It was a great sunset and an impressive first temple.

The next four pictures were taken from inside Angkor Wat. Built from 1113-1150, it is by far the most famous of the temples. Built as a symbol of Mount Meru to honour the Hindu God Vishnu, it covers an impressive 1.5 x 1.3 km area - including its 190 m wide moat. The temple is amazing, and it's tough to really see the scope and size of it from these pictures.

This picture was taken inside one of the many courtyards in the first level (the area which would have been accessible to the public) .

This picture, taken of the inner courtyard (accessible only to kings and high priests) was taken from the top of the central tower and a two-story (30m) staircase. Climbing this staircase was insane. It has a 70° incline, with each step being so narrow that your foot must be angled sideways when walking up the stairs. This was not made any easier by the fact that these are 900 year old ruins, leaving many of the steps crumbling. This is probably why it took me two tries to climb to the top, and 30 minutes of sitting at the top wondering how the hell I was going to get back down.

This eerie picture down the hallway is a good example of the damage done due to looters and the Khmer Rouge during the 70's. The missing heads were not only on statues, but also on many of the bas-relief carvings on the walls.

A bas-relief carving. The detail and sheer number of carvings like these were impressive. They could be seen on many of the temples we visited in Cambodia. I wonder why these ones seem to be shiny in only specific areas....

Our next stop was Angkor Thom (which means Great City), built 1190-1210. It was actually a large city, enclosed by a 3km x 3km stone wall. Inside the city lie the ruins of several Buddhist temples. The main temple (Bayon) actually has 200 carvings of Bodhisattva faces, known as Avalokitesvara, or "the Lord who looks in every direction".

We then went to see the overgrown Budhhist temple of Ta Prohm (1186). This is one of the only temples which remains in the same state as when it was discovered by explorers. There is a constant battle between the trees and the stone temples, which makes it unique from the other temples.

This little building was sitting by itself just to the side of the temple.

Inside the temple.

The trees were actually growing on top of the temples.

Our final stop was Prah Khan - another crumbling temple surrounded by forest built in the late 12th century. This temple was dedicated to King Jayavarman VII's mother (Ta Prohm was dedicated to his father).

This structure was just outside the ruins of Prah Khan.

Cambodia - Siem Reap

We arrived in Siem Reap, where we stayed for three days while we travelled through the amazing Khmer ruins of Angkor. The town was quite nice, with a great atmosphere.

This is a typical street in Siem Reap. There is currently a lot of construction here, as they are trying to improve the city with all the tourist money flowing in. In some areas, it seemed as though every other building was a huge hotel.

Downtown Siem Reap at the old central market.

The fruit and vegetable section of the market.

This section of the market is where you can get all the Prada, Gucci, Rolex you could ever want. As you wander around the stalls you here the nice chorus of "For you... special price. It's same same, but different."

This is outside the Ta Prom temple. Each temple area has a number of stalls like these selling various paintings, wraps and other souveniers. This was also were Jenn and I picked up a bunch of $1 colour copies of various Lonely Planet guides.

Cambodia - The Road to Siem Reap

March Break was spent taking our next big trip outside the country. We started by heading to Cambodia with my parents. We flew into Phnom Penh and from there, took a river ferry up the Tonle Sap to Angkor Wat where we spent the next couple of days wandering through the ancient temples. The trip up the river was so amazing, I decided to dedicate this whole section just to that.

We arrived in Phnom Penh late on Saturday, with just enough time to wander around downtown. I have to say it was probably the dirtiest place I have ever seen. There was garbage all over the street - heaped in piles in some places and as a result there was a lingering stench of rot in the air. We ventured out long enough to find something to eat and then headed back to the hotel for the night.

This was the restaurant where we ate in Phnom Penh. It was a little sketchy looking, and everyone stuck with the vegetable fried rice... except for me. I just told them to bring me their specialty. It was special all right... It was a noodle soupy kind of thing and I'm still not sure what kind of meat was in it - or even if it was meat. But it tasted pretty good.
In hindsight, it was perhaps not the smartest thing I've done, as I was going to be spending 6 hours on a boat the next day. But surprisingly, it worked out ok. In actual fact, I didn't get food poisoning until we got back to Phom Penh on our way to Bangkok - and it was from the "fancy" hotel restaurant. Figures.

Sunrise on the Tonle Sap. We wanted to take this boat up the river, but in the end opted for the one with a motor.

This is the boat we actually took. We sat on the roof for the entire trip.

Rice farmers

We ended the boat trip in a floating village. There were tons of houses just floating on the water like this one... several of them were actually house-boats.

From there, we got on a tuk-tuk and started the 15 minute ride into Siem Reap. All the way along the road there were little straw/wooden houses like these. We were all really stricken by the poverty here. Most houses were completely open in the front, with their privacy coming from hanging a sheet across the opening. Most had no furniture and only some pots and pans to cook their food.

A good example of how dusty the roads were.

Mom and Dad and their tuk-tuk driver Sam. Sam and his brothers were our drivers for the entire time we were in Siem Reap. He was also a dancer and he took us to his restaurant one night to watch his show. He was actually quite good.