Angkor Wat (and other structures)

Angkor Wat

So, I tried to witness the sunrise at Angkor Wat. The weather didn't exactly cooperate.



Ta prohm

I followed my host's advice, which was to rush to Ta Prohm immediately after sunrise, and thus beat the crowd. This was sage advice, and well worth it. What you can't tell from the pictures is how the half of the place smelled strongly of rotten fruit, and that I ran across a huge spider at one point (well, not huge... body was only as long as say, a joint on my middle finger and as thick as a pencil. Still, it was surprising to turn the corner and see that web above me).


First view of Ta Prohm. That tree sticking out of it is massive.


Another shot of the front of Ta Prohm. Luckily, I had the place almost to myself.


The massive tree from the other side.


There were a lot of places that looked generally like this: blocks of moss covered stone in front of partially broken walls.


There was still a lot of detailed relief work, albeit slightly damaged, adorning the walls and doors.


Another large tree destroying one of the walls.


Inside one of the hallways.


A shot from near the back of Ta Prohm.

Beng Mealea

Zane had recommended beng Mealea to me, as it is not often visited and you can explore it pretty freely (no guardlines or anything). My visit was marred by a guide who attached herself to me, and then demanded payment at the end of the "tour."


I believe this is the south entrance to Beng Mealea. However, I'm not entirely sure. Either way, it's the first one you come to when you enter the site.


Beng Mealea had a lot of different rooms you could duck into through broken windows.


Looking into one of many chambers at the site through a window.


Trees were wrecking havoc at Beng Mealea as well.


Closeup of some tree roots.


Relief work on one of the supports.


Mysterious doorway!


Bridge at one of the other entrances.


Side shot of one of the bridges at another entrance.


Looking down into another chamber from atop a wall.


One of the walls from the another chamber.

Other Castles...


While our castle may not have survived nearly a thousand years, we were still proud of it.


Look on our works, ye mighty, and despair!


So, this'll probably be my last entry before coming home. Tomorrow I'm going to try to explore a bit more of Angkor in the morning, then catch a plane back to Saigon. There (as I've mentioned before) I'm going to try to meet up with Zane, Khanh, Van, and Truc, before taking a midnight flight to Tokyo and, ultimately, the good ol' USA.

End of Vietnam trip / Cambodia

I'm writing this from Siem Reap in Cambodia. Cambodia is... different. It is much poorer than Vietnam and other countries, and I was dismayed for the first day and a half because it seemed like every interaction I had with another person was them asking for either money, or offering services I didn't want or need. I'll go into that more later - I need to wake up early tomorrow to head to Angkor Wat.


Our last two days in Vietnam involved spending time at a beach north of Da Nang, and driving the Hai Van pass. I didn't get many pictures, and I didn't take my camera to the beach. But, here is a shot of Van and Truc at the Hai Van pass.


My Son is a series of ruins that were inhabited by the Cham kings from the 4th to the 14th centuries AD. The Cham were later conquered by the Vietnamese.


Van at My Son.


Took this shot on the boatride back from My Son.


The end of the longest cable car system in the world. Riding this thing back down in near-complete darkness is even creepier.


This is a shot of Zane and Truc from where we had lunch at the highest restaurant in the Ba Na hills resort. Van was cold from the strong winds, so she was probably hiding behind a wall or inside by this point.


Monkey! It isn't a real vacation until a see a monkey. This one was climbing on one of the hotels in Ba Na.


Barbed wire at the Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh (here is a wiki link to the history of the place). During the rule of the Khmer Rogue, many political prisoners, and, well, anyone someone important enough didn't like, were sent to this former school to be tortured. After extracting "confessions," they were sent outside of the city to the killing fields.

It is a chilling place - they have many pictures of victims and guards (who sometimes ended up being prisoners as well), and pictures and descriptions of the various tortures involved. It's heartwrenching. Often, whole families were killed - they have a display of a man, his wife, and their six children.


One of the buildings at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh.


A naga at the royal palace in Phnom Penh.


I went to try to see the sunset at Angkor Wat. Unfortunately, a storm got in the way of this (and in the way of me taking many photos). By ducking inside a little outbuilding to escape the rain, I did manage to freak out some japanese tourists who were progressively looking into each outbuilding.

Alright, I need to head off to sleep now. The next two days will involve exploring Angkor Wat. After that, back to Saigon to have a farewell dinner with Zane, Khanh, Van, and Truc. I'll try to get in another entry before I leave.

Impressions

I wrote this several days ago, but haven't had time to correct and proofread it. The last few days have been either very busy, or I haven't had access to a computer. Sadly, our trip with Truc and Van just ended. It was wonderful, and ended with a day at the beach today (during which we built a huge sandcastle). Tomorrow I'm heading to Cambodia on my own, and Ankor Wat. I hope to have at least a little time then in which to do a full update with pictures.

Anyway, previous (unposted) post:

So, first of all, The last post was rife with errors - what I get for a hurried update early in the morning. So, we were in Hoi An, not Hanoi. Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam. I won't be visiting it this trip. Hoi An is a city that used to be a prominent trading city, but is now seems to survive mostly on a tourist economy. I've correct some other minor errors (such as referring to Zane as Van at one point), and would apologize in advance for some others.

So, my favorite experience so far in Vietnam has to be riding a xeom outside of town. The countryside is simply breathtaking. I've often seen this: acres of green rice fields underneath a sky that somehow seems larger than the sky at home. Several mountains are visiable on the horizon. Though such scenery is common, I have yet to grow tired of it. Add to it the feeling of wind rushing by while riding a motorbike along a rough country road, and it makes me feel very glad to be alive, and here, at this moment.

The food in Vietnam is very good, though I'll admit that the mint that seems to be common in many dishes is not really suited to my taste. However, so long as I keep the mint (and hot spices) to a minimum, I really enjoy the food here. There are many dishes that I would very much like to have on a regular basis at home. How I wish that one of the five sandwhich shops within walking distance of work were replaced with a vietnamese restaurant (Or, honestly, anything else). A not insubstantial benefit over eating at most restaurants in the US is that, after finishing my meal, I often feel satisfied rather than full to bursting.

(apologies in advance for this crappy food description - I don't know the name of stuff, and Zane isn't here right now) We ate at a place called "Bala Well" in Hoi An. Our meal consisted of some spring-roll like objects, yellow pancakes with shrimp and a variety of vegetables cooked in the batter, beef (or maybe pork?) on sticks, various greens, some garnishes, rice paper, and a peanut chili sauce. We were eating the food ala cart when the propreitor, a middle aged woman, came over. She picked up one of the pieces of rice paper, put some of the greens and garnishes on it, and placed one of the spring rolls on top of that. She put one of the sticks of meat on top of this, wrapped it up slightly, and slid the meat off the stick. Tossing the stick away, she then expertly wrapped everything into a tight roll and gave it to Zane. She indicated that he should dip the creation into the peanut sauce. She later made another for me, and then made us each one using the pancakes instead of the spring roll. All were excellent.

Later on, we got a dessert of fresh fruit with a side of some granular dipping substance. She picked up my hand, led it towards the watermelon, and then pointed back to the dipping substance (we all laughed at this rather explicit instruction). I followed her advice, as it proved so enjoyable previously. Instantly, my mouth was on fire; the dipping substance I had taken to be some sort of sugar or salt was extremely spicy. I was still feeling it several minutes later. And then several more minutes after that. I may still be feeling it now, two days later.

Hoi An is very much a tourist town, filled with mostly aussies and europeans. The benefits to this are that many people speak English to some degree. The drawbacks are overly aggressive touts, increased prices, and massive crowds.

The touts can range from merely annoying to overly ingratiating and aggressive. Zane asked a woman in the market where to find some lunch. She pointed him in a direction. We were called at by every street food vendor we passed, the woman who helped Zane following us the entire time, telling us to visit her clothing shop in town. We finally picked a spot, and she sat next to us, trying to convince us to visit her shop. Zane finally told her something about how we were leaving the next day.

We were on a tour yesterday to My Son (a set of ruins built by Champa kings and inhabited from the 4th to the 14th century). The tour honestly was kinda crappy - we rode a bus to the ruins, the price didn't include the tickets to the ruins or a tour of them, and rode a riverboat back. The guide overcharged Zane when he paid for Truc and Van (who were sleeping when the ticket money was collected. Tourists are more than native Vietnamese at most hisotircal sites), so we had to ask him to give us some money back. They gave us a lackluster meal of rice and vegetables for lunch on the boat. I mean, the boat ride was nice, but it really was just a boatride. I've had plenty by this point, and nothing stood out. The boat ride went to a "traditional village," where we were led to workshops to see craftsmen working. Conveniently, the workshops were filled with plenty of tourist goods to purchase. The guide heard Zane was interesting in scuba diving, then persisted in asking Zane to arrange a tour through his friend.

I can't really fault the people for trying - stuff is cheap for westerners here. The wonderful food I've been having rarely costs more than 2 dollars. Also, the entrepenurial spirit definitely has its charming side. Street food often consists of cooks coming out with their ingredients, supplies, and a couple of helpers. They set up shop on a corner, and sell food until they run out. Another time, a man didn't have something we wanted in his store (a deck of cards), so he quoted a price to us, we agreed, then he ran down the street to another store (abandoning his shop) to pick some up.

Anyway, tonight I'm in Danang. We just rode the longest cable car ride in the world (Guinness Certified!) to Ba Na mountain, and had lunch at the top of the mountain. Acording to Zane, most Vietnamese eat at set times, so we had a patio facing from the mountain to Danang and the ocean all to ourselves for a little over an hour. We're heading out to dinner now, and will be heading to the beach tomorrow. After that, Phnom Penh and Angor Wat for me!

Correction

So, yeah, the last post was all about Hoi An, not Hanoi. I corrected the post, but just want to actually put a notice up. Hanoi is an entirely different city, and I won't be visiting it this trip.

Rest of Hue / First day in Hoi An

So, the rest of Hue involved visiting a temple, visiting a covered bridge and taking a boat onto a river, having dinner at Su's family's house again, and taking a very, very long bus trip to see some caves.


To start off our second to last day in Hue, we visited one of the closer temples.


A view from the temple of the surrounding countryside.


The monks were performing a ceremony at one of the temples we visited.


Su and I stopped to wait for Khanh and Zane at one point. I took this shot of the rice fields near the old bridge. I'll... probably need to straighten it a bit in photoshop once I get back. Anyway, this is how a lot of the countryside looks around Hue.


Su took us to an old bridge near Hue. We ended up taking a boat ride under the bridge and upriver for a bit.


Another shot of the bridge.


This was the dinner that Su's family cooked for us. Like before, they were much too kind. Two of Su's uncles (I think) who would be going to America soon joined us for the dinner. Afterward, one of them trounced Zane and I in Chinese Chess.


On our 5 hour van ride to the cave, we stopped at a Christian church. Legend says that, when Vietnam was being divided into two, Mary appeared at this spot (located in the south, to tell everyone in the north to migrate to the south before the DMZ was set up.


For our last day in Hue, we visited a cave system. You had to take a boat to reach the mouth of the cave. There were several villages on the banks of the river we took to the cave.


I think it's one of the largest ones in the world, though I wasn't entirely clear on what the guide was saying. Anyway, this is the entrance to the cave.Most of the photos I took inside the cave look like crap due to the lack of light and lack of a tripod. Also, while it was pretty, many of the cave formations were lit up by colored lights. The cave tended to have a pyschedlic look at times...


Crazy cave lighting!


Zane, Truc, and Van figuring out what to do in Hoi An. Specifically, they were looking at Truc's food list, and trying to map out where we would eat.


Hoi An has various historical sites. They have a rather frustrating ticketing system where each individual can only buy entrance tickets to the sites in packs of five. So, if you want to only see five sites, it's fine. If you want to say, see, six, you can't (or you'll pay a lot). Anyway, this is a picture of a traditional old house in Hoi An. The family who owned it were prominent traders until the course of the river changed and the importance of the city as a trading location fell.


Monkey guardian!! This is in the Old Japanese bridge in Hoi An.


One of the traditional temples we visited in Hoi An.


Incense sticks. I saw prayers attached to them. Apparently, these will burn for three days.


Wind cat!


Many people took boats onto the river during the lunar festival, and the city banned (most) electronic lights from the Old Town area. The place was also crowded with western tourists.


Van lowering her candle into the river. You were supposed to make a wish when you lowered the candles. One of the candles I purchased ended up having a real short wick, so I ran out of time and had to drop it in the river. It extinguished immediately upon hitting water (though, the candle didn't flip). So, Zane and I bought two more and have a competition to see if we could drop them from the top of the bridge. They, too, extinguished upon hitting water - what was amusing was the vocal disappointment of the people who were gathered around us who watched.


Van and Truc watching the line of wishes floating away while waiting to cast theirs into the river.


Van, Truc, and I. I think I probably look too crazily happy in this shot.