Skip to main content

#10 - Cambodian Surprise

Laos to Cambodia


One of the things you learn quickly as you travel to places you have only heard about all of your whole life, is they are nothing like what you expect. And expectations can start right at the airport. 

Hong Kong airport is modern with the easiest transportation into the city. It is not pristine but it definitely represents the city...a bit dirty but easy to get around. Bangkok airport is super big and crazy busy, again just like the city. In Laos, Luang Prabang’s airport is small, not very modern and has bathrooms that, well, let’s say you would rather not use, but the people are friendly and easily speak English. 

Luang Prabang seemed clean compared to Thailand. It felt like a large Mexican town where you stop noticing the broken pavements and get used to how people live as you peer into open doors walking by homes. But what a walkable city. Our hotel was a kilometer from the Night Market and the town stretched out from there another kilometer or so along the Mekong River to the Peninsula ( not the hotel, literally a peninsula ) and another kilometer around winding along another smaller river.  You pass hotels and cafes, shops for tourists and shops for locals, a couple of galleries and one or two boutiques. As soon as you are tired, you hop into a tuk tuk and ride home. 






We had two days of touring the town, it’s Wats and Museums, and a river trip to the Cave of a Thousand Buddha’s. Our riverside picnic was on an island that had only a monastery, a few mangy dogs, a monkey kept on a chain and a monk or two building a new brick wall. Not very scenic or clean, but again, a real slice of life in Luang Prabang. We finally took a day off of touring yesterday to simply walk around and shop, eat and cafe and even relax at the pool with a book. 

Today we set off for Cambodia, to Siem Reap. What to expect? I am guessing it will be much like Laos; after all, there was nothing here only 20 years ago until tourism boomed. We land a bit late and surprise.....this is a beautiful, stylish modern airport. We should have suspected this, since getting an E-Visa for Cambodia was slick, efficient, and fast from our computer in Santa Fe months ago. The bathrooms were high design and spotless.... cleaner and nicer than any U.S. airport! Our adorable little guide Bun was waiting with a nice Toyota SUV, ice cold water and ice cold towels to refresh us. It seems like Cambodia is the slickest place we have been. 
We arrive at our hotel, Viroths. Now, when our agent put our tour together she had suggested a different hotel, one that was ‘up’ one level, probably four star, not three. But I had read such rave reviews of this place that I switched. And we are not disappointed. 
Viroths
This beautiful mid-century style hotel is sleek, our room giant with a huge terrace, plenty of closet for Steve to finally unpack, a gorgeous pool and spa and even decent bathroom lights with a makeup mirror. Who would have thought that Cambodia would outshine Bangkok or Hong Kong?







Tonight we head to Mie Cafe in a tuk tuk, another one of the 
Secret Restaurants of Asia. 

Looking forward to Khmer food tonight and Angkor Wat tomorrow. Though we declined the sunrise tour starting at 4:45 AM because the weather today and tomorrow is cloudy, I still think we will have a wonderful day with Bun and Sok, our driver. I already know we did not plan enough time here.


Although our Asia trip got off to a rough start with illness and weather, we have improved constantly, and this trip just gets better with every stop we make. So whenever anyone else is ready to tackle SE Asia, we will have the perfect plan for you.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

August 3. West, East or Central??? Where the Hell is Vienna?

 West, East or Central??? Where the Hell is Vienna? Aside from the fact that it is approximately three hours and fifteen minutes from Cesky Krumlov, Vienna, it turns out, is technically in Western Europe, even though Austria makes its appearance in Rick Steve's Eastern European book and people who live in Czech, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia are Central European.  In fact, it is almost offensive to call them or their country Eastern European, as that is clearly only for the old Soviet bloc.  We made a few stops along the way, taking the scenic way past a magnificent very long lake, and over beautiful mountains with rolling fields of crop and grain, not quite the Sound of Music Austria, but not too far off. Crossing from Czech to Austria in the EU of today entailed no more than driving past the old vacant border patrol building.  We checked into our hotel, just a couple blocks outside the busy Ringstrasse and next to the Rathaus, and sank into our air conditioned room,...
Post a Comment
Read more

#118 - It’s Sunny and HOT in Paree

Dinner last night was just a ten minute walk, following the Marci school of city touring which says : “run around all day, anywhere you want, take public transit everywhere, but once you are back at your hotel, be it 6 or 7 or even 8pm, just walk close by for dinner”. I always pick the neighborhood to stay in first and then I pick my hotel. I don’t mind running all day, but once the day is done I want to be near lots of good places to eat dinner.  Astier, a bistro in the 11th, qualified on the location and the Good Eats. Again, the food sounded simple, like my beet gaspacho with crunchy veggies. The deep purple was rich looking and the flavors layered and fresh.  Steve started with the pickled herring and I think he was quite surprised when the waiter delivered and LEFT on the table a  quite large glazed terracotta container of herring, a serving spoon and fork, a bowl of small potatoes and a basket of bread.  Then he left. Clearly this was an all-you-can-...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Beer Primer, Brewery to Baths

A Beer Primer, Brewery to Baths In Czech, beer is king. It is the breakfast of champions, the lunchtime  liquid, the afternoon aperitif, the dinner drink and evening bar crawl beverage. There is dark and light and everything in between. You can order normal, at 10% alcohol, or 11 or 12 for a faster buzz. It can be smooth or bitter, yellow, brown or red. It goes with dumplings, and pork knee, and pickled sausages and apple strudel. It fills you up and always makes you need the WC. And so, although we are not beer aficionados, and I am not even a beer fan, we picked Plzen, CZ as the first stop on our 15 day road trip through Eastern Europe (or Central Europe to those who live there according to a Czech acquaintance). It was close to Prague so even if we got lost, the day would not be lost.  The morning's challenges would be getting to the rental car place in town by metro, finding our way back to the apartment in our Skoda, the largest produced Czech car,  and navigating ou...
Post a Comment
Read more