Our hotel - very nice aside from the early morning construction and bugs! 
Our treat upon arrival....some sort of ice tea (tasted like sugar water), banana leafs with yummy sweat sticky rice and salted peanuts (guess who liked those?!) 
(Pic of a typical stand on side of road)There we hired a guide for the day to show us Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, an unidentified small temple and "the temple where Angelina Jolie go in Tomb Raider." Money was well spent for a dedicated photographer and direction giver, not so much for the info provided.
We gave the temples a C. Yes they are impressive dwellings from a long time ago, but having heard so much about them, we expected something mystical. It didn't help that there was an unnounced Bhuddist holiday according to the guide (or refurbishment of the staircase if you were to believe the sign) that prevented us from going up in the towers of Angkor Wat. We were able to climb some steep steps for the other temples to get a view of the surrounding forest.
[ Please note - I was told I had to wear pants to go to the temples and had 30 seconds to change, I know my outfit is HEINOUS! please don't judge]
[Nose to nose!]
[Picture of how sweatty Burr was....I was terrible too...but I'm the one uploading pics...so Burr gets it!]We returned home early and went to bed in advance fo our early morning trip.
[Our tour guide - Nei, we decided he was much more a professional photographer than tour guide, but still fine] 
monkey!!! Burr and I had the best day!!! I never want to leave because you get served so easily and cheaply. Its amazing.
For example....Burr wanted to see the temples at sunrise (note 5am departure). It was pouring but our tuk tuk driver still showed up and drove us there and back for a total of $3. After I had a pedi/mani for $20 (there were cheaper, but I was scared). Then we each took a 2 hour long cooking class and made 2 apps, 2 mains, and 2 desserts for $10. After this we had our complimentary hotel massages (1 hour each). Then I did a bit of shopping in the market, we got some beers ($3 total) and dinner ($12). So all in all we spent the equivalent of a taxi ride home from work in London! Everyone here is very nice, but unfortunately very poor,. There are lots of beggers, LOTS! Burr is always nice at first – then an hour later is giving them his mean face – haha.
So our cooking class was spectacular. I learned to make friend spring rolls (Note – never eat these, they are literally oil, oil, and some butter – ick!) . Burr learned to make fresh spring rolls with pork and shrimp and these were awesome! I am totally taking this recipe back to CLT. Next main courses, mine was Cambodia Soup and his was chicken amok (sans peanuts). The amok was spicy but very good – like a curry. And the soup was amazing.....full of flavor like lemongrass and pineapple. For dessert we had pumpkin and banana desserts which were pretty much tapioca, coconut milk, and sugar – who wouldn’t like it?! So watch out friends, fresh spring rolls and soup are in the cards for our first dinner guests!
A couple funny signs we saw today
“HEIGHT SPEED INTERNET” – this was listed underneath and avert for a hotel, obviously they meant HIGH SPEED...hahah
“DEEPING SAUCES” is what was written on our cooking instructions instead of DIPPING sauces...made me laugh.
Tomorrow its up early again, 7am and headed to the airport. We are going to spend 1 night in Bangkok – planning on going to a yoga class and grabbing drinks at some tall building :-) After that its on to Chiang Mai.
If you cannot tell, we are having an amazing time!!!
love you
A and B
PS – gotta give credit, Burr wrote half this blog!
Cooking class
cute banana leaf bowl...gotta learn where to buy banana leafs back home
yummy coconut water!
Love it!! Looks like ya'll are having so much fun!!
ReplyDeleteI just got caught up on your last two posts, sounds like you are having an excellent time. I love seeing all the pictures - keep blogging and taking pictures.
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