Surprise in Southeast Asia or My Family Came to Visit (Part I)

Day 1:

So, I'm hangin' out at Suvarnabhumi (BKK) airport waiting to pick up my dad and Fred, a good family friend. Yet, about 10 minutes before leaving to pick the two of them up, a good friend of mine says, "Enjoy the surprise..." and signs off of Gchat. Hmmm That's strange. Maybe they mean the camera I was thinking they might be getting me. Yeah. That's probably it. 10 minutes before they come through to the waiting area, where all the eagerly waiting families and business people waiting to meet their loved ones or business contacts are, I think...maybe my brot....nah. 10 minutes later, there he is. God dammit. They've fooled me the whole time. My brother and my dad show up. Fantastic surprise! Absolutely fantastic. We chatted a bit and then got some much needed 2 hours of sleep, before waking up at 5:25a to prepare for the shuttle to the airport followed by the 4 hour bus ride to the border.

Day 2:

We ended up meeting a good friend, Lainie, and her father, in Poipet. Lainie attempted to convince me that Poipet is still cool. It was never REALLY cool, my friend. Attempt attempted. Maybe next time! After that we bargained with a taxi driver to rent out the taxi to my town in the middle of nowhere, we greeted my host mother and a couple of the bankers, then set down and sweat for a good while while trying to change the plane flights and hotels; the travel restrictions on Bangkok forced us to adapt our vacation completely to Cambodia (which I think actually ended up working for the better). We exchanged some gifts, saw my bathroom (I think they both thought it was the best way to bathe. I'm definitely not being facetious), then went to the market. They got to try a new fruit, jackfruit (they liked it a lot), which has a fun story. Quick digression: back in the day, the U.S. Navy was in this area of the world and loved the fruit so much they made a chewing gum out of it. Can you guess which one? Juicy Fruit. They also got to try "prohut" which is a sort of blended meat...ball. Khmer meat balls, let's call them, except there is a beef kind, a fish kind, a tofu one, etc. After that, we went back to the house and my host mom served us lok lak (which she's never served me before...that was nice). Lok lak is beef with an oyster/beef sauce served with an egg on top (typically) and all on top of tomatoes and onions. The sauce that goes with it is called "dtuk merihk" (pepper water), which is basically pepper and msg with a squeezed lime. Good stuff. After dinner, Host Mom, gave me a new fan AND a lawn chair to sleep on (don't get excited...it was a pretty crappy lawn chair, even by Cambodian standards). She was tryin' to impress. Unfortunately, my extra mosquito net only went so far to the ground. I had to duct tape myself in.

Day 3: The next morning we woke up and went to my favorite restaurant (one of two in the town) and I got to share the glory of "bai sai(k) j'rook" (rice with pork) and "mee soup" (noodle soup). We traveled next to the health center to meet the staff there and show them around the place. Two seconds after sitting in the health center director's office, one of the staff offered to drive us to Sway (rather than having to flag down a taxi [and pay for one]), which was very generous of him. When we got to Sway, we met up with Rachel and Maddy. We took the 9:30 bus to Siem Reap and got there swiftly in an hour and 30 min. We checked into the Goldan Banana hotel (so swank), and I was able to bargain the price down of a "Superior" room by $18 to upgrade as the hotel wasn't booked. We went down to the market and explored, got to do some more bargaining, try new fruits, dragon fruit and rambutan, walk around the town a bit, then head back to the hotel to do some a/c relaxing. For lunch, we ate at "Psah Chas" restaurant and had fried rice with beef, a pumpkin potato tofu curry, and fish amok. Later that night, we went out to eat at Chamkar, a vegetarian restaurant with all locally produced foods. Both were delish! We called it an early night as we had to be up at 4:00a to catch the 5:00a tuk tuk to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat.

Day 4:

We woke up way early to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Our tour guide there was very knowledgeable and his English was pretty good. It turns out, he was a monk and has trained many tour guides and teachers to speak English. It was absolutely magnificent to see the temple and walk around it. It's just amazing how much detail went into the walls, from armies of monkeys to Hindu gods and goddesses. We were there for about 2 hours before heading back. I think we were there for the right amount of time, as we were happy to get back to the hotel when we did. We were gone for a total of 3 hours. Back at the hotel, we got our complimentary breakfast which was comprised of 2 eggs (any way you want 'em), hot bread (w/ butter and jam), a fruit cup (with dragon fruit, papaya, pineapple, and a mango [MANGOES!]), and coffee (or tea) and orange juice. The rest of the day we did much of nothing as we just got to relaxing, had Indian for lunch, then eventually met up with Kyle (a volunteer who lives in the town) for a drink and picked up il Forno for dinner (eggplant parm., pizza nepoletana, and a bolognese pasta). We called it an early night this time, too, as we had to get up early (5:30a) again for our 6 hour bus ride to Phnom Penh.