Asia With the Ruddies

As you may know, this past month we have had some temporary additions to our wagon train: my wonderful Mom and Dad, AKA Momela and Dadsta, AKA Stan and Libby Ruddie. They packed up their luggage and flew away from the colds of America, and their first stop was the megacity: Tokoyo. You will have to ask them if you want to hear all about this leg of their trip, but thanks to Brenna and Micah they had a wonderful time there. After three days of sushi and expensive train rides, they put away their heavy coats and came to Thailand! Travis and I flew from Manado, Sulawesi to Jakarta, and from there to Bangkok. A journey that had taken us almost a year to complete, we covered that distance within a day. The marvels of modern travel. 

 

Along with Mom and Dad came Uncle Dave, for only 3 days in Bangkok. Determined to show him a good time we set out to bring all that is shiny (temples!), amazing local food (green papaya salad anyone?), and elephants to Uncle Dave for his short time in Thailand. We took him to Wat Pho, to see the enormous gold-plated reclining Buddha, and we looked out over the river at the Ayuthaya style temple Wat Arun, and ended up the evening at the dazzling Grand Palace. I have my suspicions that this last place was the highlight of his day, his comments of "It's so shiny!" gave away his great admiration of the Kingly Abode of Thailand. I am so glad that Uncle Dave came, he was such a fun addition! Alas he had to leave so soon and we continued our adventure without him.

Our next destination was the emerald island of Ko Chang, near the Cambodian border. We checked into our hotel, a lovely place right on the beach, with a pool that disappeared right into the ocean at sunset. I thrive living near the water, being a Scorpio, and the rest of the family enjoyed a little rest and relaxation on this palm fringed island. One day Travis, Mom and I expanded our skill set by taking a Thai cooking class. We learned how to make Pad Thai, Green Curry, Tom Yam soup, and spring rolls! Sorry Mom, your secret is out and everyone will be asking you to cook Thai food for them now. Travis made the best spring rolls, and we nominated him to make them for our parties forever. Having a husband who cooks is an invaluable nonrenewable resource.

One day on Ko Chang Mom and Dad took an elephant ride and Travis and I went diving. On our first dive the visibility was low, but on the second dive it was much higher. The corals here were pretty drab colored but there was an amazing plethora of fish, and we even saw a sea turtle! He was not scared of us, just kinda looked over like "Oh hi guys", then put his head under a peice of coral to sleep. We looked out into the blue, and we saw a huge form coming towards us. Is it a whale? We soon saw that it was a school of 200+ smaller fish, all swimming so close together and in time that it looked like a massive whale from far away. Wow! That night we took a cab to Lonely Beach (not so lonely actually) for dinner, and we were lured into an Italian restaurant by a whole litter of 6 week old puppies. I played with them the whole time we waited for our vegetarian pizza to arrive. What a treat!

After a few days of the beach life, we decided to head inland for some more cultural exploration of the greatest monuments to the Gods in all of Southeast Asia.  Our bus to Siem Reap whisked us away from paradise and plunked us down in a restaurant 1 km from the border of Cambodia, and requested us to give them 1200 Baht (about $40) for the visa fee. We were like "Haha, no way, the visa fee is $20, we have been to Cambodia before" and they said we needed to give them money to make the process go faster "or the bus might leave us behind". But we refused to be scammed. Why should we pay 20 dollars extra for them to do something that we could do ourselves in 10 minutes at the border? The funny thing is, the other tourists on the bus all went along with it, even though we told them it was a scam. We even ended up ahead of some of them in line later at immigration after paying the proper cost, $20, to get our visas at the border.

Our hotel in Siem Reap

The Angkor temples are truly a sight to behold. Or should I say, they are sights to behold. No photos or descriptions can really capture the splendor, grace, and finesse of these temples. The sheer size and weight is amazing, and the carvings are so intricately detailed and well preserved. When you look at these monuments, it's impossible not to imagine them 900 years ago when they were built, with monks performing ceremonies, the ancient Khmer people toiling to build the temples, and the daily life of the ancients. We visited several temples over our 6 days spent in Siem Reap, each one with it's own design and interests. Like Ta Prom, with it's megalithic tree roots coiling around the temples, or Bantey Srei, with it's superfine detailed carvings of Hindu gods. Angkor Wat, of course, is the heavyweight, and we spent the most time here, admiring the beautiful carvings, the might of the temple, and Mom, Travis and I even climbed to the top of the tower and looked out over the grounds. My family was duly impressed by the glory of Angkor.

One of the highlights of this leg of our journey was Tonle Sap Lake, about 45 kilometers South of Siem Reap. This lake is interesting, as for 1/2 of the year (the wet season and afterwards) the borders of the lake extend far beyond where they are in the dry season, when the water makes it's way out into the Mekong River. How can people live in an area where there houses would be underwater for half of the year? Well, human adaptation amazes us again as we drift down the river with Kosal, our tuk-tuk driver for the week, to his homeland. This is an amazing community where during the wet season the only access they have to their homes is via boat. Each house is it's own stilted island, and the village is complete with restaurants, schools, and a temple. We even saw a large rafted pigpen! This atmospheric place is like nowhere else I have ever been, and to make the day complete Kosal took us to his family's home.

Our next destination: Battambang, a French colonial town in Cambodia. Our mode of transportation: river boat. This experience was both incredibly interesting and scenic, as well as harrowing. It started when we got to the port and realized that #1. The seats are made of wood even though the travel agent told us we would have soft seats and #2 there weren't enough seats for everyone, so some people had to sit on the roof of the boat. We managed to stay together and we set off on the journey. The river was beautiful, gliding past villages consisting of houses sitting on rafts, little children waving, and flocks of waterbirds. It began to get a little uncomfortable when we enter a part of the river and some sticks start hitting the side of the boat. The waterway gets smaller and smaller, and soon huge tree limbs were bashing their way along the open-air windows. It was like someone was firing at us. No one could sit by the window, some people were standing up, and all of a sudden, I got hit by a huge tree limb, slingshot into my chest by the window frame. I cried out and my husband and parents were by my side in a moment. I was so angry with the captain for taking us that way, I think he got us lost. I still have fantasies of throwing that guy overboard, seizing control of the boat, and delivering everyone to safety. We got to Battambang a bit worse for the wear, but after relaxing for awhile in our fancy hotel, we all were happy again.

We were only in Battambang for one day, but it was a memorable one. In the morning we went to the bamboo train. Using an old French-built railway, the Cambodians have constructed small platforms with lawn mower motors on them that move down the track. If two trains meet going in opposite directions, one of the trains has to disassemble the platform, wheels and motors to let the other one by. It actually went pretty fast too, past rice fields and timeless village houses. Later that night we went to an arts school to see a circus. We weren't expecting this: a mini-cirque-de-solie  with high energy dancing, live music, graceful contortionists, and amazingly talented balancing acts, but that's what it was. Wow!

So this has been the last three weeks of our life. It has been wonderful having family here to share our adventure with for a little while. Both Travis and I feel lucky that some of our family members came all this way just to visit little old us. It feels good to be loved, and it feels good to see our loved ones. We have been having so much fun but of course we miss all of our friends and family at home. On January 7th we will be traveling to Taiwan to try to find jobs teaching English. It has been a crazy adventure, maybe the craziest of my life. I am so thankful to  everyone who has made this trip possible or probable for me, especially my parents and Travis's too. Stay tuned for more Asian Adventures! Happy New Year, Christmas, and Hannukah everyone!