We up around 730AM. We tried the Dorian fruit for breakfast. It has kind of a sour milk smell and it tastes like a combo of banana, vanilla, custard, and onions. Its texture was creamy too, like a yellow custard. It tasted OK for me, I could definitely develop a taste for it. Mat, on the other hand, tried quite a few bites but just couldn't get into it. The smell of it was so overpowering that we had to set it outside as the smell would permeate anything else stored in the minifridge. So we decided to hit up the market for some breakfast before crossing the river.
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| Crossing the river |
We got some iced caffeinated drinks and some stuffed rolls and headed towards the pier. We got across the river for 4 baht each and started walking towards the palace grounds. Everyone was wearing black or black & white. Groups of volunteers were cleaning up the roads around the palace, the military was directing people and cars around, and all the walls were lined with black and white ribbons. We got the far end and ended up in front of the gorgeous Buddhist temple Wat Pho. I really wanted to go inside and check it out but Mat was wearing shorts and we were both wearing sandals without socks, not OK per the dress code. So we decided to visit during our next visit to Bangkok. We were sweating profusely by this time, despite being out for only an hour so we decided to get to our side of the river and make our way back to the motel.
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| Memorial to the king in front of the palace |
We entered a pier closest to us in hopes of catching a ferry that goes up and down the river as well as across. We hopped on a boat and took off into the water before someone came up to us to inform us we were on the wrong boat. We were in a Chinese tour group boat! The boat had to backtrack and drop us off at the pier before leaving again. So we went over to the other side of the pier and got on that boat. It left the pier but then turned around and headed downstream. It dropped us off at a pier on the correct side of the river but even further from our hotel. We decided to walk. We walked a side road between another beautiful temple, Wat Arun, and a grade school. The side road deposited us into a beautiful neighborhood which we crossed to get to the main busy street that would bring us home. We crossed over Khlong Mon canal and watched as the locks opened up and let the little Thai boats through. Finally, we made it to Wanglang market where we bought some fruit and made our way back to the hotel for a shower and to pack.
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| Wat Pho Temple |
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| Walking the streets of Bangkok |
We checked out at noon, took a taxi to Don Muang airport. It was kind of chaotic and less time than we usually like but we made it to our terminal with 30 mins to spare. We caught a quick 1hr 20 min flight to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. There we waited for our pre-arranged taxi to Sihanoukville. We had time to eat some dinner, dropping some crumbs for the young kitten begging for food and listening to the mass of starlings making a ruckus in the nearby trees. Our taxi showed up at 6PM and we started the long drive southwest. Bangkok may have looked a little crazy but Cambodia definitely feels more third world than Bangkok. A lot more rubbish on the streets, a lot crazier driving all around. But our driver handled it all really well. We decided to hire a personal driver to Sihanoukville instead of taking the bus because we had heard of frequent episodes where the bus driver stops frequently to pick up and drop off local people for extra money, turning a five-hour ride into an eight hour one. Plus, we landed late in the day and we wanted to spend our time in Sihanoukville instead of Phnom Penh.
Dusk quickly became dark as soon as we left the airport and then rain started to fall as we headed out of town. But our driver did a great job. There seems to be a system where the cars passing others turn their brights on while they pass to signify that they are not in their own lane while oncoming traffic flashes their light to signal that they acknowledge the car who is passing. Organized chaos. It was a long drive but we reached our Hotel, Holiday Village Nataya, in Sihanoukville just before 10pm. I don't know if the poor guy had to drive all the way back to Phnom Penh but he seemed happy with the tip we gave him. Total cost $60 for the five-hour drive in a comfortable car and a $6 tip.
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| Hotel Village Nataya |
We checked into our room, nice and open. There were no pillows on the beds so Mat went downstairs to get some. A few mins later I hear a knocking at the door and it's Mat. He immediately says all giddy "They're $1 each!" Incredulously I asked: "The pillows are $1 each?!" He responds: "What? No! The beers! The beers are $1 each!" Obviously very pleased with himself. Confused, I ask: "But what about the pillows? You left to get pillows!" "Oh yeah," he says, "the guy said he'll bring some up in a minute" I found it endlessly amusing that I sent the boy to get pillows and he got distracted by beer, coming back with two beers instead of two pillows!
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| Two beers instead of two pillows! |
We decided to head out and find ourselves some food. We walked down to the end of the road on Serendipity beach, then walked along the beach where dance club after dance club was lined up. Each club had a sales guy on the walkway trying to entice us into joining their party, although only one of the clubs seemed to have more than two people there. The closest any of them got to enticing Mat to stay was a guy offering $0.50 beers. After walking past all that hubbub, we made our way down to the waters of the Gulf of Thailand to stick our toes in. The water was definitely warm! We walked back to the street where we found a restaurant for dinner that was open 24 hrs called Maybe Later. It was midnight before we hit the hay.
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| Beer while relaxing at Maybe Later |
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