Ankhor wat and my birthday week.

we are staying at the Ankhor Hilton hotel. But it is not really part of the hilton chain of hotels, becaus its only costing us 5 USD a night, and the lizard on the wall comes with the room. We got in really late at night, so we were pooped. The next day we decided to venture out on our own. WOW! Siem reip is pretty much a sess pool once you leave the touristy areas.

We were in searchof a street called "bar streeT" is is sort of the back packery area of the city. i dont think we found it at first. but what we did find were heaps of garbage, so many dirty people. The poorest scene I had ever witnessed. all i could think was " no one would beleive us if we were to try and describe thjis sight"

But all the while, you feel frozen. i could hardly take a picture because you feel so bad. there were these women pushing these carts with what looke like chilli covered shells. They were spread out on a peice of metal roofing. We never say anybody buy these shells, but the shell carcasses were every where.

We did find some hostels/hotels and some backpapckers. The area was a little dissapointing, but the prices of accomodations made us happy that we didn't get scammed by the hilton Ankhor.

It was really hot, but decided to keep on walking will we came to the real bar street area. We say lots of street kids just playing in the temple coutyards and on the streets. Cambodia has some of the worlds chicest hotels. But they are completely fenced in. Once you check in, you levae the filty street scenes at the front gate and enter a world of luxury!
I think that idea, speaks for cambodia in general. You get beautiful places, fenced off and protected from the real gritty cambodia.

We did run into some Tuk TUk favoritism wars. We were unfairly quoted a price by one tuk tuk driver, and our friend andreas from switzerland got a much cheaper price for the same tour. In the end we ended up switching drivers, getting into a little argument and getting a pretty good price for a tour of ankhor wat and surrounding areas.

On nov 13th (cambodia time) (ps. my birthday eve) we went to ankhor wat to watch the sun set! wow! is all i have to say. not many words can explain or express ankhor wat. All i can say is that, visiting ankhor wat is probably the most expensive thing you will do in SE asia. and its completely worth it. Its just so hard to comprhend that human made structures could be so complex, and intricate, and long lasting.

Cambodia has been sacked in war so many times, yet these structures have some how survived until today. Its a testament to human engineering and strengh of sprit.
Cambodians have gone through so much, and every where you turn you see povery and loss of limbs. The war has been over for nearly 40 years but its still very fresh here. there are still places you cant walk. and people have lost brother, children, husbands and wives to landmines, sickness and genocide.

Its such a sad country, yet you find some really nice people that want to show you what their country has to offer. its a grimy place, with alot of life, but we are so glad we went.

The next day we did a full on tour of ankhor wat and ankor thom. Banyan and other temples. wow wowo owowowozers!!
it was great. you can climb on the ruins, walk through them, hike to the ruins. It was like the jungle cruise at disney land times 1000!!

for my birthday dinner we watched "in her shoes" on the movie channel and then went for an apsara dance performance and dinner buffet. i was in heaven.
Dinner, dancing and ankhor wat, i couldnt ask for more!

Ankhor wat and my birthday week.

Cambodia at first glance

AFter leaving Krabi, we took the bus back to bangkok. Bangkok is sort of feeling like a base now. We have arrived here 3 times now, and its starting to grow on me. We used our time in bangkok sort of like a rest, relax and compose our selves time.

We got into bangkok at 6 am, and decided to be brave and walk from the down town area to the back packery area of town call khaosan road. I was a little nervous. bangkok at 6 am is sort of grimy, all steel bars, and strangley vacant. We sort of knew the area, because we had been driven around that area many times by tuk tuk drivers in the previous weeks. We were lucky enough to run into this well traveled euro man that pointed us in the right direction, and after about 20 minutes, we made it! We checked into our trusty inn: sawasdee house. If any one is travelling to bangkok, i would suggest it! www.sawasdeehouse.com . We then proceeded to sleep untill the afternoon. That night we just lounged and got some grub, did the internet cafe thing and relaxed.

The next night was a little but more intersting. We find our self at a nice pub sat next to this british guy named adrian and his thai wife named cat. The evening gets a little foggy from here on out, but here are some highlights in the order that i remember.
1. Adrian and cat introduce themselves and warn us of the dangers of drinking thai beer (it is supposedly fill of formeldehyde)
2. They also warned us about thai cigarettes, doctors, hospitals and traffic
3.Cat is a huge fan of Linkin park and wanted adrian to compete in an air gituar contest to win tixkets
4. we are at a strange bar watching a small german man perform the maddest air gitaur routine to black sabbath??
5. The order many buckets of vodka and red bull
6. Fortune telling starts
7. Cat performs a feice air gitaur routine to red hot chilli peppers and wins the tickets to linkin park!
8.me and shiv wake up with white string tied around our wrists.

It was such a strange, but interesting evening. The next few days in bangkok, we spent at the internet cafes and sampling new food establishments around town.

We decided to book our tickets to Cambodia through sawasdee house, and Im sort of glad that we did because they were very helpful and literally "walked" us over the border.
Walking into cambodia was an experience like none other. The first thing i saw was this huge arch way that was carved so inticately like the archways you might find at the ruins of ankor wat. Surrounding the border crossing were so many people pulling wooden carts, and the main road leading away from the border was a huge red dirt road. The thai side is pretty much freeways, paved roads and shopping plazas. The cambodian side was dusty, smelly, and full of people wanting money, anything really to help them out just a bit. It was really heart breaking. I honestly could not belive my eyes. You don't want to stare, but its hard not to. And you want to give some children money, but when does it end. You cant give every street child money. And then it just perpetuates the cycle of begging and being dependent of forigners for money. It was so hard.

Our bus driver took us the long bumpy way to siem reip, The bus we were in was "defying the laws of physics" as shiv said, because it was basically "off roading", but we were on the high way. It was insane.

The thing about cambodia that has stuck in my mind so feircely was the fact that in the poor areas, there was hardly no light and the smell of wood burning. there were no street lights, no paved roads, no lights (as in bulbs), only candle light and the occasional lamp. You could se dinner being cooked out side on a fire and it just seemed that you had stepped back in time a good 50-100 years.

I wont forget that any time soon, as soon as you hit the out skirts of the city, the road is paved, street lights appear, as do the most amazing 5 star hotels I Have ever seen. Being part of the bangkok-seim reip scam, our tour guide was also affiliated with a guest house in Siem reip, so of course as soon as we get into the city, he drops every one off at his guest house.

Im just glad that the place was nice, clean and well priced. The aim is to have you arrive so tired and worn out, you will basically just pay waht ever they say because you are to worn out to barter or get a cab and try looking for a place on your own. We won out this time! and our room had hot water and the movie channel.

Facing our fears and the krabi moto diaries

hello all, welcome to a new and exciting edition of opertaion osaka, with me , your host : JAN!! (applause)

any ways, so we are here in Krabi. we split from mum and tabs on nov 6th and took a small/medium sized boat (the longserm) from thongsala port in ko phan ngan to surrathani. The boat ride to surrathani, started off well enough, and then the waves started to get insanely huge and start rocking the boat. It was mindly scary and we were sittinf on the stern with a really nice world traveller girl named laurie (from beantown). She had been living in china, she speaks chinese quite well. traveked from china, to vietnam, to cambodia, to laos, to thailand, and then to india and dubai and lastly her aim was to settle at a womens health clinic in ethiopia. all we could saw was wow!!

she was really great though, at telling us what we have in store for the next big leg of our trip to cambodia and laos. She honestly quelled a little bit of my fear/nervousness and replaced it with a higher percentace of excitement.

Then the rain started... we were forced off the deck and into the under part of the boat that had the seats. this would have been real nice, except that the seated are of the boat was sooo heavily airconditioned. The temperature was about 4 degrees celcius. it was nuts.Everu one was shivering like mad, and we got going on this rant about fleece and a warm fire and socks. The 3 hour boat ride was really fun, but fridgid. As soon as we saw land, a monsoon rain hit the surrathani area and we were basically drenched. I could hardly see 5 ft infront of me. we got inside the port station, changed into drier clothes, had some fried rice (my new fave food) and then waited for our van to take us to Krabi.

Great scot! the van was airconditioned too. we basically felt like human popsicles. the good news is the ride was only 3 hours and when we got to the Krabi bus station, there weremany good prices (NICE!) guest house sales men to meet us. Score! we found a place called P's guest house and it has been a slice. great room, movie channel, hot water for 350 bhat.

the next day we booked a boat tour of 4 island and a snorkling trip. we were both really seas sick and drowsy from the boat ride the day before, so we took some gravol. bad idea. it made us really sleepy. The scenery was so nice, and we stopprd 1st off to railay beach and went to a cave that had really big sprit house in it. Thai people often belive that good sprits are all around us. They build these elaborate shrines and put them on their property. they put food, water, flowers, money etc.. into the shrine, with the hopes that the sprits will come to live and be happy and comfortable on their property. its great really!

After railay isand we went to poda island and it was a dream. it basically looke d like a movie set for a tropical isalnd. it was everything that i imagined a island in thailand to be. we were still really tired so we slept on the beach until lunch time. after lunch we got back on the boat and saw and island shape dlike a chicken (smartly named-chicken island). Then i thought we would go to a beach to do some snorkling, but the boat stops out in the middle of the ocean and the driver says this is where we will go snorkling.

ummmm... all i saw was really deep water, and i cant swim and am pretty much terrified of deep water. shiv was great! when i told him that i was going to stay on the boat and watch our bags, he was like "no, you have to try this!" and im so glad he made me get in the water and giv it a try. I was sooo scared, but i jumped in the water and i immeidieatly started to cry (very quietly) because i was so scared. the water was so deep and full of so many fish. i think i nearly broke shivs hand because i would not let go of it no matter what.

snorkling was such a distorted mind trip. under water the sea floor and coral looked almost like huge fish condo buildings rising up from the ground. then above water the sky goes on for ever. under water you almost forget you are human, and you feel like a fish in a huge aquarium. it is just wild.

Im so glad we did it. shiv looked like such a natural. It was scary for both of us, but im so glad we just jumped in and did it. go team. we got back in the boat and headed back to the main land. That night we went to a night market and had street vendor food and street meat.

The next day shiv did rock climbing at railay beach. i didnt go, but i saw the pictures from his day and they looked amazing. i will try and post them soon.there was one climb he didnt complete, but he took a picture of it, with the goal to complete i next time hes in thailand. I walked the town and did the internet cafe thing. Great day, and we wended it off with a huge grilled fish, rice and some changs!

Today we watched a supeb movie (aroundt the world in 80 days-with jackie chan) its really good. then we rented a moto and zipped around town. i feel really cool on the moto. but im sure we look more like the 2 guys on dumb and dumber. it so good though. we leave for bangkok this afternoon. 3 hours to surrthani on bus, then another 12 hrs to bangkok. im so excited. talk to you all soon.

big hugs from krabi.
love jan and shiv!

hustling the hustlers

So, I seemed to have missed out on our summer time in Osaka. But i will add those blogs later. What is really important is that we are in Thailand right now. We got here on the 25th of october and we flew from osaka to shanghai to bangkok.

It just feels so classy to say we flew via shanghai (dont you think )

well..our little taste of china was interesting. some things that stood out for us were the 20 minute tv commercials glorifying beijing and china and china eastern airlines. it was grand. the airport was super impressive, tons of stores,and i mean tons, selling the exact same over prices stuff. that was a little odd. but over all, the smog impressed me most.

we got to bangkok that evening and walked around the backpackers ghetto (khao san road) checked into our hotel, and the lady is telling us that our room is 800 bhat, when our online reservation says its 500 bhat. so we had a little bit of a scrummage with the lady and ended up paying the higher price cause she was very mean.

later on that night, tabs and mums flight arrived. i couldnt sleep, so i waited up for them to call our room. It was soooo nice to finally see them. It was like Skype 3D. there is nothing quite like seeing family after a long strech.

The next day we swiftly checked out of our comfy rooms and checked into more of a guesthouse type of deal. mine and shivs and tabs room would be what some might call (bare bones- cell room thai chic) it was grand. mum opted for the bathroom, room with aircon. shes not really roughing it. But i was suprised that she came with a hiking backpack. I never would have thought i would see the day mum would don a hiking backpack.

That day we got hustled into the tuk tuk world. oh my! you have to really experience the frustration, because its hard to type and really relay how frustrating, dirty, hot and ridiculous the whole system is. So, tuk tuks are like a motor bike that have a carraige attached. you can fit about 3-4 passengers on them , and 1 driver.
You ask them to give you a lift to a place, and they basically will take you to a jewelry shop, a tailor, a travel agency, or some other random place in order for them to get their gas coupon from the affiliated vendor.

The best scam came when we hired this tuk tuk guy to take us to the grand palace, and we promised that we would go to a travel agents and "pretend" to iquire about a trip in order for him to get his gas coupon. In exchange we got a free(round trip) ride to the palace. In reality, we got used and hustled. we completed his part of the bargain, but he ditched us at the temple. we felt sweaty, used and dirty.

Bangkok is good for 2 days. the 1st day everything is new and amazing and exhilarating, the 2nd day the grime and everything starts to get to you, by the 3rd day you want to commandeer your own tuk tuk to get stuff done.

The food in bangkok was amazing, and Sooo reasonable. We met some really fun peeps around the area that we were staying. A highlight for sure was the party (tabs b day) at the Shell gas station. So after about 12 am, the shell gas station closes down and it turns into this cool out door club/cafe. live music and ridiculously cheap drinks. We found our selfs here after a dinner of grilled fish and 50 bhat chang beers. wE then proceeded to drink thail herbal wine and cheap sprits till the place closed down.

The next day we went to the floating market wich was really nice. we rented a boat and rode down the canals while people tried to sell us all sort of food, fruit and souveniers. it was great.

While in Bangkok we got hustled into signing up for a 8 day vacation package. At first he quoted us 750 cdn dollars per person for hotel,transportation and 4 days in phuket, and then 4 days in ko phanan island. Yes, that sounds resaonable, but you can barted down almost anything in thailand. We left paying about 100 dollars CDn for the whole 8 day trip. grand!

So here we are in Patong beach. its a sort of sunny beach town. lots of euros. no americans or canadians. wich is often refresging. But europeans are sort of weird, and love wearing speedos/being topless etc.. you dont know if you are winning or loosing really. We leave for Ko phan an tommorow and we are really excited!

We will keep ya'all posted.
xoxo