Once again, I've neglected my blog and now must post an incredibly lengthy account that no one (except Hannah...and Hannah's mom) will likely read--but here goes anyway!

Angor What!?

Well Melanie finally joined Reena and I in Siem Reap (4 days in 7 airports later), site of Angkor Wat, one of the largest religious sites in the world . There are dozens of temples, some dating back to the 12th century, scattered around a large compound. They are breathtaking to say the least and with the help of our friendly Tuk Tuk driver, How, we were able to see alot. Unfortunately, Angkor Wat also seemed cursed for us. The first day after seeing some temples, we spotted some monkeys. Exhibit A:

Cute little guy, isn't he? Too bad he made me the victim of a vicious rabid attack. OK, well technically there was no attack and I'm not certain he had rabies, but I was injured and he was involved. See this little guy got greedy with the bananas How was trying to feed to a mother monkey. He got mad, screeched a high pitch noise and bore his teeth. Naturally, this scared Melanie and I half to death (Reena was far far away of course...). Fearing for my life, I attempted to flee and avoid an earlier than planned trip to Bangkok for a rabies vaccination...unfortunatly, I was standing next to a hill. So I fell and scraped myself good and proper on my elbow, hand and knee. That ended day 1, as we had to return to the hotel to clean the clay dirt out of my wounds...

Day 2 started with us almost missing sunrise at the main temple of Angkor Wat, luckily for us, there was no real sunrise because overcast skies didn't allow for it. Our luck continued with Reena losing her camera, me being bribed by a tourist police, and rain at sunset. All in all it was still a great day though! It is beautiful and it is very easy to get trigger happy as you can see:













Bangkok
So after Siem Reap, we took the most bumpy road you can possibly imagine to the Thai border. As you cross the Thai border, you are immediately struck by INFRASTRUCTURE--I actually forgot governments made roads and traffic lights while traveling in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Well perhaps that's an exaggeration, but there is a noticeable difference...
Anyway, on the bus, Reena recognized a guy from Toronto, who, as it turns out is meeting up with one of his friends in Bangkok, who in turn is very good friends with one of my highschool buddies, Jay Skukowski...very small world. So we spent our first evening in Bangkok with Nithal and Dan, who showed us the ropes of drinking "buckets" in the backpacker district of Koa Sahn Road.



Bangkok is actually a nice city. We spent a few days walking around, shopping, seeing some wats...



...and forgetting to wear long sleeve shirts and having to wear these instead:

Reena, of course, was highly amused by this. We parted ways with Reena on that day... not because she laughed at us but because she was leaving to go back to Toronto. Mel and I headed to the north of Thailand for a trek.

Chiang Mai

So there are two things most people do in Thailand. Firstly, the islands. Secondly, they do a trek in the north. So we decided to spend one day in Chiang Mai, going to the various markets before heading out into the mountains. Oh and Mel and I are now Thai cooking geniuses after a cooking course...



Anyway, I severely underestimated the difficulty of the trek. It was incredibly difficult, we hiked up mountains, through forests, jungles, fields of rice paddies...but, in the end I'm glad we did it. We stayed the two nights in villages, in bamboo tents and taught two Englishmen and a German (fond of wearing speedos whilst trekking--don't ask) the joy of euchre.





And now for the islands! We leave in mere hours for 3 weeks of beach bliss...life is grand. Hannah and I will soon be reunited after a brief stint of travel apart as well.