If you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain.

Howdy,

It has been a very long time since we blogged and so much has happened.  We ended our last blog with the last weekend we spent in Phnom Penh.  We finished up our volunteering on June 17th but not without a ton of extra help at the orphanage.  The orphanage accepted 17 more high school student volunteers so we were really out of work!  It was ok though, as it was nice to interact with other people.  The students came from an international school in Japan.

Sat June 18th we boarded the bus to Siem Reap.  The bus ride was scheduled to be 5 hours but ended up being 7, regardless though it gave us a great chance to see the beautiful countryside of Cambodia. We stayed at the most "fabulous" resort in Siem Reap called the Golden Banana.  It is a gay friendly establishment so the staff and other guests were wonderful!!!!  Everyone was looking at us like we were a couple...we let it slide.  We had a villa instead of a room complete with our own balcony overlooking the waterfall pool.  We were so sad to leave but we took a momento back - Golden Banana pants just like the staff wore.  While in Siem Reap we ventured to the obvious location - Angkor Wat and surrounding temples.  We decided to go on the big tour as that was the reason we were there.  We hired a tour guide named Lucky and a tuk-tuk driver named Naga for the 3 days of touring.  They were both fantastic as well! 

The temples were breathtaking to say the least.  There is way too much information to share on this blog about each one but the gist is that all - pretty much - started out as Hindu temples, then Buddhist, then Hindu and now a mix of both.  Something interesting yet horrible to find out was that the Khmer Rouge inhabited Angkor Wat during the civil war in the 70s and there are several bullet holes in the temples due to target practice.  Our favourite temple was Pre Rup.  Pre Rup is by far in the worst shape of them all but is in the jungle so the scenary around it is stunning. We also visited the "Tomb Raider" temple where Laura Croft Tomb Raider was filmed.  The trees/roots that surround and engulf the temples make it a beautiful sight.

Our last day at Siem Reap was started by going to Angkor Wat to see the sun rise.  We left the hotel at 5am and arrived at the temples around 530am. It was cloudy so we didn't see much but it was super cool to be able to at the temples that early.  It gave them a sort of mystical feel as opposed to a tourist attraction alone.

The rest of the time in Siem Reap was spent visiting a floating village and floating market.  We took a tuk-tuk about 30 mins out of the city to the river, rented a boat and went to the floating market.  The second we stepped off of the boat to enter the market we were greeted by a huge pit of CROCODILES! It was a crocodile farm and something that we have noticed is that crocodile leather is huge her, however illegal to bring back to Canada.  This means, unfortunatley, Kelly cannot acquire a "croc paw" keychain (she of course cleverly coined this term).  We also visited the night market, which is WAY better in Siem Reap than Phnom Penh.  At the night market we got a pedicure, manicure and massages for a whopping $8.  To finish off our last night in Siem Reap we decided to do a fish massage.  A fish massage is where you put your feet into a big pool filled with fish and they eat your dead skin.  It was not relaxing what-so-ever.  Fortunately for the $2 charge we also got a free beverage (beer).

We boarded the plane on June 22nd to come to Chiang Mai, Thailand.  We had a stop over in Bangkok and then headed on our way to Chiang Mai.  If you ever travel to southeast Asia take Bangkok Airways any where you can.  They are fantastic!  We had two 1 hour flights and on each we got a full meal - delicious meal I might add and countless amounts of drink offered.  Also, we had four people solving our luggage mystery as only 1 of our 3 bags showed up at first.  They all stood around with walkie talkies and sorted it out greatly.  We headed to our hotel, the Royal Princess and were luckily upgraded to a better hotel room.  The Royal Princess is located in the heart of the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar - a huge night market (one of the biggest tourist attractions in Chiang Mai) which allows for convient access to many items however this has been quite hard on the wallet! 

Today, June 23, we went on an all day trekking excursion.  We started out with visiting a butterfly and orchid farm.  Next we took a drive to the Maesa Elephant Camp. Here we got to ride elephants for about 30 minutes and hug and kiss them.  It was so sweet!  After that, we walked a short distance to a zipline with a cage.  Only 2 people at a time could fit in the cage and that is how we crossed the river.  We then had lunch, Pad Thai cooked in banana leaves which was great.  After lunch we trekked for an hour in the jungle to reach a waterfall.  We spent about 20 mins at the waterfall swimming around and getting stared at as we were the only brave ones to take on the water falling.  It has quite a bit of pressure under it, you have to hold onto your bathing suit as it would rip it off you, close call for Maria.......  It was beautiful, definitly the highlight of the day.  We then trekked back about an hour and this took us to our next destination which was white water rafting.  Maria had the smellest life jacket in existance and Kelly's helmet was a big snug/didn't fit her at all.  We definitly will white water raft again, it was awesome, and hopefully look for some more exciting rafting.  We had a short ride on a traditional bamboo raft...probably not going to be doing that again.  We had ice cream and then headed to the Hill Tribe Village.  Here we met some locals and had a short tour.  We also learned a bit about the religion and Susan you will be pleased to learn that they still have animism.  It was the end of our day so we headed back to the city and had a gourmet supper of Subway.  It was delicious and very much needed.  There are several chain restaruants around our hotel including McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway and Starbucks.

Our day ended with making a quick trip to the hospital.  No worries anyone, and no it wasn't Kelly!  Maria has acquired a wonderful face rash so we thought it was a good idea to check it out.  We went to the hospital and had a doctor that we are sure was about 20 years old and the asian version of Graham Trott.  The diagnosis given was that it is an allergic reaction to a bug that I squished and secreted acid that caused a rash like look.  All is well though, I have a topical medication to put on for a week and should be good to go!

That is all for now, tomorrow we are heading out on the Flight of the Gibbon which includes ziplining through the jungle.  Stay tuned for more details,

Kally and Maury - thats how Lucky said our names! Maury, Maury, Maury!
Travelers abroad.