On my trip to Bangkok I was lucky to have a Thai friend from University who is a Bangkok native. I stayed with her and her family. My gracious hosts were, financially, pretty well off… to put it mildly. So I should let you know right now, that the parts of Bangkok detailed here are not on the typical traveler’s itinerary. These places are for the elite and for the locals. I was brought to and from each place in an air-conditioned private car. And thanks to the miracle that is Thai hospitality, I barely spent a dime. I could definitely have gotten used to it. I'm a baller on a budget after all.
The reports I had heard about Phnom Penh prior to my arrival were overwhelmingly negative. People talked about the drugs, theft and the prostitution before they mentioned anything else. So I arrived prepared for the worst.
Angkor Wat is perhaps, behind the Great Wall of China, the most recognizable landmark in all of East Asia. But despite its fame, is actually one of the smaller members in a much bigger complex of temples. Angkor is an area of about 20 square miles, containing more than 200 temples. Angkor Wat is special amongst these temples because it is perhaps the best preserved. This is thanks in part of the giant moat that surrounds the temple, keeping the jungle from swallowing it back up like so many of the other temples in Angkor.
Going to Cambodia is a lot like going to a strip club – you better arrive with a fat stack of ones. Trip Advisor ranked Siem Reap as the #1 destination in Asia last year. The Khmer new year was just 2 weeks ago and Siem Reap apparently received roughly 300,000 international visitors in addition to 1,000,000 domestic visitors (in that week alone) who all came to take part in the giant party that was being held in Angkor Wat and the surrounding temple complexes.
It was low season, so the fabled ‘Gili T party scene’ was pretty lackluster. The island is only 3 km long by 2 km wide so there isn’t much to do on land besides eat, drink and relax. Oh, and do drugs. Since the 1980s Gili T has been known as being an easy place to get shrooms. This was sort of a shock to us because drug related offenses carry the death penalty in Indonesia, at least that’s what the immigration cards we had filled out on the plane told us. During the one night that we did go check out the nightlife we were solicited shrooms so openly and frequently you’d have thought they were selling candy.
