It’s difficult to grock that “this morning” (well, 41 hours ago — that international date line can really mess with you) I was in Bangkok.
Tomorrow, I’m back at work. Vacation is over. 
Thailand and Cambodia are beautiful countries. I highly recommend.
p.s. I’ll be back posting more pictures & stories in the next week or two.
One of my favorite tidbits from the Lonely Planet:
Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit
That’s Bangkok’s official name. The rough translation is:
The city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn
In Thai, it’s truncated to Krung Thep (City of Angels). So, how the *(#$@ did the western world get “Bangkok”?
Turns out the royal capital was originally founded on a little village (that still exists) named Bang Makok. After the capital moved to the town across the river in 1782, foreign traders couldn’t be bothered with a name change.
A couple highlights:
Tomorrow we leave for Bangkok. We spend the full day on Sunday there, and then we’re off early Monday morning. We land in Seattle around 5pm on Monday (with a plane change in Osaka & lunch at LAX with my parents).
We decided to upgrade our bungalow to an uber deluxe beachfront hut. There’s a patio, air conditioning, and hot water. It costs a whopping 1600 Baht (40 USD). For another 2 bucks, we bought a hammock to hang on the patio.
The view at sunrise was beautiful.
Arrived in Ko Samui two days ago and stayed one night in Chaweng. It was awful. I’ve never been to Cancun… but it looked like they could have filmed MTV Spring Break there.
Yesterday, we caught a ferry to Ko Phan Ngan and are now on a small beach called Thong Nai Pan Noi. We’re staying in a small bungalow in a place called Baan Panburi. Our hut costs 650 baht a night (about 12 bucks), and comes fully equiped with fan, mosquito netting, and cold water. It’s beautiful.
The beach is quiet, there’s lots of sun, and the restaurant is great.
The Baan Panburi restaurant:
It’s right on the beach.
In Bangkok airport again, on our way to Ko Samui and some quality beach time.
The Angkor ruins were magnificient — truly amazing. I took something like 6 rolls of film.
The low-light of Angkor Wat? A flat bike tire about 2 miles away from help.
Just got my black and white film developed….
The children running through wasn’t intentional… but ended up really liking the symmetry of these two shots
The above door is a close up of the following entrance.
My favorite temple was Ta Phrom.
We got there at about 7:15am (by bike!). The place was entirely ours: there were (maybe) 6 other people there and it was cool (in contrast to the afternoon’s humid/sticky/unbearable afternoon heat).
Unlike the other temples, restoration efforts did not remove the trees that had grown in and around the ruins. The result was a sensation of stumbling upon an ancient temple in desolation while walking through the jungle.
The “Tomb Raider” tree.
Phnom Bakheng is one of the recommended sunset sites. As such, we were definitely not alone:
You could see Angkor Wat in the distance.
