"It's a holiday in Cambodia, don't forget to pack a wife!" -Dead Kennedys

elephants getting a break from taking tourists up hills...

we heard Indiana Jones was here yesterday.

when it's quiet, you try to imagine the jungle enveloping these temples all around you...the sounds are almost as entertaining as the sights....almost.

one head, two head, three head, four.

now that's a hallway.

So after a day in Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, which is what the Gov wants you to call it, we realized we should have stayed longer. From what we saw, it looks like a booming city and it's the economic center of Vietnam with most of the manufacturing centers here. Briana quickly took advantage of the locally manufactured products that happened to fall off the line and snatched up a few purses for pennies on the dollar. I play the bad guy role in our bargaining duo ($10!!?!? no no no, we can only pay $2, etc), so we worked our scheme down to a few bucks per Vuitton item, nice one. Watch out fashionistas of Sydney, Briana's comin' fully loaded! After shopping a bit, we headed over to a massage spot and happily paid $8 for an hour. At this point in the trip, it's becoming a bit of a joke for the 100lb SE Asian ladies to try to lift and stretch a 200lbs American beast. However, it does feel great when they stand on your back and pop each vertebrae with their toes! This place in Saigon was great, and filled with a bunch of local business men who looked like they pop in every day or so...must be nice as massages where we're from go for $80/hr.

Video below is off the two of us crossing the street in Saigon, Hanoi was nothing, it seems like there's 10x as many motos...

After a debacle at the Saigon airport, we got to Siem Reap, the town just outside of Angkor Wat, Thursday night, Jan. 15th, 2009. Talk about booming, we hired a couple of moto taxis and on the way into town, there was 4 star after 4 star hotel lining the road! Crazy, but good knowledge for those of our older listeners who may not exactly be backpacking;). After a few stops at guesthouses we knew about which were full, our guys took us to a brand new one that just opened up, $9/night got us a nice A/C room with friendly staff (which is something you always have to find out about when first checking in b/c they can help you book things and give you local knowledge)...sweet! The next day we headed out to see the Wats in all their glory...really impressive. Looking at the pictures at dinner, we realized that the immenseness and beauty of these temples really have to be seen firsthand. One of the first westerners who visited in 1586 and said that it "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world." I think it's what Rome or Greece would look like, if all of their monuments weren't actually ruins...hopefully that helps...but I guess it only does if you have been to either of those countries eh? Another little fact, a team of researchers recently figured out that Angkor had been the largest preindustrial city in the world potentially supporting 1M people. The closest rival Tikal, the largest Mayan city in their hayday, was only 150 sq km...wow.

The second day in our efforts to try to get a taste for this 3000 square kilometer site (with over 1000 temples some dating back to 800AD) started out at a hike to a waterfall out in the jungle. Then we sped off (literally sped, check the video below) back to some of the outer temples. Quite a bit quieter, some even serene without the rest of the tourists, it was a good day. Sunny and hot as usual, but we found some respite in the shade of the temples. We walked back through a section that was being repaired, but not at the time, to sit for awhile and enjoy the sounds of the jungle which comes up to the very edge of most all sites. No monkeys nor tigers nor snakes appeared for us, but you could try to imagine yourself back 1200 years both fearing and adoring the jungle. One thing I still don't understand is how they let you walk all over the temples. This no doubt arises from growing up in America where everything is roped off and kept as look-but-don't-touch. On the one hand, it's great to be able to explore the temples, but on the other, you feel like you're reaching across and touching the Mona Lisa through the plate glass. This city has been around for over a thousand years, but with the hundreds of thousands of visitors it gets per year, one wonders how much longer it can keep up. There is one change, you can no longer climb to the top of one of the main temples, Angkor Wat. This is kind of a bummer b/c watching the sun rise or set over the temples and jungle is breathtaking...but I understand why they no longer allow it. I mean, someone could fall down those very steep stairs, break a leg and sue someone...which reminds me of somewhere...

shakeNbake

PS-some guy's cell just rang next to me and it's ring goes, "(siren sound) warning.....warning.....it's the wife!" classic.