Photos are here!

Back from Siem Reap. The weather killed me. So did a lot of other things. Like the weather, the weather, the dust and the fact that Coke (the beverage) was more expensive than beer. The trip was a much appreciated break, but at the risk of sounding like a spoilt and pampered tourist, I am sorry to say that I was a little underwhelmed. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for the place (you brat! Well, it was my holiday). And call me shallow, unappreciative, and/or unspiritual, but I was all temple-d out by my fifth one. Angkor Wat and the Bayon temples were amazing though. I was frankly quite floored when I saw Angkor Wat for the first time; its scale and majesty were/are quite unparalleled. Watching the sunset there was decent enough. The sunrise was uneventful. Sorry for not gushing. Perhaps I was just in a bad state. Somehow the architectural and historical significance of the place failed to register.

Good things that happened on the trip: I solved the math puzzle on the first night (then promptly reprimanded myself for not bringing the book along). I finished this book that I got at the airport. Ice cream and sorbet were/are godsends on a hot day. Our hotel had a 24-hr and reliable hot water supply. I walked around the city, got lost but eventually found my way without consulting a map. The Angkor National Museum was great and very informative, though a tad expensive at 12 USD per entry. We found a neat bubble tea cafe. The tea was great, and they played cool music and sold vintage dresses.

Not-that-great things on the trip: Getting unnecessarily spooked by young monks at the museum. Weather. Pushy driver who thinks that he was anything but. Personally, I think he was a little disgusted at the pace we ‘went through’ the temples. At Ta Phrom, he hinted that most tourists would take 2-3 hours there and that we should take our own time exploring the temple. Sorry mate, but a good part of the temple was undergoing restoration so it wasn’t accessible to tourists at all. In the end, we had a little picnic so we could clock enough minutes. Even then, we were in there for just over an hour. I was really looking forward to seeing Ta Phrom so I was rather surprised that I wasn’t as blown away as I thought I would be. Same for Srah Srang.

Swine flu. The last time I went on holiday, it was the Mumbai attacks and the Bangkok demonstration. Seems like every time I go on a trip, somewhere in the world takes a beating. And, I realise I watch the most tv when I am overseas, for some reason.

It rained for most of the fourth day of the trip so my friend and I basically nuah-ed. We had an overpriced and unsatisfying lunch at the FCC, then nearly bankrupted ourselves shopping for souvenirs at the Old Market. With less than 20 dollars to last for the rest of the day and the next, we parked ourselves at the bubble tea cafe. The ‘bubbles’ (pearls) were sold out – damn you two other tourists who got the last two servings – but the music made up for it. Friend read, while I scribbled in my notebook, half-heartedly trying to solve a puzzle in this month’s Wired (this issue is excellent) and the other-half-heartedly doodling. A fly drowned in a slow suicide in my drink, and we found enough in our impossible budget to get ourselves a second drink.

More pages from the notebook following the cut. » Continue reading “pages from siem reap”