Travel Chapter 20-- Thailand and Cambodia

Pictures for this chapter can be seen at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Bangkok2009?feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Cambodia2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCKHjy_DClcaeLw&feat=directlink


We arrived in Thailand on March 15 at 0800 hours at the newly completed port of Laem Chabang which is 80 miles south of the city of Bangkok. This port is reputed to be the 20th largest port in the world. It is huge and is very modern port which is clean and amazingly clean. The water is so clean in this port that the ship continued to make water as opposed to the port of Chennai where everything was so dirty our ship looked gray when we left.

I had developed a full package for 5 days in Thailand with a local travel agent. I had ordered a driver to pick us up at 11am and sure enough our driver Yai was at the foot of the ship awaiting us at the appointed time. Not only was he there but he brought with him a Thai sim card for my phone as I had asked the local travel agent the day before by email.

We boarded the minibus Yai was driving and headed towards Bangkok. The road out of this new port led to the national highway. In fact, the highway was quite amazing. It is a six lane highway with lots of fast moving traffic. I asked the driver to stop to get so we could buy some water. After a few miles he pulled off the superhighway to a rest stop where we jumped out and could hardly believe our eyes. There in front of us was a long row of stores including a Starbucks; a Kentucky fried Chicken place and a 711… I was like being back in North America except better as one does not find such a selection of stores at any road stops like this one. We had a coffee in Starbucks, read an English language newspaper and then stocked up with some travel food at the 711. We then continued our trip to Bangkok on about 50 miles of an 8 lane elevated highway which was better than many of the highways in North America.

We arrived at the hotel the agency had reserved for us which was 10 minutes from the brand new Bangkok airport. Given the traffic and distance I had decided that to make an 8am flight, we would be better off overnighting near the airport. I asked our driver to wait for us and he then drove us downtown to a place we could board one of the famous Bangkok river boats. These boats are about 25 feet long, very narrow and have high bows. You can see pictures of them in the album. They are equipped with huge engines taken usually from pickups. The propellers are mounted on 10 feet shafts and the whole machinery and shaft can be manipulated to steer the boat by the driver who sits at the back of the boat. The boats can reach very high speeds and race up and down the rivers and canals of Bangkok. We booked ourselves a 40 minute boat tour and enjoyed the sites and scenery along these canals.

After our tour we found ourselves at one of the most elegant hotels of Bangkok so we went in to see it and to buy a newspaper. There, on that Sunday afternoon, we found the hotel was hosting its regular Sunday High Tea, from 4 to 6 pm. On the dance floor of the hotel some 40 Thai couples all dressed with jackets and ties were dancing waltzes and fox trots and other classic old dances. It was a scene straight out of the early 20th century England or even Shanghai.

We then called Yai to come to pick us up at some small market we had visited. Yai took us back to our little hotel called the Floral Shir Resort. It was not much of a resort but we did get a good night's sleep. We got up early to be able to get to the airport by around 8am.

The new airport is huge and amazingly efficient. Our 50 minute flight to Siem Riep in Cambodia went smoothly. Although it was a short flight the Bangkok Air crew managed to serve a substantial breakfast with wonderful coffee.

We arrived in Siem Riep airport which is a very nice small jewel of an airport. It is built in Cambodian style with a red roof and only one story. We were processed quickly through the visa line after paying our US$ 20 fee and a driver was waiting for us outside. He introduced himself as Johnny but he told us his Cambodian name was Kim. So he was Kim for our time with him. We were driven to our beautiful hotel Prince d’Ankor where we checked into our large triple room. The hotel structure and decoratative walls was made mostly of local wood with a wonderful swimming pool into which Emmett and I dove into to escape the noon day heat of around 35 degrees Celsius.

In the afternoon we were taken to see some of the sights of the town. We had some extra time so we decided to visit the recently built National Museum. It is a great museum which gives a wonderful history of the Khmer empires. In fact, the history of this country is a sad one as the country has been overrun by many different nations and much of the land has been taken away over the centuries. A large portion of now South Vietnam was formerly Cambodian, Laos was a part of Cambodia and Thailand acquired tracts of the country. The French controlled country for decades, the Vietnamese overran the country and then the Khmer Rouge regime which killed over 1 million people, or about 30% of the population.

Despite this harsh history, the Cambodians are now optimistic and proud of their country.

The next day we went early to visit Angkor Wat and Ankor Thom and Bayon which are huge temples built in the 12th century. It is not totally clear who built them as they were abandoned in the 15th century and lost until 1850 when a French archeological group rediscovered them. By this time, written records were lost and the jungle had taken over the sites. Today some believe they were actually built by Indian traders who spent the rainy season months in Cambodia before going home. They are Hindu in their construction and look very much like what one sees in India, in the Tamil area. Some maintain that they could only have been built by Indians who had the technology to cut the stone and lift the large stones to the heights of the temple steeples. But they are clearly now part of the Khmer history.

We drove out about 50kms to the Women’s temple which is a lovely temple done in red sandstone. It also gave us a chance to visit the flat and rich countryside. As the rainy season had not yet started the fields were dry awaiting the rains and the rice planting which is extensive here.

That evening we went for dinner which included Aspara dancing which is a type of dancing inspired by Indian dancing. I was fascinated at the hand gestures and you can see my fascination from the many pictures I show in the albums I mention above.

The next evening we flew back to Bangkok and checked into the 4 Wing Hotel. We had extended our stay to spend the next day in Bangkok with the wife of a good friend of ours, Ton de Wilde. His wife Dang and a lady friend of hers Anonn spent the whole day with us and invited us for an other ride on a canal boat. In the evening we dined with both these lovely Thai ladies on a loveley floating restaurant which in fact was an old converted rice boat which cruised up the river. Bangkok at night is very beautifully lit up.

The next morning we headed back to our ship with our driver to Laem Chabang. It was nice to be back on board. We are now cruising slowly to Vietnam and will arrive there in 36 hours for an other 5 day visit on which I will report next time.
Cheers
March 20, 2009