Wat the Pho?

Yes, I realize the title of this post is probably inappropriate given that the subject is a sacred temple and stuff. I feel like we've already desecrated Siem Reap by running around and yelling, "Angkor Whaaaaat?" and pretending we're living out Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider.

Moving along the road of sacrilege, there were some skankalanks at the Grand Palace and Wat Pho (temple next door). All our guidebooks + tour guides were specific about being respectful to the culture by wearing shirts with sleeves when visiting a temple. Both complexes are full of temples, and yet we saw some ho-hos walking around in sparkling short dresses and heels. No joke. It's 100 degrees and humid as hell, and these girls were dressed as if they were going to Vegas! Unbelievably disrespectful.

Monuments of note at the Grand Palace complex:
Model of Angkor Wat (what it would look like if half of it weren't rubble), which is truly stunning because you only experience tiny portions of it when you do the walk-through--
Grand Palace itself (now a training school or something?)--
Emerald Buddha (actually made of jade, not emerald, those liars)--

After the super long self-guided tour, we all had the grumpy hungries fo sho. Of course, those sneaky Thai bastards anticipated this and installed an ice cream cafe at the very last building. Claire and I were the first to cave, and Omar followed suit shortly. We stuck to the imported Nestle stuff, as we weren't sure how safe milk was in Thailand.

Then we proceeded to attempt to find janky food according to Nat's hand-drawn map. That was a trip in itself.

You know how you feel overwhelmed and suffocated as soon as you walk into a Forever 21 or Urban Outfitters? Imagine that times 100.
When faced with a thousand colorful vendors selling God knows what (random vintage trinkets, fried animal parts, herbs/spices/Eastern medicine), it's kind of hard to tell the difference between a "small street" and an alley. So we ended up walking down what seemed to be a main road and then turning a corner into a tiny alley along the river.

And the random place we ate was SO legit. Not as organized as The Front Page or Jim Thompsons, but it just tasted so deliciously local. We were the only tourists at the flimsy tables, and none of the staff spoke English. The ice cold Pepsis were the icing on the cake, and the adorable old lady who divided our change into four little piles was the cherry on top.
Apparently, it isn't customary to tip anything, much less 10% (of a $10 meal for 4 people), so she was really surprised when we left all the piles to her. I'm not sure if not adhering to their tipping customs was super rude/offensive, but we didn't know better. Any foreigners want to weigh in?

On the way back, my blistered ankles were killing me, so I bought a pair of $1 flip flops from another cute old lady on the street corner. She insisted that I take a bag to carry my shoes in, which was unnecessary but really nice on her part. It seems as though the vendors in Bangkok were nicer and less pushy than the ones in India. I don't know if it's because we didn't put up as much of a fight over prices here, or there was more Asian sympathy to go around or what, but I found myself walking away from these tourist trap areas with much less anxiety than I did in India.

At Wat Pho--sadly not pronounced like the Vietnamese noodle soup, but rather "po" with an aspirated P--we did a quick tour and found the Reclining Buddha in short order. Um, that thing is frikken HUGE. The only sad thing is that it's all behind a bunch of columns, so you can't see it in its entirety.

Around 4pm, we tried to get a cab back to the hotel. Apparently, that's a no-go due to rush hour traffic because 6 taxis turned us down, which led to Claire yelling, "Well, FUCK YOU THEN!" to the last one. I've never heard Claire get upset before, so I burst out laughing inappropriately. Finally, a tuk tuk agreed to take us to National Stadium where we could BART back to the hotel. We paid double what it should've cost and Omar was squished on the metal floor under our legs the whole time, but it worked out that our driver was able to squeeze through a lot of traffic in the smaller "vehicle" (I use that term loosely).
The boys and I ran to our respective tailors for second fittings, and then promptly got back on BART to hit up Nat again. Honestly, when I sent Nat a FB message before the trip, I thought we would go out to dinner once and pick his brain for Bangkok insights. Instead, on Day 2, he took us to Jim Thompson's (the restaurant, not the silk shops) for the most amazing meal ever. Like straight up ever.
After the best pineapple fried rice, shrimp rolls, chicken in banana leaf, mango sticky rice + a million other things I've ever had, I finally was able to apply a new phrase that Omar taught me: "This is the BOMB DOT COM!" which only led to everyone rolling their eyes 8 time over for the rest of the trip every time I said it.I kind of thought that would be the last we saw of Nat, as he surely had more important things to do on the weekend (seeing as he works like 14 hour days)... but the surprises kept rolling in.

Sala Daaaang!

Cambodia was the shit. Tourism is a well-practiced art there, and everything was planned for... except the mosquitoes. Seeing as I DEETed my entire body during the day and couldn't get it all off in the shower, I was well-protected. Except while sleeping. Those little fuckers attacked the only part of my body that was not DEETed/clothed/under the covers--the right side of my face. So when I woke up, my right eyelid was completely swollen over. I couldn't see out of it, and Art greeted me with an "ARRRRRR!" at breakfast.

I was stopped at the Siem Reap airport because 1. the lady thought my compass was a bomb, and 2. my water bottle was full. I convinced the guy guard that I needed the extra water for my fucked up eye, and after watching me drink it (just in case it was liquid nitrogen or something), he let me through. Thanks for nothing, mosquitoes.

We landed in Bangkok around 11am and somehow public transported ourselves to our hotel without too much incident. It felt very similar to Bombay: western buildings, intersections that look like Picadilly Circus, vendors lining the streets, and rickety food stalls.

It took more effort than I wanted to exert, but we walked from Soi 2 to Soi 7 to find Banya, the only legit Thai restaurant in the hotel/fashion district of Sukhumvit. Located in what looked like a sun room addition of a house, Banya helped me realize my dream of having pad thai upon landing in Bangkok.

Then Claire came up with this brilliant idea--

Claire: "Could I please get a Thai iced tea with no ice?"
Me: "Pretty sure it's just called 'iced tea' here."
Peanut gallery: "With no ice, it'd just be 'tea'."
Waitress: "............................."

IT WAS SO LEGIT!!!

The day only got better when we tried to do our laundry. Yup, Claire somehow hooked us up with a long-stay hotel so we had a laundry machine and a kitchen. Instead of buying powdered detergent, we figured liquid would be fine. Which it was. Until the foam started seeping out of the machine across the floor of our 4 star hotel. Fuck. I had to build a Great Wall of China with the rest of our clothes in order to keep it from ruining the wood floors. Oops?

Keeping our fingers crossed that our room wouldn't be a foam party when we returned, the boys went to Raja's to get tailored suits, and I went to Nickermann's and Empire to get some shirts for Tie Tuesday. The salesguy was a little skeevy at Empire, but the highlight of our interaction was this exchange--

Me: "I'm looking for a nice tie for a guy..."
Salesman: "About your friend, is he slim fit... or he have a pooch?", making a beer belly gesture with his hands.
Me: *cracking up*

The sad thing is that he probably has to ask this when Americans come in. =(

Traffic was getting cray cray in the evening, so we decided to take the Skytrain (from here on out known as BART or Bangkok Area Rapid Transit) to Sala Deang, the stop nearest to my friend Nat's office.

In an epic effort to find his building, we got horribly lost and Art got groped by some guys outside of what seemed to be some kind of kinky strip club. Funnily enough, this was after they were super nice/polite to me when I asked for directions. I guess Art is the hottest one of the group. =D

Finally, Nat came and rescued us near the Dusit Hotel. Let me explain a few things about Nat. I met him in my International Trade class senior year of college. He looked smart and he was Thai, so I conned him into being my friend. Since Thai food is probably my favorite Asian food ever, I knew that this would come in handy.

Fast forward 3 years >> Nat rolls up to the corner where we're a little traumatized from getting so lost; he's wearing a pink collared work shirt and his messenger bag is slung over his shoulder like a boss. I don't think I'd ever been happier to see an Asian guy.

Nat took us to The Front Page, which, despite its white people name, turned out to be an amazing local joint--complete with very little lighting, live music, and $3 dishes. After like 6 dishes between the 5 of us, Nat goes, "So, are you guys still hungry? I'm gonna get a few more." Thus was the beginning of Fat Nat, who wound up killing the last few plates alone. And they think Americans are cows?!

Finally, Nat escorted us through the top secret BCG office so that the ladies could use a hong nam (toilet) that wasn't grody. After gallantly hailing us a cab, Nat disappeared into the night....

Running Amok

Today, we went to the Landmine Museum, just a bit outside of Siem Reap. I'm super glad that we chose to do this instead of doing Tuol Sleng (the genocide prison) in Phnom Penh because I broke down like a mofo.

Started by a former child soldier with the Khmer Rouge, Aki Ra decided to try to find/defuse the thousands of mines that he and others had laid. They are so hard to locate that recently, a few kilometers from the tiny museum, a mine exploded and took out a bunch of kids' legs. There are about 30 kids that have been injured by mines that live on the grounds of the museum. I knew this was going to be a rough visit, but I still wasn't prepared to see the news clippings and weapons recovered from the terror of the Khmer Rouge.


When you travel so far to see a tourist magnet, I feel like you owe it to the country to learn something about its history. Usually, I pick the horrible thing that helps me to best understand the struggles of its citizens. It was super worth it--if you guys ever go to Angkor Wat, the Landmine Museum is absolutely a must. Please try to find out what is on their wish list; if we had known, I would've brought them all of these things:


A few kilometers away, our driver dropped us off Kbal Spean (River of 1000 Linga [aka Penises] and was like, "You be back at 1:30. I wait fo you ovah thea." I'm like, uh, it's 10:30am. Why is this river shit gonna take 3 hours?

And he was not just kidding. Because it turns out there is a 1500 meter hike through rocks to get up to the fucking river. I swore after hiking Huyana Picchu that I would never do that kind of shit again.


At the top of the climb, there's this river with a bajillion cylinders into the river banks; they all flow through a box (haha, get it? Box?)... which is like a big huge celebration of fertility if I've ever seen one.


Finally, we climbed out of the jungle at 1:30pm and found our driver. The only thing we could ask for at that point was a delicious lunch in an air conditioned restaurant, not outside on plastic seats under a tarp as most eateries in the area were. He took us to Angkor Flower, which is a janky place next door to a super nice place across from Srah Sarang (the King's swimming pool). Omar and I both had the amok (he fish, I chicken), which is Cambodia's national dish--stewed meats inside a friggin coconut. And it was bombtastic.

Back at the hotel, Claire and I went for drinking coconuts by the pool. Even though this was my first coconut and it wasn't as awesome as I thought it'd be, the mashed prawns on toast + "trilogy of chocolate" that Claire and I ordered as fat people afternoon snacks made the whole thing totally worth it. We felt like obnoxious 1%ers, but we rationalized that as 99%ers, we'd never be able to afford poolside service in the States. Fair argument, no?

The boys decided to go to Soup Dragon, a Vietnamese pho place on Pub Alley. Like, seriously? Take a Vietnamese girl to pho? What is this, freshman year on a date to Vietnam Village? But it wasn't, because even though the pho was meh, it wasn't complete trash like the shit made by Chinese people at Vietnam Village. The experience was also saved by the rooftop dinner and an aerial concert by street musicians.

Art and Omar went to the real night market (apparently, Claire and I went to the fake one) to do even more shopping (and this isn't the end of it, either) while Claire and I went back to the hotel and crashed in preparation for our flight to Bangkok tomorrow! SO EXCITED!!!

Guys, Is This the Temple of Doom?

You'd think that after waking up at 3:30am to get in line for Machu Picchu, I wouldn't be such a cranky bitch about doing the 4:30am call time for Angkor Wat. Luckily, the hotel packed us breakfast to go, and we hopped into a private van with our guide, Dom.

Dom led us to the reflecting pool in the dark. Surprisingly, Art and Omar were (for once) prepared with flashlights to keep us from falling off the processional into mucky water. By 6:30, the sun had risen above Angkor Wat:


Dom took us through the ruins of the ancient temple, built in the 12th century Hindu Khmer style. All the walls were covered with reliefs of Hindu cosmology and historical wars. It's insane to realize that each was carved by hand during ancient civilizations with no tools--just stones and elephants.

After a quick breakfast of fruit, danishes, and french fries (breakfast of champions, bitches) at the janky cafe behind the much nicer Angkor Cafe, our van somehow made it through the South Gate of the Angkor Thom complex. This involved maneuvering through hordes of tourists, guides, vendors and their tow-able wares, tuk tuks, and elephants.


We hiked up to Bayuon temple, which is the one that is full of smiling Buddhas. There's supposedly a thousand of them--with one on each side of a tower, it could possibly be true. Bayuon had to be one of my favorite sites because of the beautifully clustered towers. Each temple has a different feeling, and Bayuon felt a little more sacred and secretive than Angkor Wat's sprawling complex.

The highlight was --

Dom's query (in his broken English), "You know that structure? The calendar?"
Us: *blank stares*
Dom: "It's in England somewhere..."
Us: *blank stares*
Dom: "Made of stones? Stone... something?"
Us: "Ohhh, STONEHENGE!"
Dom: "Yes, that one. Why do people like it so much?"

He gestured to the magnificence around us-, and I gotta say--well played, Cambodia, well played.


Then we almost died climbing up Baphuon, another Hindu temple. I know this is super shallow, but it was my least favorite because it was 1. small (size matters, obv) and 2. not very complex. Instead of being a temple that you walk through and explore, you walk around and up to the top of Baphuon... so it just puts itself out there and leaves nothing to discover--like a skankalank. Am I allowed to say that about a temple? =/

Dom explained that the steps are so steep because the ancient people wanted kids to shut up and be respectful, so after a few kids fell, people would focus more on their climbing. I'm not sure he was kidding:


And after about 6 hours of trekking around, we finally made it to Ta Prohm, or the famous jungle temple from Tomb Raider. No matter how many times you've seen the movie or photos, nothing measures up to seeing the completely overrun temple in-person. It's unfathomable how these colossal trees have managed to build roots amongst stone ruins; now, the temples and trees rely on each other to stand. It's so precarious that restoration work is painstaking, in order to keep either from collapsing.


If you've ever wanted to be Indiana Jones, this has to be the place to bring that shit. Every few steps, I'd have to pinch myself to make sure that I wasn't dreaming.

After the longest day evar (next to Machu Picchu, I must admit), our grupito decided to treat ourselves to a $$$ restaurant in Omar's guidebook. We "taxied" (I use that word very loosely) to Le Malreaux, a French Cambodian place downtown. It. Was. Heaven. With exposed brick and French light fixtures, I was totally in love. I'll have to post photos of the food as soon as Claire gives me her pictures.

Back at the hotel, Claire, Omar, and I decided to relax in the pool and get a Khmer massage to loosen our cramped up muscles. Art skyped with his gf or something... which was indicative of how the rest of the trip was going to go.

As I've only had one other massage in my life, I wasn't sure what to expect. It turned out to be the weirdest massage ever. We got very loose clothing to change into, instead of stripping down (thank God). And then the masseuses brought on the pain. I flinched within half a second of being touched, and the woman who didn't speak very much English was like, "Ah, okeh okeh, medium hurt." Medium HURT?! Ah, fuck. I just went with it and walked away bruised and relaxed. Who knew that was a possible?

Dinner at the hotel included an apsara show, which was awesome. Apparently, apsara was lost and rediscovered based on the reliefs at Angkor Wat. When we were trekking, I had asked Dom, "Is modern apsara dancing different from the ancient style depicted here?"


Dom, in his jovial Engrish, "Well, they wear shirts now." BOOM. He laughed so hard at his own (valid) joke that I couldn't stop laughing along with him.

I thought the dancers' hands were totally weird in the reliefs, but it turns out, they actually are like that. I highly suspect that some of the dancers had broken their fingers in order to achieve the unnatural backwards bend, but I can't prove it.


And even though the weird Asian beds were as hard as bricks, Claire and I passed the f out almost immediately after dinner. Most epic day ever.

Shit Americans in Cambodia Say

First morning at 4-star Angkor Century Hotel--
Me: "Dude. Are we in the jungle?"
Omar: "How funny would it be if all these geckos were inside our rooms?"
Me: "Not?"


Embarking on the half mile walk to downtown--
Tuk tuk driver outside of hotel: "You want drive? $4! Tuk tuk better!"
25 sweaty minutes later., after navigating through animals, bikes, tuk tuks, and people...
Me: "Yeah... tuk tuk. Iss betta fo youuu." (reference, for those who live in a cave [Claire])


While getting a newly-bought skirt tailored--
Salesgirl: "You ladies so beautiful."
Me: "Ah, no, you're just saying that."
Salesgirl: "Your skin so white. So beautiful."
Me: "In the US, your tan skin is considered more beautiful."
Salesgirl, gasping: "Nooo, my dark skin so ugly here."
Me/Claire: *sad*

At Artisans d'Angkor, the craft workshops that employ disabled people--
Omar: "What's a linga, and what's the square it's standing in?"
Claire: "A symbol of fertility."
Omar, registering it in his head: ".... Oh."


Lunching at Khmer Kitchen on Pub Alley--
Me: "Uh, I ordered deep-fried shrimp. These are deep-fried bread balls." *eats anyway*


Afternoon planning--
Art: "I really want to go to the mall."
Claire: "We're in Cambodia, and you want to go to the mall?"
Me: "Let's go back to the hotel and swim!"
Art: "Um, I don't actually like swimming that much."
Me: "Then why the fuck are we on a tropical beach vacation?"


Trying to figure out where to see the sunset at Angkor Wat--
Claire: "Maybe we're supposed to climb this tower?"
Art: "Good thing it's closed."
Claire: "Eh, let's just go back through and look at it from the gate."
Me: "Yeah, fuck it."


Khmer barbecue on Street 9 for dinner--
Omar: "I really want to try the crocodile."
Art: "Guys, is this PF Changs?"


Folding our comforters into 6ths to pad the beds--
Me: "I wonder if it's an Asian thing to sleep on a mattress that feels like a piece of plywood."
Claire: "What is wrong with your people?"

Koreans Ruin Everything

Beginning from our departure from SFO, Koreans started making my life difficult.

1. While the rest of us had a carry-on bag + a personal item, Art packed the following:

• An expandable rolling bag that was already expanded
• A backpack to hold his gallon-sized toiletries bag
• A messenger bag with his laptop

Obviously TSA didn't allow any of this to go through, so Claire, Omar, and I had to run some shenanigans to pass his extra stuff amongst ourselves so he could get through security.

2. After 12 hours, we should have landed in Seoul. Instead, we had to spend an extra hour flying around North Korea--apparently, if you enter their airspace, they will shoot you down. Way to be awesome, North Korea.

3. I chose the bibimbap over the Western meal option. It came with instruction booklet on how to eat bibimbap (very necessary) this tube of awesomesauce (one word) that I spread liberally all over my rice. And then the rest of the flight was spent in spicy agony.

(I know, this isn't bibimbap, but that IS the awesomesauce... and yes, that's ham + cucumber salad for whatever reason. All dericious.)

After 20 hours, our grupito wound up driving down a dark 2-lane "highway" to the center of Siem Reap, Cambodia. Upon finding out that we were all of different ethnic backgrounds, the bellboy accompanying us asked, "But if you are all from different countries, how are you friends?"

This super simple question made me realize how truly incredible California is. We're so lucky to be exposed to so much in the Bay Area, and not even the rest of the US is as fortunate. Even when I was living in Spain, the natives always knew we were American because our groups always consisted of an Asian (me), a Jew (Julia), white people, Hispanic people, and everyone else. Apparently, if National Geographic did a segment on social behavior of differing ethnicities, only Americans would hang out in such diverse groups.

And this happy thought was the best thing to fall asleep to, after discovering that our bath gels were held in elephant jars.

El fin

check out at noon. stored luggage. postcards not mailed.
Casa Rosada. guard felt up Mackenzie's ass. free tour of upstairs. "que linda sonrisa". sang evita the whole time.
cafe tortoni. pretended to be borges. coffee + submarinos + churros
metro'd to Palermo for our old barrio haunts. pizzeria mi matute. 12 empanadas. took pictures with the staff except Hector the cook.
facturas. stuffed pastries.
walked to calle ortiz for shopping.
metro to Florida. McDonalds. Mac's mom is crazy.
restaurant at Filo at 10:15pm until 1:45am. p, cheese, profiteroles.
went back to hotel. shadily changed in the bathroom. 2 creepy middle eastern men asked melissa & me to drinks.
cabbed to airport.