Angkor Temples

Between the week of Christmas and New Year's I took a vacation to visit the ancient temples of Angkor near Siem Reap, Cambodia. I met up with my friend Jenny and her cousin Paul on Trursday morning and she had arranged to have an offical guideon Friday, Saturday and Sunday which turned out to be a very good idea since otherwise we would have had very little idea of what we were seeing. This left Thrusday for us to explore the city of Siem Reap.
One thing I noticed very quickly was that there were bars set up on corners all over the city with bottles and bottles of Johnny Walker Whiskey.

Our tuk tuk driver stopped at one of them and called out something in Cambodian to the bartender. All right! this is my kind of driver.
She came over with a bottle of Black Label in one hand and a funnel in the other. They seem to be very serious about their drinking here. However she kept walking and went straight up to the opened gas tank and poured the whole litre in. Turns out it wasn't whiskey at all but instead: gasoline (I'm assuming).
I have to admit those are some very different gas stations. I've never seen anything like it. Gas cost a little less than $1USD per liter since we got three pieces of fruit back as change to the bill the driver handed her.

The temples:

We started our tour on Firday morning and visted Angkor Thom, Prasat Kravan, Ta Prohm (of Tomb Raider fame), then Pre Rup for the sun set. It was a full day.

Saturday we woke early to view Angkor Wat at sunrise.

After sunrise we returnd to Pre Rup to see it in the day light, then continued to East Mebon and then a long drive to Banteay Srey know for it's intricate and well preserved carvings.

After we Banteay Srey we a few more temples, Ta Som, Neak Pean, and Preah Khan before calling it a day. On the last day we visited Angkor Wat again, this time after sunrise we it was light enough to explore the temple and miss the early moring crowd. You can view more of my pictures here.

Bangkok Bombings: New Year's Eve

I had to leave early on Sunday to fly to Bangkok for one night before heading back to Singapore. Jenny and Paul were flying to Bangkok later that day to meet and celebrate New Year's eve. Our hotel was near Khoasan road and the streets were packed. After walking around for a while I returned to khaosan road where there was a stage set up for the countdown to the new year. Shortly after the hosts came on stage and told everyone to go check the news and go back to their hotels. Right after that they shut down the stage and started taking it down. Many of the celebrations were canceled due to the bombings that night and there were two waves. One early in the night and one later on just before midnight. Luckily no bombs were set of near us and we were fine. There were a lot of police and military out. shortly after midnight they started walking down the streets shutting everything down. By 12:30pm everything was closed and not letting anyone else in so we went back to the hotel. I woke up early to catch my flight back to Singapore.

You can view more of my pictures here.