For the holidays, we were gifted an amazing break from work. For our ten days off, we headed to Cambodia and Thailand to finish off 2011 and usher in 2012. Our first stop was Siem Reap, Cambodia to tour the many temples of Angkor Wat. Upon arrival we wasted no time jumping into seeing the iconic temples. We also wasted no time realizing why Angkor Wat is one of the most spectacular sights in the whole world. It is massive and stunning. We spent a few days wandering temples by day being awed by their beauty. We also spent as much time being awed by the horrendous outfits that most tourists deem appropriate travel attire -- that might be a blog post of its own!! We also really enjoyed the city of Siem Reap and its abundance of cheap Khmer street food, national draft beer, and banana pancakes. We blame the banana pancakes for our holiday weight gain this year. Those darn things were cheap and delicious and not a night went by where 4 or 5 were not purchased. Who needs self control!?!?
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| Part of Angkor Wat on Christmas Eve. |
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| Angkor Wat was under construction, er, make that restoration. |
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| Another smaller temple about 15 minutes outside Angkor Wat. |
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| Adam had to do his part to hold this part of the temple up. The tree was trying to bring it down. Thank goodness for his copious amounts of muscles. |
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| Heidi enjoying "lunch" in her chariot. Cashews and canned coffee. Delicious! |
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| Adam being Angkor Wat's Top Model. NBD! |
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| How you get around Siem Reap and the temples. Heidi is requesting her father builds her one so Adam can pull her around HCMC this way. |
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| Khmer street dinner + cold Anchor beer = $3 USD |
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| Crepe with butter, bananas, chocolate powder, chocolate syrup, and sweetened condensed milk. Who knew heaven could be bought for a mere 75 cents. |
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| Ada, with Banana Pancake number 3 of the night. Why not!? |
After Cambodia we bussed to Thailand to spend some time on a beach. The time on the beach was cut short due to shoddy (yet high priced) lodging which included barred windows, holes where mosquitoes readily came in, a shower that turned the bathroom into a kiddy-pool, and a lock on the OUTSIDE of our door which any passer by could have flipped and locked us in our room indefinitely (see earlier note about bars on windows). So, Heidi became vocal (she claims assertive, Adam claims aggressive) and we left for the city of Bangkok with a refund in hand.
We arrived in Bangkok to our hotel that we picked on the fly. It ended up being an amazing, 5-star hotel in the downtown shopping and commercial hub for less than what we would have paid at the beach resort. We spent the next few days enjoying the order and cleanliness of the city. We shopped, ate delicious street food, drank lattes, walked in parks, shopped at night markets, shopped some more, laid by the pool, and even snuck in a movie!! We also happened to book a hotel that, unbeknownst to us, was about a 5 minute walk from the Bangkok New Year's Celebration (think Time's Square in New York but make everyone shorter, slimmer, have darker hair, and actually smiling at you). Since our hotel room was on the 22nd floor, all we had to do was open our blinds and watch the fireworks and craziness without the crowds or chaos. And so that we did, with a cold Chang beer and a bag of potato chips in hand. Welcome 2012, we are excited to meet you!
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| The view of Bangkok from our hotel room. |
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| Adam on a bumming around day. Wait ... they were all bumming around days in Bkk. |
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| Heading out on New Year's Eve with plenty of Bhat in hand. Who would have predicted that the place we chose for dinner had a FREE NYE buffet dinner. That's right ... totally FREE! |
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| Thai street food and iced tea. So good. |
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| Maybe we ate about 4 papaya salads a day -- big woop! |
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