We got home from Asia last Friday, and it's been a whirlwind week! I'm just now getting the chance to sit down and pen a quick update. Our trip was fantastic! It was really like 3 vacations in one. We saw the city sights of Hong Kong and Bangkok, hiked the temples of Cambodia, and then recouped on the beaches of Bali. It was perfect!
We left on Sunday night the 19th and arrived in Hong Kong early Tuesday morning the 21st. Blessedly, we slept 10 hours on the flight...which is an absolute miracle! I NEVER sleep on planes without a little medical assistance, which is unavailable due to the presence of Baby Clem. So, I was thrilled that I actually slept at all, much less 10 hours! (Of course, there was the requisite 6 trips to the bathroom -- another joy I can attribute to the presence of the Littlest.) We arrived in Hong Kong at 5:30 a.m., stored our luggage, and hopped the Airport Express into the city. We spent the entire hot, oppressively humid day seeing HK, as it was the only day we were going to get there. We took the tram to the top of Victoria Peak and drank iced coffee overlooking the very overcast city; we tried to visit a food market that was MIA; we took the Star Ferry across to Kowloon; we walked up Nathan Road and were hounded to buy tailored suits; we ate Cantonese food down a little street off of Nathan Road. Hong Kong is intersting, but is really just a very large city. Exhausted, we caught the Airport Express back, grabbed our bags, checked in, and mercifully had a shower at the airport before we caught our 10:30 p.m. flight to Bangkok, and slept the whole way!
As a city, we enjoyed Bangkok more. We were there a total of 5 days and visited amazing Buddhist temples in the city; we saw the extremely holy, 18-inch tall Emerald Buddha and the unbelievable 50-yard gold Reclining Buddha; we had traditional Thai massages; we rode boats up and down the Chao Praya River; we visited a food market and drank iced coffee out of a plastic bag; we went to half day of Thai cooking school; we spent one night at Lumpini Stadium watching Muay Thai boxing; we rode the Sky Train all over the city and ate lots of curry; we ate dinner one night at restaurant while reclining on a bed. It was fantastic!
Our 5 days in Bangkok were interrupted in the middle by 3 days in Cambodia, which was probably our favorite part of the trip. It was crazy hot and humid -- even worse then HK and Bangkok. We're talking nearly 100 degrees with humidity around 90%. Brutal. But the temples were amazing. We had a guide everyday named Madonna...no kidding (pronounced MA-doh-NA) and a driver named Key. They would pick us up in morning around 8:30 a.m. and we'd hike around the temples until we were ready to collapse, then they'd take us back to the hotel to recoup. They'd pick us up again around 3:00 p.m. and we'd go hit some more. We visited a land mine museum and tasted palm sugar from a woman on the side of the road; we rode an elephant to a temple on top of a hill to watch the sun set one night; we have the most amazing pictures of Angkor Wat, as well as plenty of other unbelievable temples you've never heard of; we had a Khmer massage one night in town, which was an experience to say the least; we rode around in a car and marveled at the mopeds driving everywhere that often carried entire families -- we're talking dad driving, carrying a baby, mom on the back with 2 toddles wedged between them; we saw people headed to market early in the morning on their bikes carrying bamboo cages off each side of the bike like saddlebags full of live chickens; we rode around town in the evenings in a Tuk Tuk -- a cart attached to the back of a motorcycle; and on and on and on. It was a truly remarkable 3 days.
Finally, we spent a week in Bali, where the weather was blissfully perfect, doing nothing but laying by the pool reading. After the 2 week boot camp vacation we'd had, the week in Bali was absolute perfection.
We took about 900 photos, which we haven't even downloaded yet...but I'll post a couple of memorable ones once we get them all sorted out. We certainly felt protected the whole time. We never had a delayed or missed flight. We went through immigration about 16 times, and never had a problem. We never got sick, despite a few suspect meals and sketchy water. I can count on one hand the number of mosquito bites I got in Cambodia, which is a miracle in itself. Baby Clem was a champ, too! We loved the trip, and are finally now, a week later, starting to get our sleep schedule sorted out. But it was definitely worth every sleepless night we've had.
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