Touring the ruins of Angkor Wat, Cambodia...

[L. Kafka]

After numerous visits to SE Asia I figured it was time to take a look at Angkor Wat. I wish I had read more about the ancient city before touring it as it is quite impressive. In temps around 90F/32C it is difficult to walk around in the ruins for more than three hours, I found.

Curious if anyone else out there has been to Angkor Wat and what their impression was.

Currently visiting Vientiane, Laos for the first time. More on this later...

[UK Lightgunner]

You lucky bugger!Its snowing and raining here in the Uk today!

[L. Kafka]

I lived in Michigan (Detroit) for over fifty years. Many would go on about how they loved the chang of seasons. From Nov thru Mar there is only one season in the Midwest of the U.S., and it's called shitty.

[UK Lightgunner]

Sounds like the UK during those months too!

[Tom Houlihan]

Sounds like the UK during those months too!

I dunno.... Sometimes it's cold and shitty!!!

Of course, I have to admit that as long as it's my day off, I like the aftermath of a light ice storm. Some thing about all the trees, bushes, and grasses in the park behind the house coated with ice, glistening in the sunshine. Pretty...

[L. Kafka]

...who will not be raising the real estate prices in the Sunbelt by leaving Michigan.

I think we communicated once a few years ago. You're from Oxford or Livonia? I can't remember.

Before departing San Diego for our winter in Vietnam the wife and I spent three weeks in Detroit visiting family in Oct-Nov. We caught some great weather for that time of year. We visiting the St. Clair Flats and the leaves were still on the trees in full color--after Halloween! Global warming, perhaps?

I actually can enjoy the storming weather of Michigan but not blizzards or days in a row of cloudy skies.

Speaking of weather, I heard on either BBC or CNN over here that North America has the most consistently violent weather of any continent. I had to stop to think about that and then finally concurred with that.

Hamtramck?

Bad Axe?

Ypsilanti?

[DXTR]

Hi

Yes I visited Angkor back in 2002, god its been three years?!... did the transsiberian from moscow to beijing then worked my way down vietnam, through cambodia to thailand... anyway yes it was an excellent site, was there when the area opened up at sunrise, we met some friendly guides/touts/scooterboys who took the time to show us the sites. I seem to recall we paid them both 12 dollars for a whole day, but anyway the ruins are scattered over a wide area, and after a few hours it does become quite borring (comming from a historian) basically they are just ruins and when you've visit the main temple, everything else seems to become more or less a lesser version of it. Siem Reap is not that interesting, if you travel by speedboat from Phnom Penh make sure to get a seat on the roof, its magnificent to travel up the mekong, however beware of the Kurtz compound....

When you reach Siem Reap (or actually the small fishing village that is the port - siem reap is locatted a few miles inland). You will meet a horde of touts, take your time to get a shore, amybe go aboard one of the boats coverted into a bar, have a coke, and keep yourself cool when the touts battle it out for the tourists, you will need to get a scooter ride from the port (fishing village) .. but as you probably know the hotels/dorms in the guide books are already flooded with tourists who are all on the same Lonely Planet beaten track.... but there are a lot of other decent well priced lodgings. Anyway, we didn't stay more than two or three days in Siem Reap... took the muddy beaten up, bombed out, mined trail to thailand, met a friend who took the way out of cambodia back through pnohm penh and through Sianukville into thailand, said it was excellent... I was still at the times scared by the stories of khmere rouge activity in the south (5 years earlier a group of tourists had been taken from their car near Sianukvill and was shot - but that seems to be history now).

Regards
DXTR/David

[L. Kafka]

I found Vientiane along with Chiang Mai, Thailand to be a pleasant break after two months in noisey, crowded Saigon.

Vientiane is laidback, but there are plently of cafes and bars to go to. I also noticed that Carlsberg, one of my favorite beers, is doing business in Vientiane.

Support Denmark. Drink Carlsberg, I say...