Charles and friends

Sleeping in a dorm is quite an experience. I had to whisper, tip-toed and use flash light to look for my stuff in my bag so that I don’t wake up other guests.

When I reached the hostel, it was too early to check in. So I hang around at the cafe near the lobby to do some work. The first thing I did after check-in was take a shower to freshen myself up after spending a night in the airport. After that, it was exploration time. Armed with a town map and free bicycle from the hostel, I hunted for my lunch and toured the town looking for places of interest. The town has little interest for me. My ultimate purpose in Seam Reap was to visit Angkor Archaeological Park. I decided to cycle there in hope to catch a glimpse of the magnificent monument before the full exploration on next day.

View from the hostel

My first meal in Siem Reap. Food is quite expensive in Siem Reap. It cost me 12,000 Riel (RM10) at a roadside food stall. Can you believe that?! Damn you bloodsuckers!

Siem Reap town (Old Market)

A place for you to splurge. All kind of pubs and restaurants are here.

It has Swensens!

The journey from the town to Angkor Archaeological Park was further than I expected. Because it was dry season, I huffed and puffed dust into my lung while cycling. Unfortunately, the furthest I could reach was at the ticketing check point. To go further, I had to buy ticket. The entrance ticket is not cheap. The cost of 1-day ticket is US$20, 3-day is US$40 and 7-day is US$60. If I purchase the ticket after 5.00pm, I can use it for the next day. Since it was only 1.40pm, I had no choice but to turn back to the town. When I reached the hostel, my butt was damn sore. That made me think twice about exploring the temples using bicycle tomorrow morning.

Even though the sign says 5.30pm, the actual time for the ticket to valid for the next day is 5pm.

The Angkor map

In the hostel I met my roommate from Japan. Masaki just arrived from Phnom Penh. We decided to visit the temples after 5.00pm to enjoy the sunset in Angkor Wat. We went there by hiring a tuk tuk (27,000 Riel). After getting my photo taken and printed on the ticket at the ticketing booth, we were allowed to venture further. After a distance, I finally laid my eyes on the magnificent temple bathe in golden sunlight. It was quite thrilling to see the temple for the first time. After, immersing myself in the wonder of the temple, we had to leave at 6pm. We just had a short preview of what to come tomorrow.

Yay! My one day pass.

Ah… finally. Angkor Wat, here I come!

The “bridge” leading toward Angkor Wat.

Angkor during sunset

The sunset

We began our 1-day Angkor Archaeological Park exploration on 7.30am also via tuk tuk (US$15). Not being a morning person, we decided to skip the sunrise. Since we have visited Angkor Wat yesterday, we decided to head straight to Angkor Thom; the biggest complex in the archaeological park. That is where the Bayon temple is located. The most distinctive feature of Bayon is the giant four faces stone structure. We spent at least one hour in the temple. Other than Bayon, there are other temples and sites of interest in Angkor Thom. We have visited Baphuon, Phimeanakas, Terrace of the Elephants and North Kleang.

Me, Masaki and our tuk tuk driver

Heading toward South Gate of Angkor Thom

The Bayon temple

Is this really stair?

The four faces of Bayon temple

The linga stand

The Apsara dancers

An artist capturing the beauty of the Bayon faces on canvas

A very long wall of stories

The pathway leading towards Baphuon

Young children peddling souvenirs are everywhere

Phimeanakas

North Kleang

North Kleang

North Kleang

Contemplating on life

Angkor Thom is surrounded by walls at four sides with five gates. On the east side of the wall, there are two gates. One is Victory Gate and the other less known gate is the East Gate a.k.a. the Ghost Gate. The gate that I’m interested the most is the Ghost Gate because it was isolated from all tourist. The only way to access the gate is via a dirt road which are partially hidden in bushes. Initially, the tuk tuk driver was a little bit reluctant to bring us there. Maybe the gate is forbidden or the roads are too bumpy. He didn’t manage to find the road leading to the gate at first. He took the wrong turn and we ended in another hidden monument most probably known as East Prasat Top. We finally found the gate on our second attempt. When we reached the gate, it was eerily quiet. We were the only living being at the gate. Soft breeze with dried leaves falling down from trees only made the gate more mystical. We exited Angkor Thom via Victory Gate not long after that.

The road leading toward the Ghost Gate

The East Gate a.k.a. the Ghost Gate

The Victory Gate

Before we headed for lunch beside Sras Srang reservoir, we stopped by at Thommanom and Chau Say Thevoda just outside the Victory Gate of Angkor Thom. After lunch we continued to another highlight of the Archaeological Park; Ta Prohm. This place is made famous by the big boobs Lara Croft (played by Angelina Jolie) in the movie Tomb Raider. The most distinctive feature of Ta Prohm is the huge roots of fig and silk-cotton trees that looked like swallowing the rock structures. Another temple with similar impressive setting is Banteay Kdei. We continued our journey to Pre Rup.

Thommanom

Chau Say Thevoda

Ta Keo

Ta Prohm

Sorry. No Angelina Jolie. Just me.

Me again.

Still in Ta Prohm

Another big tree trying to swallow the temple in Ta Prohm

Pre Rup

The giant stairs up Pre Rup

Some weird statues on top of Pre Rup

Since we still have plenty of time left, we decided to “rediscover” Angkor Wat and we glad we did. We realized we did not fully discovered Angkor Wat on the sunset visit a day earlier. There were still plenty of things to see. By the time I finished with Angkor Wat, I was temple-overdosed; tired and everything beginning to look almost similar to me. We spent more than 1 hour in the complex before headed back to Siem Reap town.

Inside Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat

Carving in Angkor Wat

I left Siem Reap for Bangkok the next day. I took a local bus (US$7) from Siem Reap to Poipet, a town at Cambodian side of the border. On the Thai side, the town is call Aranyaprathet. During the trip, most of the road are unpaved. It made the journey slower. But it is better to travel on dry season than on wet season. I heard the journey would be longer and more torturing in wet season. After crossing the border, I took a moto (50 Baht) to the bus station. Initially, I planned to take the train to Bangkok, but because of the stupid bus journey took longer than I expected, I missed the last train to Bangkok. I had no choice but to take the public bus (207 Baht) to Bangkok. The bus journey took almost 5 hours.

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At first, I am a bit worried about traveling by myself. That’s right, I never travel by myself before. I guess the only worry I had was being alone. Who like to have fun all by himself? Happiness is only true when shared. My worry seemed to be gone after Justin; one of my campus’ buddy decided to join in my trip. However, my joy was short-lived after he let go the biggest aeroplane ever. He fell sick few weeks before the trip and was advised by doctor not to travel for few months especially to those 3rd world countries. So it was back to square one. After much hesitation, I proceeded with the trip by myself anyway. After all, everything has been prepared. It couldn’t be that bad, right? As I found out along the journey, traveling alone is actually fun! Even though I went there alone, I was never alone on my journey. I was accompanied by fellow travelers from all over the world and most of them are very fun to travel with. I was happy to see there were many travelers who traveled by themselves just like me. We helped each other out, shared our expenses, exchanged our travel experiences and most importantly kept each other accompanied. I got a lot of useful tips for my next destination from those who has been there. They were like my living guide book. It pays to be friendly. At times when I was alone, I found solitude in it. As we headed for Bangkok from Siem Reap, Lenny from UK once told me, loneliness is just a phase.

Charles and friends from USA

Exploring Angkor Wat together with Masaki from Japan

With Tookie who was kind enough to be my personal guide in Bangkok.

Pedi and friend from Germany

Conny, my bunk mate from Holland

My travel mates in North Thailand; Annie and Monica from China

My travel mates in Luang Prabang; Clockwise from left: Guillaume, Pierre, Remi and Antoine

Su In and Hyo Ju From South Korea

Danny my tubing mate from USA

Since 2 weeks is a very short time, I should be careful on my travel plan. Since I am not very good in planning, I just let it flow according to circumstances. My ‘brilliant’ plan was; fly to Angkor Wat, visit north Thailand and reach Vientiane before 5th February. In fact, I was prepared to loose my flight tickets if I stayed longer than expected. After all, the flight ticket from Vientiane back to KL is only USD40 and from KL back to Penang is less than RM30. However, I am glad that everything went smoothly according to my lousy plan. En route to Vientiane from Siem Reap, I have stopped at Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pai, Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng. The total distance I covered on land was more than 2,000 km.

Here was my travel itinerary.

Day 1 – Day 3 : Discover Angkor Wat
Day 3 – Day 4 : Transit in Bangkok
Day 4 – Day 5 : Overnight train to Chiang Mai
Day 5 – Day 6 : CNY celebration in Chiang Mai
Day 6 – Day 8 : Relaxing in Pai
Day 8 – Day 10 : The long journey to Luang Prabang
Day 10 – Day 12 : Luang Prabang, the UNESCO World Heritage City
Day 12 – Day 14 : Chill out in Vang Vieng
Day 14 – Day 16 : Vientiane, French city in Asia?

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Wat Arun, Bangkok

Night market in Chiang Mai

Pai

Kuang Si waterfall in Luang Prabang

Tubing down Nam Song river in Vang Vieng

Patuxai, Vientiane

One of the biggest blunder I made on the journey was traveling without my credit cards’ PIN number. That means, I cannot withdraw cash out from ATM machine. I know I still can use my credit card to buy stuffs, but on a shoestring trip, cash is everything. I ate at roadside stalls (aka pasar malam style), I slept in guest houses (not more than RM20 a night) and I traveled by local buses, train and boat (sampan). They only accept cash. All I had was RM2,000 cash in various currencies and I was lucky not to spend more than that. It was amazing because I never planned in detail how much my expenses would be before I left Malaysia. It was like I picked the number out of the air. It would be very inconvenient if any emergency occurred or I embarked on a shopping spree (I was tempted once).

To save money, these are the types of food that I ate. No pizza, KFC, McD, chicken chop or steak.

Chicken noodle soup

Bee hoon type dish with fresh vegetables

Grill sausages

Grill seafoods

Road side food stall in Chiang Mai

Fresh fruit juice

Porridge with ‘yau char kuai’ in Vientiane

Noodle salad in Vientiane

Sticky rice in bamboo leaves in Vientiane

Banana pancake (roti canai Lao style)

Baguette sandwich in most part of Laos

Laos satay

Yummy dessert almost similar to Penang’s bubur cha cha

Rice soup (porridge)

Putu mayam?

Mix rice in Siem Reap

Banana fritters in Luang Prabang

Koay teow soup?

I came across many hardcore travelers along the way (no, they were not porn stars). They traveled for many many many months. For them, 2 weeks is a short vacation. I even met 2 Belgians who cycled for two weeks months from Singapore to Vientiane. Most of them are Ang Moh who haven’t started working or just resigned from their job. As much as I wish I to follow their footstep, I know I have commitments I cannot ignore. For me, it wasn’t all play but rather a mixture of play and work. It may sound dull to work on a holiday, but that’s the only way I can travel for long period of time and still maintain my career. My biggest concern was how to provide the same level of support to my customers while I was away. My customer’s satisfaction has always been my top priority. Without them, this trip would not be possible. Even though I have delegated some of the job to my people, most of my customers still prefer to deal directly with me.

Working while having lunch in a Wifi cafe in Vientiane

Even though it was not a problem to get connected to Internet at all the places I went, I needed to be reachable by phone as well. Unlike Internet, receiving phone calls while I’m overseas are ridiculously expensive. Roaming charges on Maxis line alone will make me cry. I’m talking about thousands of ringgit on my phone bill. I don’t mind that if I am running a multi million corporation. After I studied all the available options, the cheapest and most reliable method to receive phone calls is to use a combination of Skype and a local mobile phone number. Luckily, getting a prepaid SIM pack from Cambodia, Thailand and Laos was hassle free and cheap. The SIM pack I got in Cambodia was Cellcard ($10 USD), in Thailand was Happy (50 Baht) and in Laos was ETL (35,000 kips). All of them have excellent coverage except at certain rural part in Laos. Despite all the preparations, it wasn’t without any glitches. There were times like I couldn’t receive any calls because I was traveling in a non coverage area or during transition at the borders. I admit, working while traveling is not as easy as I hoped for especially when I tried to cover so many places is such as a short time. This journey has provided a great experience that I can use to improve on my future travels.

The prepaid SIM cards I had. Happy, CellCard and ETL

I consider myself lucky because I did not suffer any illness or injury during the trip, never missed any flights or buses, never run out of cash, managed to visit every places I wanted to visit, met a lot friendly travelers, did not get conned or cheated, was not attacked or robbed and none of my stuffs were stolen. However, I wouldn’t call the trip an adventure if it was without any challenges. Some of the challenges I had were supporting my customer while I was climbing up the gigantic stairs of Angkor Wat, eating food that make me wish I won’t get diarrhea, sleeping in a room with strangers that performed 6 hours of nasal symphony (snoring), lugging 20kg of backpack for an hour looking for a place to sleep at 3am, traveling in a cramped local bus full of bags of rice and chickens for 14 hours on an unpaved (bumpy and dusty) and winding road or spending few hours in police station to pay my traffic fine. Nonetheless, it was fun. I seriously encourage everyone to try it at least once while they are still young and energetic. After all, life is an adventure. Like Remi from France said, “tough experience makes the most memorable experience”.

Unlike packaged tour, backpacking is different because it was not everything about the places. It was the experiences and challenges that make the journey meaningful. Will I do it again? Hell, yeah!

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3. One month backpacking in India – Part 1

Sorry for the short update. I don’t have enough time for blogging on this trip.

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1. Discover Angkor Wat (Day 1 – Day 3)
2. I am in India
3. My 2 weeks backpacking adventure across Indochina

If you happen to be in Cambodia, Thailand or Laos during 21st January until 5th February, drop me an email and you are in for a treat. Please include the date, the location and a little bit of introduction about yourself such as name, nationality, age, gender and contact number.

Hope to see you guys there!

If you love this post, then you might love these:

1. My 2 weeks backpacking adventure across Indochina
2. The long journey to Luang Prabang (Day 8 – Day 10)