Vang Vieng

So we are today recovering from our new years celebrations. The most I think that we are going to do today is to catch sunset on the Mekong River.
The last week and some have been a blur. Laos has been relaxing and beautiful. We meet up with a couple of friends from earlier in the trip and they convinced us to skip Vientiane (which we are going back to tomorrow) and head straight to Vang Vieng. Such a good choice. Their isn't much to do in Vang Vieng except relax. We tubed down a lazy river next to the town. You have a tuk tuk drop you off a few miles from town and just float. The river is littered with bars on the banks that have big swings and zip cords over the water. Float 10 minute, stop at a bar, float another 10 minute...bar...float...bar...truly enjoyable... can't get any better.
I wish we had more time in Laos, but alas, we have to head to India so we are on our way out of here and back to Bangkok.

Bangkok, Thailand

Back in Thailand. We are stuck in Bangkok waiting for our India visa...it takes 5 days at the embassy. We got a flight to Kolkuta on the 6th of January...a bit later than we wanted, but it saved us a bunch of money to wait. We haven't yet decided what we are going to do until then, but I'm not to worried about it. The picture is of Regina and Aynur a couple of travelers that we met hung and out with in Bangkok.

Phnom Phen to Sihanokville, Cambodia

After leaving Siem Reap, we spent about 5 days in Phnom Phen (the capital). We visited the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. But the Royal Palace is never open for tours, so we were stuck wandering around it and the Silver Pagoda was a bit of a let down. It has a sliver tiled floor of which each tile supposedly weighed 1 Kg. The tiles, except for a 20ft x 20ft patch, was covered with carpet. The area that was exposed was very tarnished and the tiles were lifting up around the edges so bad that they duct taped them together. The one place in Phnom Phen that was very interesting, although extremely sad, was S-21. That was a detention center use for torture and interrogation by the Khmer Rouge. The building was an old high school that they turned into a prison, so on the outside it looked eerily normal.
We are back at the beach. The sand here squeaks! We arrived on Saturday and it was busy. Many Cambodian that live in Phnom Phen come down for the weekends because it is only about a 3-4 hour drive. It has chilled out considerably since the weekend finished. So we have been 'busying' ourselves with relaxing on the sand and, at least for me, eating tons of seafood. There are women that roam the beach selling lobster and BBQ squid (which they actually cook in front of you) (picture to come). We got massages the other day done by blind Cambodians (they say the blind give the best massages) at a place called Seeing Hands which is actually an NGO that helps train people and get them started in the trade.
From here we are off to Bangkok!

Siem Reap, Cambodia

So our 3 day pass for Angkor finished yesterday. This morning we tearfully dropped Lily off at the airport in Siem Reap. What to do with our time now?
As for Angkor, again the temples were amazing. Definitely something that We're glad we got to experience. We saw this small temple named Banteay Srei which was about 30 minutes outside of the rest. The drive itself was worth the trip. The road we drove down was lined with houses and rice paddies. Very picturesque. The temple itself was tiny in comparison to most, but the bas reliefs were some of the best. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see half of them. This small, out of the way, temple was the only one in Angkor that had portions of it roped off for preservation (kind of like we do everywhere in the States). Even at Angkor Wat we could climb anywhere we wanted.
We learned bunches about Hinduism. The temple guidebook that we bought helped us decipher the carvings that were everywhere about the temples.
Did you know: that apsaras (celestial beings that were sensual rewards for gods and heroes) were created as a byproduct of the 'churning of the sea of milk.' The 'churning of the sea of milk' is from the Mahabharata. The devas (gods) and asuras (demons) tug on Vasuki, a naga (5 or 7 headed snake), who is rapped around Mt. Mandara, supported on the back of Kurma (the turtle or 2nd avatar or incarnate of Visnu) in order to create amrita or elixir of immortality.
By the end of our 3 day temple tour, we finally had a bit of a grasp on the most famous of the Hindu stories.