Business Trip to the South

I've never been to the South before (not including Florida), so I was excited. The trip spanned 5 days and covered 4 cities: Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Hilton Head, and Savannah. Here's a recap of my trip in pictures, with a few sentences to string the story together.

Day 1 and 2: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

I arrived in Myrtle Beach and went straight to the store. Day 1 was rainy and cold, so all I did was work and eat. Here's day 2:

The store is in a complex called Broadway at the Beach. It's not quite on the beach, but there is water there. And sea gulls.

Most of my time on these trips is spent in the stores. The second store I visited in Myrtle Beach is in Barefoot Landing. It has a lot of mosquitoes.

All those specks in the sky are mosquitoes.

I don't leave the store until it closes, so it's almost always dark.

Day 3: Still Myrtle Beach

I woke up early (a la 5:30am) to catch the sunrise on the beach.

The moon was still up, but the sun wasn't yet.

Not bad for a point and shoot, huh? (Using the Canon G7X):

I ran through the pier over to hang out with some sea gulls.

The sun peeked out from behind the horizon and rose much faster than I had anticipated.

I ran over to the pier to try to get an artsy shot between the pillars.

I ran back along the beach.

Hey look! My footprints!

I went back to the hotel and slept for a few hours, then spent the entire day in the stores. At night, I drove down to Charleston. Before entering the city, you cross this bridge.

That's all I saw of Charleston because the next morning, I woke up early to drive down to Hilton Head.

Day 4: Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

Most of the drive was pretty uneventful. Pretty. And uneventful.

The store is old but the manager and staff are fantastic! They suggested we grab lunch at Chow Daddy's - and now I recommend it too. It was so good!

I had the pulled chicken over mashed potatoes and it was ridiculously good.

Unlike Myrtle Beach, this store closed at 6, just before sunset. So we headed to the beach.

After dinner, I worked from the hotel for a little bit and then headed back out to the beach at midnight. I've never taken pictures of stars before. Here's my first attempt:

Pretty cool, huh?

Can you see the big dipper in this one?

Day 5: Savannah, Georgia

Morning came way too fast, but I got up and drove to Savannah. On the way, we (I was traveling with Janelle at this point, the Regional Sales Director for the area) stopped at a French bakery owned by the Hilton Head manager's father. It was a treat! 

We got a warm welcome at the Savannah store too.

Did you know that Savannah has one of the largest St. Patrick's Day celebrations in the world? Right? Well Del Sol has a pirate cut out that they repurpose as a leprechaun for the celebration. Needless to say, it attracts a lot of photos.

I spent the whole day in the store, with the exception of eating shrimp and grits (yum!) for lunch. We shut down around 7pm and passed through this square on the way back to the car.

From here I drove halfway back to Myrtle Beach and then the other half the next morning to catch an early afternoon flight back home to New York.

Here's the video of the whole trip:

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

Today was our last day in the park, so we wanted to do all the things that we haven't had a chance to do yet. First things first, sunrise.

Sunrise is early. Like, crazy early. Even earlier considering we rode our bikes up there. Sunrise was at 6:15am, so we left our hotel room at 5:30. We knew it only takes 20 minutes to get to Angkor Wat, so that would give us plenty of time to get there.

Unfortunately, we didn't know that the coolest part of sunrise happens 20 minutes before the actual sunrise. So we were just getting to the entryway across the moat when we saw this:

By the time we got inside a few minutes later, the sky was a little tamer but still pretty.

It's funny, because you see pictures like that and it seems so serene and calm and almost spiritual. But if you back up a few steps and take the same picture (or if you're short), it's a much different scene.

The best pictures are from the near side of the pond on the north side, so you can see the reflection of the temple and capture the sunrise directly behind it. But as you can see, it's no secret. There are hundreds of other tourists doing the exact same thing.

The sun rose above the horizon, but it still wasn't visible above the temple for another 10 or 15 minutes. Here's a picture of its first appearance:

As you move around the pond, you can put the sun in different positions relative to the temple.

The sun continued to rise, as it does, and the amount of tourists around the pond dwindled as they went in to explore Angkor Wat and the other temples in the area. Isa and I stayed around for a while, partly because we didn't want to get back on our bikes (we were tired!), and partly because as tourists left, it was quieter and more relaxing. Except when you get near the people trying to woo you to their stalls for breakfast or coffee.

Right now, in December, the lily pond is actually really pretty. You can't really see it when looking straight at the sun, but looking back from the temple, you can see all the colors.

So at about 7am, we headed in to Angkor Wat for the third time on this trip, still in search of the smiling Apsara.

We had read about her in one of our apps, it's the only Apsara (or devata, basically a royal dancer) of almost 2000 carved throughout Angkor to be showing her teeth. Traditionally, that's naughty, although nowadays it has lost its negative connotation.

We finally found her, behind and to the right of the multi-armed statue of Vishnu.

That was the last part of Angkor Wat that we wanted to explore, so we walked back out to our bikes and headed back up to Angkor Thom to see a few things we didn't have time for yesterday. But that's for another post.

Hua Hin to Phuket

Travel day today. We started this morning in Hua Hin, at sunrise. We had heard sunrises are special in Hua Hin because the monks walk along the beach. Since this was our last day in Hua Hin (ever - we're definitely not coming back), we decided to wake up and run over to the beach. Except when the time came, Isa opted to stay in bed and just look at my pictures later.

Although I did see a monk, it didn't look like much of a tradition. It seemed more like a monk happened to be walking on the beach. Most of the beach was completely deserted.

After that, we ate breakfast, bought some snacks for our flight, packed our bags, and walked up the road to where we had seen a minibus stop yesterday. We booked a trip back to Bangkok for 180B each. That took us to Victory Monument.

Then we felt like locals at this point, since we're so familiar with this area. We took a local bus up to Mo Chit, ate some skewer meat from a street cart, and caught the A1 bus to Don Mueang Airport. It's the same bus we took when we first flew in from Xi'an, so we knew which one to catch without even looking it up.

Then we caught a 3:30 flight from DMK down to Phuket, just about 90 minutes. We were so excited to fly in and see a proper tropical island.

From the airport, we caught a shared minibus into Patong for 180B each - crazy that it cost the same to go 2.5 hours from Hua Hin to Bangkok as it did the 45 minutes from the airport to our hotel. We had heard that things are more expensive down here in the islands, and that appears to be true so far.

After dropping our stuff off at the hotel and resting for a bit, we ventured back out after dark and walked over to Bangla Road just to check it out. I forgot my camera back at the hotel, but we'll be back tomorrow night for sure. It's a crazy couple blocks of nightclubs and ladyboys.

Then we walked on the beach for a bit and found a nice restaurant with tables on the sand. I can't tell you how much we enjoy eating on the beach. Something about yummy food in your belly, sand in between your toes, the sounds and smell of the ocean, the feel of the light breeze. It's the best.

And the food was fantastic for 100B each.