Narrations

The computer have been causing me problems lately...also I've been busy hanging out with Crew during the weekend, doing what guys do best; waste time haha..
Anyway here's my second day at Siem Reap.

According to plan we are bound for the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh which is about four hours away from Siem Reap. So we had to get up at 5.30 so we could be there early and spend the whole day there.

This is 6am taken from my hotel. Bright!

On the way we passed through villages and the road was small and bumpy. There are no highways in this country. The driver had to hon at those bikers and smaller cars as a sign to get out of the way so he can overtake them. Seems something of a norm for them. It was quite annoying but I was happily deep in slumber.
The first stop was the royal palace.

The road leading to the palace

Group pic at!behind us is the throne room

The famous silver pagoda


Admin building and some chateau the French gave to the king. Entry restricted


I'm guessing this is the temple. Entry restricted

There were lot's of individual building in a big walled compound but most of them were restricted areas. So basically you're paying 20USD to look at a few buildings that no one lives in anymore(the king lives in another palace). Yay.

Spent almost two hours there and then it was my favourite time, lunch time. We were taken to a local restaurant.

I have a bad feeling about this...so cheat restaurant?


But I wasn't feeling cheated when the food came..!

The food was actually nice. Very typical chinese. But what really stood out were their drinks

Cambodian kopi susu ais. Superb la~ I would go back there for a glass of this, seriously. It's that good. Although a little sweet, but it puts all the mamak kopi we have here to shame. Very kau! I reckon it even tastes better than all those StarBucks frappucino crappucino haha...

They have teh ais too, but not as good as the kopi :D


Pops looking mighty satisfied

The bill came to about 2USD a person. Cheap considering all the stuff we ordered.

Cambodian police

Rich dude's house. The economic divide here is BIG where the rich are really rich and the poor are really poor. If I remember correctly David told us you buy houses here with gold. And houses such as this can go up to about 700 thousand USD in value.

Next was Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

The museum was a school before the war.


Pictures of the dead.


Skulls dug out from mass graves.

If you didn't already know, Cambodia was ravaged by civil war when communist influence was at it's highest. Many were forced to labour and died as a result of overwork and also torture. They were liberated when Vietnam forces marched in and drove out the communists but in return Vietnam also claimed much of their lands resulting in a smaller Cambodia that we know today.

Now for shopping.

Russain Market. Look at all those shoes


Mom looking through stuff


The dude's selling barbecued squids

The place was crowded and it was a steam room in there. I bough two pairs of shoes and a sports t-shirt for a grand total of 30USD. Mm hmm.
It's six in the evening and David was rushing us back because of the notorious traffic jam would take us two hours to get out of the city.

Now I know why...no traffic lights!!

It was dark by the time we got on the road back to Siem Reap. David was driving like crazy honing every bike he sees on the road as a warning to them. Then we stopped by for dinner at an inn. No pics cause it's just another chinese eatery. What was interesting is they sold...

...crickets!Fried and all crispy and juicy

It's their local snack and it's big business for them when they export these stuff to Thailand. They catch them by the tonnes in kampungs with special nets fixed below blue neon lights when the season arrives.

You can see these lights stretching for miles as the villagers cash in on some extra income and also some snack for themselves.
We got back to the hotel at about 10 pm and went straight to bed after another tiring day.
Look out for the third and last day soon :D








Off-topic:
I had to edit and filter some stuff on my previous posts because someone is being over sensitive and I feel sad for the person who has to put up with that burden. So to you-know-who-you-are, I again dedicate this song to you.
Sigh.

Love is not blind,
the lover is blind.

Last Saturday was Sue's birthday bash; not really a bash really just friends coming in having food and talking. I was there with half of Crew; Adrian, Kiwen, Han and - . Keo was flying and Edwin was at survival camp. Pilots...
I only got to know her recently because she was part of NFAZ and NFAZ and Crew are good friends. haha

People who came was mostly strangers to me but at least I wasn't alone. Food was great; home-cooked rather than crappy catering stuff. So you can say I was there simply for the food :D
They had homemade satay celup too. There was a dress code for the night : no black and white.
That's why you can see traffic lights everywhere.

Sue getting her golden key. Freedom lo..can seh kia lo

Her cake

NFAZ and passing snails

Sue with half of Crew

The little cupcake you see is something noteworthy. I'm guessing cheese and liquor dough or mixture, chilled then scooped and served on homemade mini pie crust. Good stuff. Now if only I could persuade her mom for the recipe...

The pics I took were really dark because I don't like using flash. So the pics you see now are photoshopped. I mean you can clearly see that right? right!?
Anyway happy birthday Sue! Hope you become wiser every year.




Off-topic:


Having fun with 15 second exposure on my cam after the party. Nice results. Should screw around with it more.

Surfing through torrentspy, I came across a link to a charity site. It says you can help feed a person if you just click the big yellow button.

Actually I was there during the semester break with my family. This took so long because I had a ton of pics to upload and was pretty lazy haha. I was there for three days so I'll make my posts short and divide the trip in three posts. And if you didn't know, Siem Reap is in Cambodia, home of Angkor Wat.

Got up at 5.15 am to get ready to drive to LCCT where we'll be flying AirAsia. So off we went with me driving on a dark, spacy, empty highway. Checked in and napped for the next 2 hours waiting for the flight.

It was dry season so the rivers are shallow and muddy. Along the river you could see houses on boats and it's residents lounging by the river.

Floating school

Remember when they say God is everywhere...?

And then we were in the huge lake, stretching as far as the eye can see. A couple of floating restaurants and many locals peddling drinks and beer in boats will approach your boat.

Children of the lake, quite amphibious..

We were taken to the to a boat that sells souvenirs and stuff. Nothing exciting right? Here's something to bat your eyelids at..

They keep their croc pets on the boat itself..on the lower level

If you're feeling touristy, buy some bananas on sale and hurl it at them. The objective is to hit them in the mouth. That's the only thing that will make them move.
The whole thing takes about an hour and a half. As we made our way back to the van, we got mobbed by poor children. Can't help but be moved but we gave them sweets instead, another advice from dad's friend. Another half hour ride back to town and shopping was next.
We were driven to Siem Reap's central market. Lot's of local produce and souvenirs. I was left walking aimlessly around while the others were souvenir hunting. Another 2 hours gone and it's dinner time.
For dinner we went to the Cultural Village. 12USD inclusive of buffet dinner and cultural show. Yay. The food was ok, got some local stuff but nothing outstanding really. The show was...

Cambodians love their mermaids

Interesting, no?

It would have been interesting if not for the tiredness from traveling all over the place.
Japanese tourist that I thought was hawt~(of course the pic doesn't do her justice)
That's right, praise them for all the bak kut teh, char siew and seow bak

We went back to the hotel after that, all eager to get some sleep. So that's all for the first day. I'll do the second day soon so till then, ciaoz.

Enjoy yourself, but don't forget yourself ah!

What do I do on the weekends in a town as boring as Melaka you may ask. Here's something to give you an idea...

I awoke at 10a.m. last Saturday, got online with Kiwen and Han, and we decided on Malay food. Lot 85 is the name of the place and nasi briani the game. We left at 11.30 determined to beat the lunchtime crowd.

Kiwen's with Ayam Kurma and Bayam

This is mine with Ayam Goreng Berempah

Whilst eating guess who went and pinch my sides...

Yeap Vijay, in the background with Stef and me. That's Han in the foreground by the way.

What a coincidence. And I was just asking him where to get nice Briani a few days ago at gym. He said he woke up with a craving. A few minutes later another familiar face showed up..

Don with Suling.

Don was fetching her to the bus station and they decided to stop here for lunch. She's going to Johor.
Lot 85 is a very popular place to get Malay food with a lot of curries and rendangs and kurmas to choose from. Don't be surprised that half of the crowd here are non Malays. Muhibah la~ Come early or end up queuing as the crowd builds up during lunch time. So what next?

Rambutans la~

Kiwen's dad is running a printing service somewhere near town. Behind the shophouse is a big field and on that field is three rambutan trees. Whee~. Fruits for dessert. Free flow too.

We got to work straight away...
...taking turns...
...and savored in its sweet delights :D

If you notice the clothes here isn't the same as the ones above. The rambutan pics were taken the week before. We did had rambutan again after Lot 85 but we didn't take any pics. The same stuff happened so I can reuse the pics. I feel so "kampung boy", picking and eating rambutans of the trees. Fresh is the key word.

This is Han on Kiwen's "scrambler maut"

If you happen to see this bike in campus, it's Kiwen on it. Don also came later but he, as Kiwen would put it "no skill makan rambutan". So after awhile we hung out at the band room. What band room? haha I maybe I'll blog about it next time. Then we decided to go eat...

...Tong Sui

There's a nice little hawker at the foot of Bukit Cina, facing the Mitsubishi Showroom. Lot's of tong sui to choose from and some mee goreng and bihun goreng but we weren't hungry.

But that wasn't the end of it. Don bought an Optimus Prime toy for RM286!! And i just had to go play with it for the sake of my poor childhood haha. So over to his place we went. The toy is like as tall as your PC monitor and is a bitch to transform. In the span of 40 minutes we only managed to transform it from truck to robot, then back to truck once. Really complicated procedure and I was afraid of breaking the parts.

Me with a RM286 toy..yay

Went home at 5pm to get ready for church and that was the end of my day. Ahh but nightime brings other nocturnal activities as well. Haha I'll leave it for another time.

That was one of the more happening days really. Usually Saturdays I stay home and play games but sometimes I do get days like this that I feel is so fully used. Pics for this post courtesy of Kiwen and his canggih handphone. Wish I had my nokia 6131 back :(

Phew, long post..hope you enjoy it. Time for me beauty sleeps. Nights.