Siem Reap at Night

Other than the new safety precautions, the temples seem to have stayed pretty much the same over the last decade. Siem Reap, however, is completely new. And it's great.

Eleven years ago, Siem Reap had one major hotel, the Intercontinental, and a lot of guest houses. Now there are literally hundreds of really nice hotels, with beautiful landscaped grounds, pools, and luxurious rooms for relatively cheap.

There was also no nightlife to speak of then. Now, Siem Reap has Pub Street and several night markets. Tonight, we went out for a fun date night. We rode our bikes down and meandered through Pub Street first. We decided to eat at Temple, since they have a traditional Khmer dance show every night.

They did four or five different routines, including the coconut dance which is one of my favorites.

Temple also has some of the best deep fried chicken spring rolls we have ever eaten. Ever.

Isa got the Khmer curry, which tasted perfect. It brought back a lot of memories with just one taste. I got the chicken ginger, which was a little spicier than I would have liked, but it was still delicious.

After a long day of wandering the temples, Isa convinced me to get a foot massage with her at one of the night markets. It was $2 for half an hour, and it came with a lady boy show. It was probably the most fun we've had since coming to Asia. 

We laughed so hard throughout the show (whether it was supposed to be funny or not, I don't know, but seeing those guys dressed up like Beyonce and Shakira and shaking their booties and lip synching their hearts out so passionately and enthusiastically, we loved every second of it), and the foot massage was wonderful. Yes, even I enjoyed it (and we know how much I hate massages). The whole night made us really love Siem Reap.

Travel Day: Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai Green Bus

We slept in to make up some sleep since we got to bed so late on Saturday and Sunday night (if you haven't read about Yi Peng yet, seriously it was such a magical unbelievable amazing experience) and then checked out and grabbed a songthaew over to the bus station on the edge of town. It was comfy.

We got to the bus station and figured out the queue system Green Bus has going on (there's a ticket machine off to the right of the windows that gives you a number when you push the button, then you wait for your number to be called like you're at the DMV or something). The next available bus to Chiang Rai wasn't for a few hours, so we went upstairs to hang out. There happens to be a massage parlor, which was perfect for Isa. And they had internet, which was perfect for me. So I wrote all the blog posts from this weekend.

The bus was fine. Nothing fancy like the VIP bus we took to come up here. This bus was an X-class. Four seats across, two on either side of the aisle, with a little shelf space above your head for smaller bags. They gave us snacks - a bottle of water and some weird chips that weren't good. It's a fairly quick trip of about 3 hours through the mountains of northern Thailand (although I think our bus driver had a hot date because he was driving like a maniac passing other buses and cruising up the shoulder). It's pretty, but it was getting dark, cloudy, and a little rainy so our pictures aren't that spectacular.

I took mostly video of this trip, so I'll post that when I get around to editing it. Then you'll be able to see the bus, seats, and get a better idea of the trip. When we arrived in Chiang Rai, our hotel was just a few blocks from the bus station, so we opted to walk instead of taking a songthaew. We passed this cool clock tower on the way. Yay! Chiang Rai!

Wat Pho and Massages

Wat Pho is a giant complex full of halls, temples, thousands of Buddhas, and the original Thai massage school. This is the last of many temples we visited today, but by far the biggest. So here we go.

The most famous Buddha in the Wat Pho complex is the Reclining Buddha. It's huge.

And it has cool feet.

Each courtyard is surrounded by Buddhas as well.

Watch out for the eaves around the courtyards. Low clearance.

There are plenty of chedis and ornate roofs and decorations...

And as with all the other temples we visited today, it's still an active place of worship.

After wandering around for a while, we went in to get massages. Now here's a little back story: I don't get massages. The last time I got a massage was 11 years ago in this very same place. I understand the point of them, but they honestly don't do anything for me. I know they're supposed to loosen tight muscles and release stress, but it's all just lost on me. But I was willing to give it another shot, since Isa loves them and I'll do anything with her.

It wasn't pleasant.

I'm pretty flexible, so this didn't hurt, but whatever she did to my neck and shoulders was almost unbearable. And she cracked my knuckles and snapped my hands, which was just unnecessary and unwelcome. Out of the half an hour, I probably only enjoyed (like actual, oh, that feels good!) 2 or 3 minutes. About 20 minutes felt like it was just moving skin and muscle around, kinda whatever, and 7 or 8 minutes was just downright painful.

But Isa loved hers.

When we came out, the place was almost empty, which made for some good nighttime shots.

We walked for a little bit down to the river...

...and then over past the palace...

...toward Kao San Road, backpackers central.

We ate dinner here, sought shelter in some shops when it started to pour, and then started to walk in the general direction of the metro. We unfortunately wandered into a political rally. The people were getting really riled up and it was loud and got a little scary, so we turned around and walked a different direction. I found this picture of what we tried to walk through. Scary, huh?

Finally, we found a tuk tuk willing to take us back to the metro so we could go home (100 Baht ~ $3).