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Island Getaways and Laoward Bound

Friday, January 18th, 2008

I caught a morning bus to Kep and got dropped off at the boat docks for the trip to Koh Tonsay. I found a man selling boat tickets for $15 roundtrip to the island. As this was for the whole boat, I decided to wait around and see if anyone else would show up to go. About 40 minutes later a group of four foreigners showed up. I walked over to them as they were speaking to another man about a boat. He was going to charge everyone five dollars a person for the roundtrip. Despite this being a slightly higher price, I decided to go with them as I was tired of waiting. When I said that I was going to stay overnight, the man tried to charge me $10 saying that it cost more for me to stay overnight. Despite explaining why this made no sense (I was just going to share a boat coming back, I didn’t need a special boat just for me), he wouldn’t take five. In the end I told him that I wasn’t going to spend the night and paid my five dollars. It technically wasn’t a lie because I still had plans to look around the island before ultimately making up my mind about how long I wanted to stay there. The trip out to the island in the wooden skiff took about 25 minutes. [read on]

Uniquely Cambodian

Saturday, January 12th, 2008

I walked outside at the appointed time to catch my ride to the boat dock for the trip to Battambang. My ride wasn’t quite what I expected as a motorcycle pulling a hay trailer pulled up. I piled into the trailer already holding a hoard of other foreigners. We drove to the boat dock passing through a village of wooden and thatch houses up on stilts. At the boat dock I saw that two boats would be making the trip. As the boats were already full (we were late), I had to get a seat on a hard wooden bench in the back. We set off down a narrow water passage that led us to Tonle Sap which is a big inland lake. We skirted along the edge of the lake and into another small channel. We spent the next seven hours going through small waterways. The trip is normally about four hours, but this late in the dry season, the water level is low. We also had to keep stopping to get the water lilies (also a bane to boaters in Louisiana) out of the propeller. The landscape was flat and dotted with small shrubs and elephant ears, like one would see traveling in coastal Louisiana. We passed through several floating villages. The houses, stores, schools, etc. are all built on rafts and rise and fall with the rain seasons. [read on]

Angkor part deux

Friday, January 4th, 2008
After my first day of temple exploring, I was hungry and decided to try some of the food stalls around the market. They run about $0.75-$1 for a meal instead of paying $3 for the same meal in the restaurant. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Siem Reap and the Temples of Angkor

Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
I woke at 4:15 am on New Year's Eve so that I could catch my train to Cambodia and finally got to bed 24 hours later....... Leaving Robert's apartment at 4:45 am, I took a prearranged taxi to the the Hualamphong ... [Continue reading this entry]

More Bangkok

Sunday, December 30th, 2007
My last three days in Bangkok have been an interesting mix of close animal encounters and high fashion. I found a tailor on the street near the apartment where I am staying. It is run (or staffed anyway) by a ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bipolar India and Impressed in Thailand

Thursday, December 27th, 2007
Well, I am sitting safely in Bangkok as I type this in the apartment of a friend of my father's. I spent my final few days in India in Mumbai and what a finish it was. My train for Mumbai ... [Continue reading this entry]

Off the Beaten Path

Friday, December 21st, 2007
My second day in Pushkar was also my first true sightseeing day. My goal was to walk around the man-made lake and see the Brahma temple. Most Hindu worship focuses on Shiva and Vishnu as Brahma basically created the universe ... [Continue reading this entry]

Far West India

Thursday, December 13th, 2007
After typing the blog and wandering in circles around the lawn at my hotel for a few hours, I headed to the train station at around 22:00 to catch my supposed 00:15 train. I normally don't come this early, but ... [Continue reading this entry]

Agra and Jaipur

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
I arrived at the Varanasi train station about an hour early and found my train already at the station. This was not so surprising as the train orginated in Varanasi. I boarded the train and got my first view of ... [Continue reading this entry]

Maoist Rising and Overwhelming India (Varanasi)

Thursday, November 29th, 2007
I spent my last evening in Kathmandu eating dinner at the house of Steve's host family. They were an extended family, as is usual in Asia, with the grandparents also living there. The house was typical Nepali architecture and consisted ... [Continue reading this entry]