Bangkok, Thailand

My second trip around South East Asia in December actually started in Bangkok, Thailand. I stayed there for one day before I went to Siem Reap in Cambodia. After that I came back to Bangkok and met Karin and Lola, my two friends from NTU.

The capital of Thailand is with a population of over 8 million in the city and probably more than 15 million in the metropolitan area unbelievably huge. Even when standing on some high building in the center you couldn't make out the end of the city. Since the public transport is very poor (2 skytrain lines, one subway line) the traffic is always congested. I believe in whole Bangkok is traffic jam from 8am to 8pm, or even longer. That's probably why the pollution in Bangkok is really immense. After a day walking around in the streets of the city I felt my eyes burning and my nose full of black grime. I actually found out that the best mean of transport is the river taxi on the Chao Phraya River and the canal taxis in the different side arms of the river. They have a fixed price and they get never stuck in the traffic jam. Of course you have to take one of the so called "Tuk-tuks" at least once, or your Bangkok trip is not complete. Their exhaust fumes smell probably worst, their drivers like to scam you and you almost every time end up paying more than for a cab... but the atmosphere of riding in these passenger trikes is just unique.
The city is very lively and there are a lot of interesting things to see. There is an uncountable number of bigger and smaller temples. Some of them are definitely a must see, like the temple of the reclining Buddha. The river banks and some parks are nice places to chill out. There is a lot of shopping, anything from cheap street markets to expensive shopping malls - and of course all the tailors (well I was talked into buying a custom made suit as well...). The nightlife is very diverse, from cheap booze on the backpacker's street Khao San Road to expensive clubs and bars. Not speaking of the infamous Pat Pong, but I actually left this one out, honestly!

The first major tourist place I visited was the temple of the reclining Buddha. All the temple buildings have this particular Thai style and are extremely shiny and colorful. The Buddha statue itself is gigantic - 46 meters long and 15 meters high. And of course all covered with gold. It is a very impressive view and I especially liked his cheeky smile. :-)

After meeting up with Karin and Lola we went to the Grand Palace. This place served for a long time as official residence for the Thai king - you must know that the Thai people are very proud of their king. But the current king is not living there. Here again the abundance of gold, china and colors is just overwhelming. Within the complex of the palace is the temple of the Emerald Buddha. There you can see one of the most famous Buddha statues - but it is actually made of jade...

Another very famous temple in Bangkok is Wat Arun - the temple of the dawn. It is situated directly at the river and from the upper level of the temple you have a nice view over the city. The stairs to reach this part are actually quite steep...

Being in Bangkok for Christmas we had to check out the night life for sure. With temperatures of about 30°C and just some very kitschy Christmas decoration in the shopping malls we never really came into a Christmas mood. But we enjoyed ourselves anyway. On Christmas eve we have been to the supper club. Its quite a famous club with branches all over the world. The special thing about the club were the beds on the upper level. The music was a bit too Latin but we had fun nevertheless. There was quite a big crowd there, especially a lot of Westerners - interesting how many people have nothing better to do then clubbing for Christmas. ;-)
Two days later we went to the skybar of Bangkok. This place was really amazing - I have never been to an open air bar on the 63rd (or something around that) floor. The view on the city was breathtaking - so it really helped that the air up there was actually fresh. It was probably 5 degrees colder than down in the streets and is was clean - at least much cleaner than 60 floors below. The drinks were a bit expensive (500 Bath - ~11 Euro) but it was definitely worth it!

The last day in Bangkok - before we went on further South - we visited the Chatuchak Weekend Market. This one crazy place! The market is really huge, more than 1 square kilometer big and several hundred thousand visitors each day. You can virtually get anything there: cheap clothes, antique furniture, used books, pet food, plants, knives, tools, jewelry, faked brand stuff... The two girls went on a shopping spree - I was rather wandering around and watching the crowd. I bought a memory card and a book though.
After that it was time to leave Bangkok and catch the bus to Ko Samui. In conclusion the chaos in Bangkok is sometimes really crazy. But the city has a unique atmosphere and we definitely enjoyed the stay there.

Siem Reap, Cambodia: Angkor

Time is still running. So it's about time to write something about my Thailand and Cambodia trip in December. Maybe you heard about the besieging of the Bangkok international airport. I was actually quite lucky that I wasn't affected by that. I was flying to Bangkok only one week after it was reopened. After spending a day in Bangkok (pictures to follow) I made my way to Cambodia.
This was actually the first trip I did on my own. It was an interesting experience and you meet many new people. But I'd say I prefer travelling in a small group with people I know - its more relaxing and you don't always have to be alert about scams and other hassles.
Speaking of scams: Of course I fell for the bus/visa scam on my way to Cambodia. I payed way too much for the bus ticked and they overcharged me for the Cambodian visa. But at least I arrived in Siem Reap before night - I heard much worse stories about that. In the bus I met a Russian guy (Alexander) who spends 9 months a year travelling. He is financing that with a job he can do anywhere just using his laptop - pretty amazing in my opinion. He was accompanying me on the tours around the temples.

To give you an idea of what these temples are all about I will just cite the introduction of the Wikipedia article:

The ruins of Angkor are located amid forests and farmland to the north of the Great Lake (Tonle Sap) and south of the Kulen Hills, near modern day Siem Reap (13°24'N, 103°51'E), and are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The temples of the Angkor area number over one thousand, ranging in scale from nondescript piles of brick rubble scattered through rice fields to the magnificent Angkor Wat, said to be the world's largest single religious monument. Many of the temples at Angkor have been restored, and together they comprise the most significant site of Khmer architecture. Visitor numbers approach two million annually. In 2007 an international team of researchers using satellite photographs and other modern techniques concluded that Angkor had been the largest preindustrial city in the world with an urban sprawl of 3000 square kilometres. The closest rival to Angkor, the Mayan city of Tikal in Guatemala, was between 100 and 150 square kilometres in total size. Angkor could have supported a population of up to one million people.

So you can imagine that the whole thing is damn big! The outer wall of the most known temple Angkor Wat alone is 3.6 km long. In addition to that the temple is very well preserved / restored so that it is definitely the most impressive one. If been there three times in total. Once in the early morning, once around noon and once in the evening. It is amazing how the colors and the atmosphere changes with the time of day. Its incredible how a building as sophisticated and huge as this could be built in the 12th century. Especially all the carvings in the walls are very impressive. The bas relief - total length of more than 100m - is incredibly detailed and tells a lot of stories of the Hindu mythology (On the left you can see the churning of the milk sea).

Another very famous temple is the Bayon. Its huge faces carved into the stones are very impressive - interestingly archaeologists couldn't determine for sure who's face it is meant to be.

The temple Ta Phrom is famous for the massive trees growing on and in between its walls. I really liked the atmosphere of this temple - you could feel this kind of struggle nature against man. It is amazing to see how the huge trees are growing on top of the temple walls. The roots are literally interweaved with the stones of the temple - in fact the temple is partly hold together by those trees. In the beginning of the restoration they tried to cut the trees and the affected parts of the temple collapsed.

One day we had to see the sunset on Phnom Bakheng of course. The sunset over the plains of Cambodia is definitely impressive. But it is not exactly lonely on this rather small hill temple...

As I already said the whole Angkor site is incredibly huge. The two days I have been there were just enough to get a rough idea about the place and to see the most important temples. I think if you really want to have time to explore them you should stay three days. And if you are keen on archeology than probably even a week is not enough! Anyways I enjoyed that place very much - on of the most impressive places I ever visited for sure. (I think I use this sentence quite often in my Blog - but seriously it's true!)
I just realized that I didn't include any pictures from the town Siem Reap itself. It is actually a nice small town, but incredibly touristy. Because of the popularity of Angkor Wat tourism was really boosted there. The have even a small airport now and a lot of hotels and restaurants. The prices have of course adjusted to the number of tourists. But at the street hawkers you can still get a meal for 1 USD - I won't complain about that. On the whole the town has everything to make your stay in Cambodia nice and comfortable.

Bali in December, Pt.3

After our gorgeous round trip through Bali we finally came back to our hotel again. We were greeted with a nice flower necklace - almost like in Hawaii. We spent one day in our hotel to relax and recover. The round trip was actually quite exhausting because we always had to get up very early. (I think I never got up as early to go to lectures here in Singapore...).
You can see some pictures of our nice hotel garden by night here. Again we were experimenting with slow shutter and flash. I really like the effects you can achieve with that.

Our last highlight of the Bali holiday was a mountain biking tour from the rim of the Batur volcano all the way down to Ubud. Actually it was rather mountain rolling than mountain biking because 99% of the tour was downhill. We were a small group of maybe 8 people and we really enjoyed it. Our tour guide did a great job in selecting the small roads through tiny villages. Only a little part of the tour was on busy main roads. So we came again very close to the friendly Balinese people.
The tour included as well a visit at a typical Balinese house. There are a lot of constraints in terms of how the house has to be build according to their religious beliefs. The floors of the different rooms have a different elevation depending on the usage of those. And it is always aligned to the compass directions in the same way. It was very interesting to see how an average Balinese family lives in a village.
The tour was concluded with a nice lunch and we got back to our hotel in Sanur passing all the little art shops in the area of Ubud.

On our last full day on the island we did a half day trip to Nusa Dua. That is the absolute posh area on the southern peninsula of Bali. There is one fancy hotel next to another. We could take a free shuttle bus to our sister hotel "Grand Hyatt Bali" and we enjoyed the facilities there. The swimming pool (or rather the swimming pools) were really amazing. One of them was winding like a river through the garden with a total lenght of maybe 100m. The other one was enclosed with natural rocks and looked almost like a rocky coast line rather than a pool. And of course both of them were connected with a water slide...
On our tour through the area we were surprised about the number of Russians there. Apparaently they really splurge if the go for holidays.

Back in Sanur we spent the last evening in our favourite restaurant "Lotus Pond". The waitresses there are as courtous as they are beautiful - and the food there is great as well.
It was the perfect conclusion for our Bali trip. I really enjoyed those 12 days and I think I have to come back some time to explore the rest of the island. In the nature reserve in the West of Bali as well as in the North East there is still enough to see and to experience!
Many thanks as well to you, Dad! You were a great travel mate! I can't think of many people with whom I could spend such an awesome, exciting and harmonious time.

Time is spinning away...

Well I don't know how it happened but the first half of my second semester here is already over. It fells like New Year was just a week ago... something must be wrong with the time here in Singapore.

If you read my previous posts you know: Mid-semester means recess week. That is why I will be travelling Vietnam for the next 10 days. We have an ambitious plan, which is going all the way down from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) by train and bus. That is about 1700km in 10 days. I hope we will have enough time to see something of the country and don't spend all the time with transportation. I will report when I'm back.

I promise that I will bring my blog up-to-date as soon as I am back from Vietnam. There are still reports from Bali, Thailand and Cambodia outstanding. But you know there is this strange time issue...

So take care and stay tuned!