Siem Reap and Angkor Wat

Cambodia has been the biggest surprise of the trip so far!  Siem Reap, which I had pretty low expectations for, is fantastic!  The city itself is  pretty modern, with lots of parks and open space, including nice greenway-style landscapes all along the rivers.  Prices are reasonable, US Dollars are the preferred currency, people are very friendly, and the pace of life is generally just slower than in Thailand.  What surprised me most, though, was the very large and vibrant tourist area of town.  

Pub Street:

Around the area called “Pub Street” it’s like a mashup of Bangkok, Cancun, and Paris, if that makes any sense.  It’s got tight, narrow streets and alleyways lined with great restaurants and bars  from around the world (local Khmer places, Irish pubs, Mexican restaurants, etc).   The area also a ton of massage places and cooking schools.   With every place having sidewalk and/or balcony seating, it’s a perfect spot to sit, enjoy the beautiful weather, and have a drink.   

When we arrived, Kim and I wandered around a bit, reserved a cooking class for tomorrow, had a snack, then went and got massages.   

The massages were not your typical American style massage.   Instead of using oil and rubbing/kneading the muscles, it was a combination of stretches and pressures that wound up feeling great.  After an hour of that ($6 per person), Kim and I were feeling the best we had so far!

We topped the night off with a meal of Khmer curry and soup at the Kmher House restaurant.  The food was delicious – flavorful, sweet, lots of fresh veggies, and just the right amount of spice.  Funny moment, though, when Kim learned to beware of carrots!   Sh e ate what she thought was a mini carrot out of the soup.  Turns out it was an extremely hot pepper.  I discovered this as I watched her face turn bright red, start sweating. and  her eyes start watering like crazy.  Turns out that little “carrot” was in there to add some flavor and spice to the soup, not to actually be eaten. 

On a last Pub Street note, “Fish Foot Massage” is everywhere.  Every block has a big tank with a padded bench around it.  The idea is that the fish come and eat the dead skin off your feet, and that it’s supposed to feel good.   To me, it felt a combination of severely ticklish and just plain weird.  I was squirming around like a little kid through most of it.  Kim had no such problems, however, and appeared to enjoy both the “massage” and my anguish thoroughly. 

Angkor Wat  

The ruins at Angkor Wat are a world heritage site and were what drew us to the area in the first place.  Though there is the Angkor Wat temple itself, there’s also a larger set of other temples scattered throughout the area. 

We mistakenly (in hindsight) visited Angkor Wat and only Angkor Wat.  I say mistakenly because it was expensive ($20/day plus a supersized tuk-tuk fee), not that much more impressive than the surrounding ruins, and can be seen from the road without paying for entry.   The surrounding sites are free and offer a similar experience. 

As for Angkor Wat itself, the ruins were built in the 11th and 12th century  out of sandstone.  The upside to the soft rock is that it allowed for the absolutely beautiful relief carvings covering almost every inch of everything.  The downside is that the soft rock doesn’t hold up well over time, so the ruins are in somewhat rough shape.  There are numerous UNESCO restoration projects on various parts of the site to help bring it back to its former glory.

Because of the high admission price, it seems they have a problem with people selling second-hand tickets, so now they put your photo right on the ticket.  If you’re caught at the ruins without a ticket, it’s a $100 fine. 

The day was made more expensive courtesy of my inability to do simple math.   As we were walking into the Wat, we were swarmed by the usual peddlers selling everything from water to cowboy hats.   One kid, however, was selling guide books.   There were no guides around, and not much for information posted around the site, so this didn’t seem like a bad idea.  The price of the book that was printed by the UPC was $27.98.  I managed to talk the kid down to $4, which had me thinking pretty highly of myself.   After he agreed to the price, he asked if I could pay in Thai Baht, rather than dollars.  This was fine, as I still had a bunch of it.  The problem was that I confused the conversion rate of Baht and handed him a 1,000 baht ($32) note, thinking I was giving him $3.20 and started walking away.  I have a feeling this happens to lots of people and was why the kid asked for Baht.  About ten steps later I realized my mistake, but the kid had wisely vanished.  So, I now have a very expensive guide book if anyone wants to borrow it.  

Cooking Class

The next day, Kim and I rented bikes and went back to town to explore more.  We checked out the markets and more around pub street before the beginning of our lesson in local Khmer cooking.  The class was a ton of fun spread out over about 4 hours.   We started by choosing the dishes we wanted to make, then headed over to the local market, where we got a good explanation of what all of the ingredients we would use are and how to pick them out.  After that, we headed back to the restaurant, whose open-air top floor is setup as a mini cooking school.

The class consisted of an instructor, Kim  and I, and a very friendly couple from the Baltic region.  I made chicken Amok (traditional Khmer dish) with a mango salad and Kim made spring rolls and green curry.   We also made sweet sticky rice with Mangos for dessert.   As a garnish, we leaned how to make roses out of tomato peelings!

The class went great and we wound up with more food than 10 people could eat.  It was all delicious, but we wound up giving a bunch of it to the other couple in our group who had a fridge and microwave.  

I got to drive a Tuk-Tuk!

After cooking, we found Mr. Happy.   Nope, not kidding.  He’s a tuk-tuk driver that speaks excellent English and has a demeanor to match his name.  He’ll take you pretty much anywhere you want to go from countryside tours and temples to shooting ranges, all with a big grin and plenty of shenanigans along the way.  If you’re in Siem Reap, definitely recommend him! 

We decided to take a countryside tour to see some other wats and check out what the area looked like outside of the city.  It was a great ride and that was how we came to realize that we’d have been better off just exploring other ruins and skipping Angkor Wat itself. 

Along the way, two interesting things happened.   First, we decided to check out the shooting range.   This was definitely a unique adventure, where you get to shoot your choice of military weaponry in a cinderblock tunnel.   We figured that we’d never get a chance to try something like this again, so why not?  The guns are all old (Vietnam or Khmer Rouge leftovers) and in less-than perfect condition, but it was pretty cool anyway.  We got to try shooting a 7.62mm K-50 automatic rifle, which is amazing in that it has absolutely no recoil.  Kim and I went through 30 rounds shooting at some old tires in a brick enclosed area and decided that was good enough. 

So, back to the tuk-tuk.    We got about 1/3 of the way back to town, chattering with Mr. Happy all the way, when he looked over his shoulder and said “You want to drive?”  I thought he was joking.  He wasn’t.  Sooooo, up to the front I went.  In Cambodia, the tuk-tuks are different from Thailand.   They are basically a normal motor scooter that tows a carriage instead of the one-piece Thai machines.  I was a bit wobbly for the first hundred feet or so, but then got the hang of it and was soon happily zipping along at about 30mph.   All of the locals we passed would instantly crack a

smile when they saw me driving with Mr. Happy and Kim riding along in the back. 

Along the way we learned that Mr. Happy has a very interesting back story.  In the mornings he works as an English teacher in a Siem Reap orphanage.  He was an orphan himself when he was young and volunteers as a show of gratitude for those who taught him years ago.  We wanted to visit the orphanage, but it was now getting pretty late.  He offered to take us early in the morning, but we didn’t want to risk being late for our flight out.  We wound up donating a 50kg sack of rice to the orphanage instead, which we went and bought from a local market. 

Bangkok

Bangkok was everything that we were told – frenzied and crowded, but packed with cool things to see, do, and eat.  From the dozens of temples and statues covered in gold to the smells of fish at the markets, there was always something to check out.

Our hotel (th e Erawan House) was located in a sort of “Old Bangkok” with incredibly crowded, narrow streets and people everywhere.  It’s also right next to Khao San Road and near most of the other tourist attractions.  This wound up being a great spot to stay because everything we wanted to see and do was within a short walk/tuk-tuk/water taxi ride. 

Another thing that is everywhere is people peddling stuff.   They kind of take it to a new level here, though, going so far as to wear official-looking uniforms with fake (but very convincing) credentials around their necks or planting “random” people to seem like their giving you helpful advice from a stranger, not a vendor.  As an example, when we tried to tour the Grand Palace, there were uniformed people with credentials around their neck stationed right next to the military guards at the entrance who would tell you that for some reason you can’t go in right now.  The reasons tend to be 1) that you can’t get in with shorts on (which is true, though the palace has pants/skirts to borrow for free once you get in) or 2) that there is some kind of “Buddhist Ceremony” occurring at that moment (there isn’t).  Instead, the official-looking individual will suggest you visit a nearby attraction instead and return later.  They then helpfully find a taxi or tuk-tuk to take you there.  The scam is that the taxi/tuk-tuk will inevitably stop at places you don’t want to go in order to try to get you to buy stuff you don’t want before taking you to the other attraction. At one point, we had 3 people (an “official” at the Grand Palace, a driver, and a “coincidental stranger”) all working together (even though they were all in different locations) to get us to go to a particular travel agency.   They are very good at doing it subtly and it’s surprisingly convincing.   The bottom line that we discovered is to believe printed signs that you see, and absolutely nothing else. 

But enough about the cons.  The Grand Palace (once we did get in) was definitely something to see.  It was filled with different temples and buildings that have every inch of them covered with gold, statues, and multi-colored tiles.  It really is a sight to see and worth elbowing the “officials” outside out of your way for. 

We also got to see the Reclining Buddha, which is sheer size is amazing.  It’s probably over a hundred feet long and sits alone in its own building.  The statue itself is gold, and the bottom of the Buddha’s feet are black stone inlaid with Mother of Pearl designs.  It’s pretty impressive. 

The river boats are also something to see.  There is the cheap (50 cents) but crowded water taxi service that is a good way to avoid the traffic of Bangkok streets, but there are also the faster long-tailed speedboats that give 1 and 2-hour tours of the city from the river.  These long-tails are about 2 feet wide and 20 or so feet long.  In the back is a large car engine just sitting on top of a mount, completely uncovered.  The engine has a long control tiller in the front for the operator and a 10’ shaft at a shallow angle off the back.  At the end of the shaft, just barely below the surface, is the prop.   When these things are revved up, they make a big rooster tail off the back of the boat.  

The food has been fantastic.  We visited a couple different markets and restaurants and really haven’t had a bad meal yet.  Curry dishes, pad thai, veggie dishes, and even banana french toast have all been great.  One funny thing is that many of the restaurants around our hotel have the same menu.  Not just the same items, the exact same menu.  The only difference is the name on the cover. 

Kim and I also got foot massages on Khao San Road.  Now, Kim does pedicures and stuff as often as most girls do, but I’ve never had anything done to my feet by anyone.  Aside from a quick scrub in the shower, I don’t even really touch my feet, so this was more than a bit strange to me.  I think spent about 2/3 of time twitching and convulsing from being tickled, but the lady doing the massage managed to keep from laughing at me too hard.  When it was over my feet did feel pretty good, but I think in the future I’ll stick to the head-neck-back massages.   

Our final “attraction” before heading out to Cambodia was something that I’m pretty sure only civil engineers and their spouses would ever do.  We took a 30-minute taxi ride to check out the subway system and the sky train.  Now, don’t get me wrong, they were both very nice and it was cool to get to see the more modern part of town (including a free, outdoor boy band concert), but I was sort of chuckling to myself the whole while as we explored and photographed Bangkok’s transit system so Kim could give a presentation on it when she gets back to work. 

So, that was pretty much Bangkok.  Crazy, hectic, exciting, and infinitely interesting.  It was a unique and very cool experience.   Now, off to Cambodia!

Honeymoon!

And we''re off!

The huge, white 747 that was waiting for us at the airport was a very happy sight.  After months of waiting, Kim and I were finally setting off for our Honeymoon! We owe a huge thanks to all of our family and friends that contributed to our Honeymoon Registry and to Peter and Kathi, who were kind enough to give us two Buddy Passes for Delta Airlines. Without all of that help, there is no way this trip would be possible for us. The plan is to see a lot of Thailand and a small part of Cambodia, along with two days visiting Peter and Kathi in Tokyo on our way home.

So, off we go on the 747.

MSP-Tokyo: We got Business class seats! Thanks to Peter and Kathi's passes, we get an automatic upgrade to Business class when seats are available. It's pretty darn amazing. Kim and I are like little kids up here playing with the 10-button seat controls, the complimentary slippers, and all of the other toys they gave us for the flight. As awesome as those toys are, though, they're nothing compared to the food! Dinner would have held its own against any upscale restaurant meal I've ever had. The biggest problem now is trying to get comfy after eating till it hurts. Definitely could be worse! In between playing with the gadgets and eating, I managed to start reading Into the Wild, finally got to see Avatar, and even got some work done!  Kim watches some movies and then is lucky enough to be able to catch some sleep. 

Tokyo-Singapore: After a short layover in Narita (Tokyo) airport, I'm excited to see more of Tokyo on the way home. We got glimpses of all kinds of little unique products and customs that make me think getting out in the city should be a blast! But, that will be for another day, as we get back in the air for the next leg of the trip. This time we're in coach, but that's fine with us. We're both still full from the first flight and ready to try to get some sleep.

We arrive in Singapore around midnight, and spend the night in an in-airport hotel that rents rooms in 6-hour increments. This is perfect for us, as our next flight leaves 7 hours after we land. 

Singapore-Bangkok: 4:45am comes awfully early when you get in bed at midnight. But, it also gives us a chance for a quick shower before heading to our first regional flight of the trip. We're taking Tiger Air up to Bangkok and we should arrive before 9am. This should give us the whole day to start exploring the city and help get us acclimated to the time zone. To give you an idea of the time change we're working with, we left home at 1:15 on Wednesday and we're arriving in Bangkok at 8:40am on Friday.   All told, it was about 33 hours from the time we left our house to the time we arrived in Bangkok.  Whew!

Baptism!

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted anything! It was an amazing summer, with too much going on to even bother trying to sum up. Of all the great things, though, the best was when my beautiful girlfriend of nearly 5 years and I said "I do" on a gorgeous fall day in October. When we get all the pics back, there will be a post, but for now, here's something that I do have some pics of:

The huge storms that rocked the entire state sent the Kettle River soaring to over 9,000 CFS and the North Shore creeks into flood. Luckily, the rain fell on a Tuesday, so by Saturday the Baptism gauge was lookin' good!

We spent the night in Two Harbors, then met Dan, Dave, Andy and for the run Saturday morning. Joi and her husband were nice enough to come along as drivers and photographers for us. The new gauge for the river said 12.7', which was supposed to correlate to 2.7' on the old gauge. That would be a nice, moderate level and keep the river at mostly manageable class IV run. More importantly, it would give me my first shot at running 35' Illgen falls.

We didn't have to get far down the river, however, to find out that the correlation is not very accurate. The river was definitely higher than 2.7, making everything bigger, faster, and pushier.

Confinement Canyon had some nice big waves and a big pourover towards the end of it that forced the boater to make a very quick S-turn to avoid getting sucked into the hole. It looked like a good boof would have allowed a kayak to fly right over the hole, but I was too rusty to give it a shot. That rapid went fine, though there was a scary moment when Dave got his leg caught in the rigging of OC-1 and was getting swirly-ed by an eddy. He made it out, though, and we continued on.

There was lots of class II-III boogey water until we made it to Kramer's choice, where the river is split around a car-sized rock in the middle. At this level, the flow funnels right into a very large wave/hole about 5 feet upstream from the rock. With the water moving extremely fast and so little room to maneuver, we decided to walk it.

Just downstream was Gustafson Falls, where the river falls over several big rocks into a hole in the middle. We hiked down and took a look, then Dan gave it a go in his canoe. He had a great line right down a tongue through the rocks, then his OC-1 floated over the hole like it was no big deal. It was pretty fun to watch. There was a kayak line along the river left, but nobody was feeling ambitious enough to bring down the boat and give it a shot. In hindsight, I would have liked to have run it, but at the time it seemed smarter to move on downstream.

After more class II-III, we came to Illgen Falls. It was a beautiful, thundering sight to behold. At that level, the entire pool is filled with the boiling, churning outwash. The force of the water looked strong enough to just about rip a boater in half if they wound up in the curtain. Since none of us had ever run it before, we decided it was a bit crazy to try at this level. I've since heard that the super-aerated boils make the drop boof-able at that level, but that's a big chance to take for a first try. I definitely want to run it, but I'm willing to wait for a level that I can tuck and huck.

After seeing the river level, we decided that the lower sections would be lots of portaging for very little paddling and so we called it a day. Despite the short day, it was a really great experience. The scenery was gorgeous, I got to put the boat on a new river, and I got to paddle with a great group of friends. I had a smile on my face all the way home.

Crazy Times

The last 10 days or so have seen some crazy weather and some crazy water. Getting major thunderstorms every couple days around the metro has pushed the Verm to levels that have not been seen in the 10 years that I've been kayaking. It peaked a couple of days ago at over 1,200 cfs. If you're not familiar, the normal level for this time is less than 60 cfs. And of course, I don't have the helmet cam anymore.

I had the rare pleasure of paddling it last Friday at around 700cfs and found it to be a high-speed ride through some pretty crazy stuff. I had paddled it at a similar level many years ago when I was just a newbie and it had scared the living daylights out of me. This time around, it was fun to just marvel at the speed the water carries you as you try to dodge the nasty spots.

Speaking of nasty spots, there are two to be avoided at that level. Railroad is big and powerful, but can be avoided on river right. I don't think it would hold you that long if you were caught in it, but it would be a wild ride. The trick with Railroad is that Triple is high-speed, large-scale chaos leading right up to it. Things happen so fast that if you get flipped or otherwise find yourself off-line, you may find yourself in the maw of it before you even realize where you are.

The second, nastier feature is the ledge into Fisherman's. At this level and above it's a huge, extremely retentive hole that takes up the entire center section of the river. It can be snuck along the right or left shore, but only right along the shore. As was kindly demonstrated by a certain paddler on Friday, going into it leads to a very long and violent surf that I'm pretty sure is inescapable right side up.

Finally, the river at this level is generally lined with undercut walls. I mean they're literally everywhere. You don't notice them at normal levels because they're above your head, but now they're right at the surface and we saw boats and boaters get pulled under them. Luckily on the shallow ones, but something to be aware of.

I uploaded the only picture that I got that really shows anything useful. It's the railroad pool from the bridge. You'll notice the rock is nearly under and the downstream flow now spans the whole valley. A photo I tried to get but failed was the river flowing right over the ledge on river left after S-bend. You can paddle right off of it now. I also threw up a shot of the gauge just for fun.


This weekend's the Midwest Freestyle Championships, so we'll see how I do after being absent from the course all summer. At least I know it will be fun, even I bomb in the comp. Looking forward to it.

Diving Weekend

I skipped Wausau again this weekend. As much fun as I have out there, I've felt drawn to other things more strongly this summer, and this weekend was no exception. Instead of the 3+ hour drive out there, I made a much shorter journey with Nick to Stillwater to dive in Square Lake.

Square Lake has a large area designed for divers, with 4 underwater platforms and various other things to discover like the tail section of a plane, a sunken canoe, some fish crates, and other fun things. The platforms even have different things on them, including the "scuba biffy" in case you've really gotta go.

The water was warm and the visibility wasn't too bad. We got to play with lots of panfish and a few largemouth bass, but over half of our time under was spent searching for one of two things. The first was a pair of Fossil sunglasses that was dropped by one of the swimmers above us. He gave us a pretty good idea of where they'd be, and it didn't take us too long to find them.

That's when the second item became lost. Apparently when I came up and took my mask off to tell the guy that I found his glasses, my helmet cam fell off. I had never worn it scuba diving, but figured it might be fun to try out. Since I wasn't wearing a helmet, I had it hooked to a head strap that came with it. We searched for a very long time, but never found it. I'll have to head out there again soon and try again, but for now it's gone. : (
It really sucks to lose, but on a lot of levels I was shocked that I was able to have it for so long without losing or breaking it. It suffered several kayaking rock blows, spent some time snow kiting, went snorkeling and more. If I can't find mine, I'm definitely getting another.

On a happier note, Kim also did some diving this weekend, although not with me. She did her classroom and pool training for her certification and it sounds like she had a great time. She'll do her open water dives later this month, then she'll be fully certified and ready for some diving!

Crazy, fun weekend!

The first order of the weekend was the RedBull Flugtag on the Mississippi River in St. Paul. For those who don't know, it's a contest in which home made, human-powered flying machines get launched off a 30' high platform over water. Some flop, some drift down, and one flew. We got to see Major Trouble and the Dirty Dixies (the pic that looks like a WWII bomber) break the all-time world record with a flight of 207 feet. Luckily, it was well witnessed as the party down on the river was 90,000 people strong.

From Weekend

From Weekend

From Weekend

After Flugtag, Dennis and I headed down to the Verm for a fun evening run. The features seem to change every time I've been there this year, and this trip was no different. There was wave surfing in Triple Drop, fast and bouncy spins in Railroad, great blasts in S-turn, and a crazy day down in Donut.

To add to the fun, we ran into Mike L down there, who I hadn't seen since Sturgeon more than a year ago. He was ripping the hole up and it was great to see him again.

From Weekend

On Sunday, there was no time wasted getting back to the fun stuff. We headed out to Corcoran for the Muddy Sunday volleyball tournament. Yup, it's about like it sounds. Lots of mud with lots people diving around in it. Our team did well, coming 4th out of 40 teams. The problem is that by winning we had to keep playing - over 20 games in about 7 hours. By the end we were filthy and exhausted but had an awesome day. Definitely going back next year. These are the before and after pics, plus one of the tug-of-war contest.

From Weekend

From Weekend

2nd Annual Mississippi River Paddle

1 big river, 5 Americans, 2 Irish visitors, a car accident, and an extremely ornery tugboat operator; those was the makings of the 2nd annual voyage through the locks on the Mississippi. Among the awesome group of boaters was Kim, who I'm convinced is becoming hooked on kayaking! Well, at least hooked on kayaking once a year on flatwater, but it's a start!

From Mississippi 2010

We put in at Boom Island on the North side of Minneapolis around 11am, but not before we had a small fender-bender while running the shuttle.

From Mississippi 2010

We had a couple first-time kayakers and even more first-time on the river kayakers. Within a couple minutes of leaving the island, though, everyone was gliding along past the downtown skyline like old pros.

We made it straight into the first two locks without even having to wait - it was reeeallly nice after having some delays last year. We even had a nice chat with the lock operator at the second one, who told us all about the lock and the new hydro plant they're installing next to it. Meanwhile there were Egrets fishing from the pools of water that form on the lock gate as the water drops.

From Mississippi 2010

From there it was several miles of scenic flatwater as we passed below the 35W bridge and past the U of M's Minneapolis campus. We stopped for a snack at about the halfway point, but were back on our way pretty quickly. We had awesome weather (86 degrees and partly cloudy) and we didn't want to waste it!

From Mississippi 2010

About a half mile before the Ford dam and lock, we noticed there was a barge some distance behind us. We were about 1/2 way between the lock and the barge. Judging by the distance to the lock and the distance from the barge, we knew that we could make it without interfering with his travels, so we just picked up our pace a bit and made it to the lock well ahead of him. The lock was closed and filling when we arrived, so we and the barge all had to wait for it to open. When it did, the barge entered and we waited for the next cycle. That didn't stop the barge driver, however, from yelling various curses at us for being in his way. This is still somewhat of a mystery to me, as he had to change neither course nor speed for us and we did not delay him at all. But, he did manage to make himself look rather ridiculous as he threw his little tantrum from the top of his decending boat.

From Mississippi 2010

All obnoxious boat captains aside, we finished our voyage just downstream from the dam at Hidden Falls Park in about 4 hours. The Irish folks, unfortunately, finished the day with not only the experience of a day on the river, but a good dose of sunburn to remember it by. Everyone else came through unscathed, and I definitely think that this year counts as another great success. Here's to next year!

From Mississippi 2010