More temple shots

As promised here are a couple more temple shots - expect them to keep coming for a bit…

 

 

 

Angkor, What!? - 3rd December 2007

Ok, this is what Cambodia is all about, temple ruins.  They are touted to have the best temple ruins in the world and I’d have to say that I’d be surprised to find out that wasn’t the case.  Got myself a 3 day pass for US$40 which is a bit steep around these parts, but hey, it’d be a bargain at twice the price.  I’m told that there are many times more tourists around now than even only 2 years ago - tourism is exploding here and as such I feel quite lucky that I’ve gotten here when I have.  Sure there were other tourists at all the temples I went to, sure there were lots of them in total.  But there were also lots of temples…so the tourists do get spread out somewhat.  I imagine that in a couple more years they’ll be overrun. At the moment I was able to get MOST of the shots I wanted to get without any people in by just sitting down and waiting…sooner or later the scene that I was shooting would be tourist free and I’d grab the shot and move on.  In the future this simply wont be possible, there’ll be too many folks running around to ever get any empty wide shots.

One thing that really surprised me was the level of access you get to them.  These are thousand (some of them) year old ruins, I’m sure their value is near limitless, yet aside from the odd roped off section or sign warning you out of a dangerous bit you can just wander all through them, wherever you like.  If something like this were in Aus I can imagine there being a set route that you walk through without any chance to deviate and with the greater part of it sectioned off.

Anyways I’ve taken an obscene amount of shots these past three days.  It will take a long time to crunch through them but here are a couple edits from the first part of the first day, expect many more temple shots to come:

 

 

 

 

 

A day in Bagkok - 10th September 2007

The morning of the 10th saw us turn up (thank buddah) in Bangkok.  We arrived admist screams of “taxi, taxi” with the drivers vying hard to urge us into their respective vechicles.  Knowing (from my trusty lonely planet) that there was budget accommodation somewhat close by we waved them away (no easy feat) and started to set off down the street.  Up ran a brittish girl who asked where we were going as the taxi driver had just told her the nearest accomidation was 5km away.  I told her there’d be some closer and so she called over her boyfriend and they decided to walk with us.  Sure enough about 3mins walking and an impromptu turn down a side street and we were at Khao San Rd - backpacker central.  Walking down the road we spied taxis pull up dropping off folks from our bus.  I chuckled to myself over the couple of mins of circles they probably just got driven on.

This was the day I was swapping Celine for Johnny Boy so after finding a decent guest house and checking in, it was a matter of hunting down some coffee and then waiting for Jb to rock up.  Coffee was sorted by a vendor who set up directly outside of the guest house and JB arrived a little later than expected but safe and sound.  The first few hrs were spent breaking our fasts and wandering along Khao San rd trying to avoid the damn annoying tuk tuk drivers who wanted to take us on ‘cheap tours’.  Which were really just a drive around to a temple or two followed by trips to places where they were hoping we’d be talked into buying shit so that they could get their kickbacks.  Which I must admit we did end up doing - simply because JB has limited time in Thailand and we wanted to get the trip to and from Chang Mai, jungle trecking, white water rafting, elephant rides etc organised.  

We ended up walking away from the travel agent with a overnight air con sleeper cabin train trip up to Chang Mai (no more busses for me if I can help it), a couple nights accommodation in a guest house with private bathroom (including pick up from train station), 3 day jungle trek, extra day golden triangle tour, elephant ride, white water rafting, bamboo rafting and all meals on trek for all inclusive about $200 Australian.  Which is more than we could have paid if we organised everything ourselves but really - it’s not a bad price.  And there is something to be said for having everything arranged for you.

In the afternoon it was time to bid farewell to Celine and do a touch of exploring - which didn’t turn out all that well after some ridiculous traffic and unexpected rain.  Though I’ll always have a chuckle when I think back on JB and I sprinting through the teeming rain to get to a large awning for some shelter only finding that after getting under it we are still getting wet.  A glance up revealing it was only the framework of an awning - the roof was missing.  It doesn’t seem that funny in retellilng it but Jb and I were laughing our asses off as we ran down the street searching out some more reliable shelter…

A couple Bangkok temples:

 

 

 

 

Walking the dog Bangkok style:

 

Penang - 5th & 6th September 2007

If you stay in Penang then you absolutely have to stay at the travellers lodge (75 Muntri st).  The reason is the owner, Mr Loh, is quite possibly the happiest guy on the planet.  Whether it is the first time you walk in or the 12th time you wander in from a day exploring he has a smile for you (all three teeth of it) that seems to be trying to split his head in half.  From bending over and waving frantically at the floor to show how to pronounce his name (my name Low, you know *wave at floor* LOW!) to demonstrating how the hallway is so long you can jog up and down it for fitness (he reckons he does 50 laps a day) he is always quick with a joke and jollier than Santa.  

I don’t have any shots of him unfortunately, nor many of Penang at all, but I do have a pic here of an incredibly ornate Chinese temple just a couple doors up from where we were staying.  The whole surface of the temple was that grey stone and every inch of it covered in beautiful stone carvings:

And another spectacular sunset that we experienced after nutting out our way through the twisting streets to the ocean:

 

Journey to Penang (Malaysia) - September 5th 2007

After our (all too) brief sojourn in the lap of luxury it was time to hit the road again on our quest north toward the Thai border.  We decided to make Penang the target for the first day and were all set for another day of painfull stinky hot bus trips and transfers when Celine’s social tendencies saved the day again.  A conversation to the couple next to us on the ferry got us a couple seats in the car they’d hired for their trip around Malasia.  They just happened to be heading to Penang and even better was that despite the fact that their accomidation budget seemed much higher than ours they just so happened to be staying a block away from several Lonely Planet recommended backpackers.

On the way we decided to search out some food and happened across some huge candle looking things:

Turned out they were giant joss sticks and it was some sort of buddhist ceremony.  Yet again Celine started gabbing with the locals in Chinese which resulted in a bunch of info, a free bagfull of guava (*shrugs*) and demands to take a picure of them and (as translated by Celine): “put on internet, let whole world see!”.  So here you go world (the two on the right are the couple that gave us a lift) :

 

This was also the place I discovered this great drink (I originally bought one just because the name tickled me, turns out a bloody good drink, tastes like mountain dew):