Luang Prabang, a Visual Treat

Luang Prabang, Laos

I can understand why this place is considered the city in Laos. Luang Prabang is such a visual treat with the mixture of French-colonial and traditional Lao buildings. Plus there are tons of things to do in or near town like visiting villages, silk weaving classes, cooking courses, playing with elephants, and visiting waterfalls and caves. Guess which one we chose to do.

Budget Wise :: Cambodia

Cambodia was a bit more confusing than our other destinations when it came to traveling on a budget. A year or two ago, I’m not certain of the exact date, the Khmer people suffered a massive inflation due to rising gas prices. Unfortunately for them (and the tourists) the cost of living didn’t fall back down with the gas prices. Now what looks like, feels like, and should be a very budget friendly country is surprisingly not as friendly as it once was. This doesn’t mean that Cambodia is charging European prices, but it was actually more expensive than it’s more developed neighbor Thailand.

Seeing Sihanouk

Sihanouk Ville, Cambodia

Perhaps this is going to be a controversial statement, but if you only plan to spend a week in Cambodia, forget Siem Reap and head down to the coast in Sihanouk Ville. Yes, I know, I’m encouraging people to ignore a world heritage sight and one of the wonders of the world and that just doesn’t seem logical. There are plenty of people who will not be deterred by stories of hordes of tourists and endless scams and those people will flock to Siem Reap and have a lovely time. But if you want to be just a little bit different and see a part of Cambodia that plenty of people miss, head to the short but glorious coastline of Sihanouk Ville.

Phnom-enal Crisis

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

We showed up in Phnom Penh with little idea of what we were going to do in town. After doing all of the temple touring in Siem Reap, we were all toured out. We would have probably spent a lot of time lazing about in our room at the Grandview Guesthouse if it weren’t for the fact that it was more like a closet than a room. The place had only room for one big bed and a 3’x6′ walking space, so it induced more feelings of claustrophobia than comfort. I couldn’t even get a picture to capture the size of the place. Of course at $4 a night we hardly had room to complain (or move).

Ancient Angkor: Part 2

Siem Reap, Cambodia

First thing in the morning (aka 8am) we drove out to Banteay Kdei, a short, cleaned temple with a few different sections to wander through. Gage chafed at the various fallen stones that had been stacked back up and placed in the middle of a courtyard, making the ruins look more like a colorblind kid had attempted to stack some Legos. There was an awesomely gigantic tree in one courtyard that consumed one temple wall and dwarfed everything around it. The only other noticeable feature of Banteay Kdei were the various kids wandering about trying to sell postcards, scarves, table clothes, and drinks. Although we would soon find that that was at every temple.