Thailand: Monkey friend

Westerns - like myself - get so excited to see monkeys.  Its an animal we rarely see and from seeing them on TV shows like Friends, we think they are nice sweet creatures like dogs.  But while traveling in Asia, monkeys are often seen as pests rather than friends because of how mischievous and clever they are.  Below is a photo I took of a very clever monkey while traveling in Thailand.

Thailand: Elephant Sanctuary

The area outside Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand is well known for its elephants!  Unfortunately, there are many venues to visit elephants that are cruel to the animals and do not treat them ethically.  I went instead to an elephant sanctuary where the elephants were well looked after and had been rescued.  See below some of my photos of these happy elepants!

Cambodia: Oldest part of Phnom Penh

Below is a photo from one of the oldest villages within Phnom Penh.

Thailand: Markets in Chiang Mai

While in Chiang Mai, we spent a full day wandering around the city center through what seemed to be a market that consumed the whole city.  There was amazing food on display, as I love Thai food, and I was able to sample loads of it.  Below are a few photos of the food from the market.  But note that I definitely did not sample the fried insects, although I did watch many others who did sample them and said they actually tasted quite nice.  I just couldn't go there!

Thailand: Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is the largest city in Northern Thailand, with a great buzz of a fairly modern city filled with backpackers and hippy tourists.  Below is a photo from one of the many temples located throughout the city.

Thailand: The hilltribes

The hilltribes near Chiang Mai, Thailand are communities of ethnically Burmese who live moderately selling crafts to visitors.  They depict beautiful women as having very long necks and therefore women wear gold necklaces stacked to elongate their necks.  I took photos of these women and the village below.

Cambodia: Tone Sap Lake

At the end of the Tonle Sap River, which flows through the Floating Village, is the Tonle Sap Lake.  Most of the boat trips time it so that they arrive to the lake just before sunset to watch the sunset, which is where the below photos are both from.

Cambodia: People along Tonle Sap

Below are two kids floating in the Tonle Sap River.  The top photo is of a young girl on her own paddling through the water.  The bottom photo is of a teen boy who is working to collect the grass and weeds from the side of the river.  Everyone seems to need to know how to travel along the river in this village, since their life is water-based.

Cambodia: Along the Tonle Sap River

Along the Tonle Sap River stands a village on stilts.  Below are some photos from the dry season, where you can see the stilts that the village is built on.  In the wet season, water rises up to the top of stilts to make the stilts invisible and the homes appear to be floating on water.  The village is called the "Floating Village".

Cambodia: Monkey at the Royal Palace stole my juice!

While waiting in the queue to go into the Royal Palace, I spotted a group of monkeys hiding underneath a bench.  I instantly put down my wonderful Lychee and Mint juice from Nom to grab my camera to take a photo of the quiet monkeys, since this was the first time I had seen monkeys on the trip.  To my surprise, one of the monkeys instantly jumped and grabbed my juice and leapt to a spot where he knew I wouldn't grab it back!  So, below is the photo of the monkey with my juice.

Cambodia: Water Buffalo in Siem Reap

Below are two Water Buffalo that I spotted in the rural area around Siem Reap.  Surprisingly, the animals let me walk right up to them without even flinching or trying to intimidate me.  They are commonly used to help rice farmers throughout Cambodia.

Cambodia: Outside Angkor Thom

Below is a photo from outside Angkor Thom, where a Tuk-Tuk driver is waiting in the shade of his passenger seat for his passengers to return from their visits to the temple.  I love the colors of this photo - the deep brown of the sand next to the green of the grass and the blue sky.  Cambodia had very vibrant colors!

Thailand: Orchids of Chiang Mai

We stopped in an Orchid Park over our lunch break outside Chiang Mai.  The park was filled of beautiful and vibrant varieties of orchids, my favorite flower.  Below are two photos of the orchids in the park.

Thailand: Monkeys of Chiang Mai

Below are photos of some of the exotic monkeys of Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.  The monkeys in Cambodia definitely freaked me out enough that these monkeys seemed quite tame.

Cambodia: Bayon Temple

Below are three photos from another exquisite temple in Angkor Thom, called Bayon.  In addition to being an outstanding temple, the most distinguishing feature is the carved faces along the top of the temple, which you can see in the photos below.  The bottom photo depicts a group of monks walking through the temple.

Cambodia: Monkeys in Angkor Wat

Throughout the Angkor Wat area, there are packs of monkeys that sit on the side of the road, hoping to get food from tourists who stop and look at them.  This tourist asked her Tuk-Tuk driver to stop so she could snap a few photos.  Unfortunately, these monkeys were quite aggressive and came running at us in the Tuk-Tuk so we had to speed away quite quickly for fear that they would run up us!  Fiesty monkeys!

Cambodia: Phnom Penh's Russian Market

The Russian market is one of Phnom Penh's main markets.  I heard the Russian market sold some of Cambodia's garment factories Western products, which is what drew me to make the trip, despite being warned of how hot and steamy the market can get.  Although I didn't find any Western clothes that were locally produced, I did find a very unique market selling all sorts of interesting items.  And, the warning about the heat was correct.  It was incredibly warm!

Below are photos of some photos of the vendors at the Russian market.

Cambodia: Koh Pich's Lucky Rabbit

Koh Pich, also known as "Diamond Island" is a reclaimed small island adjacent to downtown Phnom Penh and facing Nagaworld Casino.  Developers are building out this island with modern apartment complexes and high end luxury.  On the island though, next to City Hall, is the below statue of "Lucky Rabbit", which I find to be one of the oddest statues that I have seen while traveling.  Below you can see the large rabbit and money bag statue that sits outside the luxury island's city hall.

More information on Diamond Island can be found here.

Cambodia: Horse outside Angkor Wat

A quiet horse was enjoying the shade while tied to a large tree, outside the Angkor Wat temple.

Cambodia: Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat was at first Hindi and then later Buddhist and is the largest religious monument in the world.  In the Angkor Wat area, there are hundreds of temples, but below are photos from The Angkor Wat Temple, which shares its name with the area.

Angkor Wat is often visited during sunrise, but this tourist did not like the idea of a 4AM start on her holidays.  So instead, I visited during the middle of the day, which although very hot, also has very few tourists because not many people want to explore during the mid-day-heat.

Cambodia: Gates in Angkor

Below are three photos from some of the impressive gates that surround the temples in Angkor.  In the second photo, a Tuk Tuk driver has just come through the gate.

Cambodia: Swampy lands in Angkor

Below is a photo of a wooden bridge that runs across the swampy lands in Angkor.

Cambodia: Temples in Angkor

Angkor Archaeological Park, which most famously holds Angkor Wat, includes hundreds of temples from the 9th to 15th century Khmer Empire.  Below are photos of some of the more obscure and less famous temples in Angkor, which are still all incredibly impressive.  

In the below photo, you can see a green slim snake slivering through the face of the ruins: