The Land of Smiles

Hello All! It has been a while so I will do my best to fill you in :) I am sitting in our guesthouse called Two Dragons in Siem Reap,Cambodia drinking a 50 cent beer. Not a bad way to start the night.

We arrived in Bangkok on Nov. 14th, after a 20 hour journey from Budapest.  Bangkok is an amazing city-loud, dirty, full of people, sky scrapers next to run down shacks-over stimulating to say the least.  But Thailand is known as the "Land of Smiles" and it lived up to that title from the beginning.  Our first interaction with a Thai person was the security guard at the skytrain. He asked us where we were going, gave us directions, maps,and then brought us to the ticket machine where he did the whole process for us.  Amazing!  We stayed in an area pretty far away from the touristy area in Bangkok, which was awesome. A large river runs through Bangkok,so the main way to get around is the water taxis. Fun and very efficiant to take you around the city.  Our first night we walked from our lodgings to find the boat, and ended up going down a very busy market street, filled with food stalls EVERYWHERE, people, stray dogs, cars,motor bikes, regular bikes, and more people.  But as I said, everyone is so friendly that while we stuck out, we were greeted with smiles and laughter.

It's funny being here as compared to Europe, where many people expect you to know their language and are a bit stuck up if you don't.  While in Thailand the attitude is more "You don't know my language? That is hilarious, let's laugh about it as we try and communicate with each other".  Much more fun...

So we spent 4 days in Bangkok, feasting on delicious food and cheap beer, seeing temples, and going to markets.  The Flower Market was my favorite, 20 acres on streets filled with flowers literally everywhere.  Every hotel, restaurant, and offering is bought there. 

We then ditched the city and went to Ko Somet, an island about 4 hours from Bangkok. A nice compromise to the 18 hour bus to the far South.  The first two night we were in a more touristy area (looking for a hotel with 30 lb backpacks at noon makes you settle a lot quicker than usual) but then went farther down to beach to find our tropical, jungle, paradise. Small bungalows with a bed on the floor and a mosquito net, beautiful beach with no motor boats, and to top it off three puppies that "belonged" to the owner ran around wanting to play the whole time.We relaxed to the extreme and joked about spending the next 3 weeks there.

After 5 days in beach mode it was time togo back to Bangkok for the night. We went to Ko San Road this time, the backpackers haven, which had trippled in the number of people there.  But we found a cheap guesthouse and celebrated Thanksgiving with Pad Thai, Spring Rolls, and chicken wings. And of course, more Change.

We left for our long journey to Cambodia the next day.  Rode by mini bus which was long, sweaty, and full of scams.  We read warnings of it online, but decided to go for it anyway since we already had tickets.  At every turn people were trying to squeeze more money out of us.  The final straw was the end of the night (3 hours after we were supposed to arrive) when the bus stopped in a random parking lot with tuck-tucks waiting for us, saying they would take us to our hotel now (they were "free" with the acception that you pay the same driver to drive you around the temples the next day). Tired of being scammed, everyone of our bus refused to get off the bus until we got more answers.  We we finally got off, Pat and I demanded that our driver would take us to a hotel and, no we would NOT be using them the next day.  All in all, we arrived safe, 12 hours later.  We woke up late the next day, switched hotels after finding bugs, and then made our way to Angkor Wat to see temples so amazing it is hard to describe...

But I will describe them later, after we see more`!  We got the 3 day pass since the area is so huge.

So, Thailand is incredible, I cannot wait to go back in a few weeks (going to see the North).  The people are wonderful and there are so many amazing things to do and see.  First impressions of Cambodia are also great.  Definitely different than Thailand, much less developed, but the past two days have been great.

Off to dinner, love and miss you all.  More on Cambodia later : )