Angkor Adventures: Touching down at Siem Reap

Picking up from my previous post, on 20th May, Tyko and myself found ourselves on a flight to Siem Reap, home to the world famous Angkor monuments.

Quick facts - Siem Reap is a landlocked town located in a province also called Siem Reap in Cambodia. It has an international airport, and is today a town built around the tourists who flock to the Angkor monuments. There are hotels for every budget, transportation options from bicycles to 9 seater vans, food for every tastes, and enough to occupy you for a while. You'll want for nothing ...

If you're flying in from the south,  check out the large body of water - Tonle Sap lake, which should come in view on your final descent - it swells to a humongous 16,000 km2 size in the rainy season! Photo on the left shows the lake at the start of the rainy season, before it swells to its fullest - but you can already see floating villages and what appears to be fish farms on the lake already - these floating villages would normally be at the edge of the lake during the dry season !

Arrival at the airport was simple and straight forward, without any fuss. Immediately after clearing immigration and customs, we got ourselves a taxi to the hotel.

We found ourselves a hotel through TripAdvisor, and booked it via Expedia. The Tara Angkor Hotel is great - 3 star price, 4 star rating, 5 star service. I truly recommend it to anyone wanting a bit of comfort in Angkor, but without paying the big bucks for it.

The rooms are clean, with your towels changed twice daily. It has a swimming pool, small gym, a restaurant, free wifi at the lobby area (it's not free in the rooms though), pleasant staff members - all of whom speak perfect english and a good location just 2km from Old Market, and just 4km or so to the temples of Angkor.

Check in was simple, and although we arrived really early, by 9am, before our check-in time, they had rooms available, so they let us into our room already. Godsent ! We decided some shuteye would be great, considering the early hour of our flight.

After that, we decided to venture out to the Old Market area. This is the center of Siem Reap's present day universe - you will find everything you need here - from restaurants, souvenir stalls, pubs, spas to pharmacies. It's not a very big area - the market itself is an interesting walk, but the streets surrounding it - Pub Street, The Alley, and Blue Pumpkin street are the ones where you'll find yourself exploring more.

After a great lunch at the Khmer Kitchen, we ventured to the Angkor National Museum. Angkor National Museum is a private venture, but it has access to some of the best artifacts from the Angkor Conservatory, and if you're trying to make sense of what you're about to see in the following days at the temples of Angkor, then you should plan on spending at least 2-3 hours there. A mix of interactive, multimedia displays coupled with beautiful artifacts will give you a crash course in Angkor appreciation. Cameras not allowed, so no photos from the inside. =( ... Would have loved to take some photos, but then again, if they let us take photos, we would never be out of the museum in time for our next stop ...

We finished the museum tour in time to catch a tuk tuk to the Angkor ticket booth. Here's the deal - you need to buy a pass to access the temples of Angkor. The pass comes in 1 day ($20), 3 days ($40) and 7 days ($60) validity, and must be used on consecutive days. If you buy the pass after 5pm, the pass will be valid from the following day - and you'll get free entrance for the day.

Our hotel bellboy negotiated a tuk tuk that would take us to the ticket booth, then take us to Angkor Wat to view the sunset, and then take us to the Old Market area after that for dinner - for $7. Good to have the locals bargain for us ...

The pass purchase itself was painless and fast. Pay up, have your digital photo taken, and you're done - in under 3 minutes.

Next stop - Angkor Wat sunset !

More photos can be found here !

Walking back in time ... Siem Reap / Angkor Wat

Sometime last year, over a Yahoo IM conversation, me and my regular travel buddy decided that we really needed to go on a trip again. Between Luang Prabang and Siem Reap, we decided that perhaps Siem Reap would be the better choice.

Foolishly getting ourselves a flight at the end of May, we later discovered that it's really ... the start of the rainy season! Gasp!

Cutting a very long story short before your attention span expires, we did a lot of research, read up forums, gathered intelligence from other previous explorers, and put together a plan to enjoy Siem Reap to its fullest!

On 20th May, we both took off from the Kuala Lumpur Low Cost Carrier Terminal on AK280 to Siem Reap.

The following posts chronicle our little step back in time. I hope that it'll inspire some of you who've never considered visiting the Angkor Wat monuments to at least think about it.

The combination of great people - always smiling, ever friendly; astonishing food - blending Thai spicy and nous with Vietnamese subtlety; laid back town atmosphere with plenty to do if you want plenty to do, or little to do if you choose not to do anything - in combination with the often breath-taking monuments of Angkor made this a trip of a lifetime.

In my short 5 days and 4 nights (more like 4 days and 4 nights due to the flight schedules), I found a new appreciation for the master builders of South East Asia. Somewhere in Siem Reap, while fulfilling a childhood dream, I've found myself a little piece of history. :)

I will, over the next few days and weeks, publish more accounts of our trip, and share some of my experiences. Hope you'll like it !

Moz: Where is he now ?

It's been a very long while since I last posted anything useful, interesting, or worth reading here on this blog.

Is it because I've gotten so busy with life that I have no time for blogging? No, not really. Since my workplace has been stuck in a semi bit of rut (no thanks to those free spending Americans who charge everything to their credit cards), in fact, work has been drying up a bit. But just a wee bit, and you know, bosses find ways to occupy you, and it's not good if you're continuously free anyways ... it makes you a little susceptible.

So, it's not work then.

Well, is it that nothing interesting has been happening? No, not that too. Since last year, I've stopped blogging about a lot of my trips, and my own personal discoveries, etc. Trips I thought were interesting that I never really blogged about included my trips to Sydney and Hunter Valley in Australia, my own little trip to Cameron Highlands in August and December last year, my Penang and Langkawi trips, my drives to Sekinchan, Melaka and Tanjung Tuan ... quite a bit has happened, and I've clocked in a bit of miles too. So, you know, I've been out and about ...

So, what is it then ?

I guess a bit of Facebook to blame, a bit of blog fatigue, and a bit of lack of blogosphere friends anymore. I notice a lot of my blogger friends have now migrated to using Facebook as a means to 'blog' ... it's more interactive anyways.

So I am still thinking if it will be a good idea to keep up the blog. I really want to, but I might turn this into one where I just blog about my trips and adventures ... just so that I have a place to properly write about where I've been, what I've learnt, and one day, when memories fail me, maybe it'll be useful - just maybe - who knows if Blogger would be around for that long anyways !

On a more personal note, I've made myself a personal challenge of losing enough fat so that my BMI reading will suggest I'm within a healthy range by the time I holiday in Bali later this year. I've allowed myself plenty of time, and I've finally found enough discipline to force myself into a healthier lifestyle. The story so far is that I've just about 2kgs short of my personal target ... so it's getting there. I've lost around 7 so far ... so, it's been doing well ! I hope to be well and truly at my target weight by the time I'm in Bali, hopefully, having the vacation of a life time !

In the meantime, I won't promise more blog entries, knowing fully well that for whatever reasons, they may not be forthcoming. But if I will blog soon, my thoughts are that I'll just be putting in entries on my little travels - far and near. And those should keep me happy for the time being !

Moz's doodle on recession ...

I've been talking to loved ones about the possibility of recession since end 2007 ... the signs were there, and for a while, the powers to be managed to postpone the recession, but now, it looks like it's hit hard, and like a wildfire burning through woods which hadn't had any controlled burn, it's burning harder and more intense than we all can remember.

It's real, it will hit us, it will affect you and me in some ways.

So, before I forget, I forced myself to write about my own plan for handling my finances during a recession ...

# Unlike some of them really lucky people, most of us will have finite resources. Live within your means. And always save up for a rainy day. We all know it'll rain someday, so why wait till it's already pouring before you do something ?

# Keep enough cash to weather your own worst case scenario. If you think the longest you will go without a job or income is 6 months, then save up so that you can pass 6 months comfortably without income. But at all times, have at least enough to live off for 3 months !

# Part of the reason why we're in this mess right now is because of the overuse of credit in the US. Don't let history repeat itself. Use credit card sparingly - it's an unsecured loan - it's like spending money you don't have ! You'll need to pay up eventually ...

# If you have credit card debts, pay up if you can, if you can't, talk to someone who can help you make a plan to clear it all off. Banks are businesses - they don't give you credit card if they don't think they can make money off you !

# If you still need the convenience of plastic, get a debit card. Then you can't spend like there's no tomorrow, because you're depleting your bank account the moment you swipe it !

# Pay off other debts if you have the means to. Having less liabilities is always a good thing!

# Even in good times, you will do well to remember that your health is the single most important thing you have in possession. In the bad times, health is even more important - you can't afford to fall sick, and you can't afford to pay expensive medical bills.

# In good times and in bad, remember your loved ones. They are the reason you work hard. So, don't do stupid things like drive dangerously, drink excessively, or act irresponsibly. You are obliged to live well for them. And most stupid things have expensive consequences too.

# Workout often. In good times and bad, this is your stress reliever. And less stress is a very good thing !

# Buy a medical card or medical insurance. You'll find one handy. And those your company gives you don't count ! Better have one in case the company isn't around, or if they decide to remove your umbrella when it rains (if you know what I mean).

# If you don't need it, don't buy it. And when I said need, that means if your life will no longer function normally, then you need it. That's my definition of need. Expensive shirts, that extra pair of shoe, that designer pen, that new f/2.8 lens, the 2 month trip to Nepal & Tibet, those all don't count as needs. Those are nice to have.

# All food, no matter how heavenly, will enter at one end and leave at the other. Once in your tummy, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. Eat sensibly, and forgo those expensive places where you will end up paying for the ambiance and also for the waiter who waits exclusively on your table.

# Eat simple food. Enjoy the simple pleasure of just eating. My parents grew up without ever chilling out at a coffee joint charging RM12 for an exotic coffee. And they're just fine - in fact, their generation has less diseases ... no harm going back to boiled veggies and simple stir fry dish. It's ok ..

# We've all got used to traveling to foreign lands with exotic names to get a 'holiday' or a 'break'. Perhaps you can see that Malaysia is a foreign land with an exotic name to many people ... try and go local too ... save some $$$ and help the locals for a change !

# Unless you carry a job title starting with 'Chief', you have very little control over many things in the company, so stop worrying about them, and stop gossiping about them as well. Do your job, do it well, and make yourself useful at work. In a downturn, you'll be surprised how many apple polishers are quickly rooted out.

# Appreciate what you have, and try and see the glass as being half full. It does your mind wonders ...

# If you have money, do your research, and invest. The recession is a good time to pick up some discounted investments ... but do it with a view of the long term. Expect no returns in the immediate future.

# Be flexible, and swallow your pride if you have to. If all 6 billion people on earth have ego just as big as yours, this planet is not big enough for us all !

This list can grow or shrink over time ... this is just a capture of my mind of my own little action plan if I find the big R hit me badly ... anything else anyone wants to add to this ?

** taken from my own FB notes **