Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand
January 24 - February 8, 2024
Mike and Judy Henderson
In this installment we take the Vespa tour and then head to Cambodia and Thailand.
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1/30/2024 (Tuesday, continued) In the last installment of our trip, I covered the major part of Sunday, but the webpage was getting too large to cover the Vespa tour. So let's take off now.
Vespa (Italian for "wasp") is the name of an Italian company that makes a scooter of the same name. Tauck has contracted with Vespa Adventures for them to give us a tour of Saigon on the back of a Vespa. The tour involves traveling to three local restaurants for a "progressive dinner". They offered a chance to go to a bar (Carmen Bar) for dancing after the dinner, but we were all ready for bed by then, so no one took them up on the offer.
Vespa Adventures was founded in 2007 by Steve and Kim Mueller. You can see their story here.
Here they are, the Vespas lined up in front of the hotel. Only some are red.
We each rode on the back of the Vespa. Here I am.
And here's Judy.
I didn't take any pictures on the ride to the first restaurant. But I don't know if a still picture would have conveyed the way the traffic flows. Most of the vehicles are scooters and small motorcycles, and they just flow on the road, a little like a school of fish. If someone pulled out in front of the scooter, he just slowed down and then picked up the speed once things sorted themselves out. Floating like a fish helped us visualize the experience, and the real feeling of flowing with the traffic and being "in the moment". Being inches away from a car, bus or truck seemed less intimidating.
Our first stop was to have a drink at a rooftop bar on the fifteenth story. It was about 2km from the hotel. We were definitely more relaxed after that.
We had great views of some of the city at night.
Here we are on the rooftop with Glenn and Machiko.
Then we went back downstairs and took off to an outdoor restaurant about 3km away.
Judy was able to take this picture as we were heading to the restaurant. But a still image cannot convey the dynamic activity of Saigon scooter traffic. You can see a glimpse of oncoming scooter traffic on our left, as well.
Another street picture. Waiting at a red light.
I don't remember all the food, but I do remember that the food was good. There was a rice noodle dish that I especially liked.
Some of the rest of our group at the restaurant.
We saddled up again and went to a third restaurant that served those delicious Vietnamese fried spring rolls (cha giò) and another dish that I had never seen before, but which I think was bánh xèo. The cha giò were very good, just like I remember.
On the way to the third restaurant, Judy got a picture of man and his dog on a motorbike. The pooch seemed to be enjoying the ride.
Here's some of our group at the third dinner.
Judy and Jean. You can see some of the food in this picture. You put a cha giò in a lettuce leaf, add some mint, wrap the lettuce leaf around the cha giò, dip the end in nuoc mam (also called nuoc cham) and enjoy. I've never found good nuoc mam in the US.
The guides offered to take people dancing at the Carmen Bar, but we all decided to go back to the hotel. The ride back was a bit over 2km, but it seemed longer, and we were tired. They may not have gone the most direct way.
By now, I was not endeared to riding on the back of a Vespa. It's a rough ride and being on the back, you have to hang on to something or balance yourself without holding on. I really felt "beat up" on the ride back to the hotel, and was glad when we arrived.
But it was interesting to experience how they maneuvered through the crazy Saigon traffic.
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1/31/2024 (Wednesday) We fly to Siem Reap today, and visit Angkor Wat. We left the hotel about 8:45am for Tân Son Nhât airport. It's a large airport and it was busy. There was a long line to clear passport control.
Machiko and Glenn waiting in line.
We made it through passport control, customs and security with time to spare and boarded the aircraft, an Airbus A-320. The flight to Siem Reap was uneventful.
Our Cambodian tour guide, Tra, was waiting for us.
The Siem Reap-Angkor International airport was not very busy. It has a large terminal building and a lot of land, but not much traffic. It was financed, and is now operated, by China and Chinese companies. I don't know if it is part of China's Belt and Road Initiative.
We boarded the bus for Angkor Wat. Our second local tour guide, Sam, introduced himself during the ride.
Our first view of the temple complex. Angkor Wat is just a part of the overall complex.
It was originally built as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu in the 12th Century but was converted to a Buddhist temple at the end of that century.
This is a statue of Mucalinda, the seven headed snake that protected Buddha after his enlightenment.
We walked across a causeway toward the wall structure that surrounds the complex.
There are monkeys living in the temple.
A closer view of the entrance structure. We entered through the doorway.
As we walked through the structure, I took a picture down one hall. It almost looks like a mirror.
Then we were on a wide path to Angkor Wat, itself.
Two monks walking towards us.
A view of Angkor Wat and the reflecting pond.
And just to prove we were there...
Tauck had a photographer take this picture of the group.
A view down the arcade as we entered the wat.
A reservoir in the wat.
A building just outside the main part of the wat.
The stairs are very steep and not in good condition. The stairs were used to buttress the towers, and that's why they often have stairs on all the open sides.
A courtyard.
The sun is starting to set.
Another repeating doorway.
We went back Siem Reap and checked into the Raffles Hotel. It's a nice hotel, with a few issues.
We had dinner in the hotel and were entertained by dancers between courses. The stage is in the background of this picture.
The dancers came to each of us and tied a colored string on our wrist to bring us good fortune.
And Jean.
They began their dance.
There is a lot of symbolism in the position of the dancer - the position of the arms, the fingers, the head, even the feet. Of course, we don't know this symbolism. Dancers are trained from early childhood to be able to bend their fingers backward.
This picture is from the peacock dance.
Another peacock dancer.
A different dance.
After dinner, it was to bed and the end of another day.
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2/1/2024 (Thursday) We visit two temples today, Ta Prohm and Angkor Thom.
After breakfast, we departed the hotel at 7:30am for the drive to Ta Prohm. After the temples were abandoned, trees took root in-between the stones. Today there are large trees still growing amid the temple. Ta Prohm is a Buddhist temple. It was built in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. It was abandoned in the 15th century.
It was featured in the 2001 film "Laura Croft: Tomb Raider" staring Angelina Jolie.
Here's the front view of the temple.
We entered at the side.
There's a courtyard behind this part of the temple.
The roots of the tree.
Next to the temple, we noticed a young guy climbing a tree.
A closer view. No belt, no spiked boots, just grab hold of the tree and push with your feet. The OSHA inspector would have a fit.
He made it to the top.
This is how high he is.
We went through another part of the temple, and found this courtyard.
Going further into the temple, we saw several more trees growing in the temple.
In one of the nearby trees, there was a "beehive" in the form of comb hanging from a tree. It's mostly likely the giant honeybee (Apis dorsata) of SE Asia.
A few more trees.
A stone carving of the Buddha
Finally, a courtyard with several trees. This temple had a much more intimate atmosphere.
We left Ta Prohm and went to Angkor Thom.
Angkor Thom was founded in the 12th century as the capital city of the Khmer Empire. It was active for many years but was abandoned sometime prior to 1609 when it was visited by western travelers. It is a Buddhist site.
Our visit to Angkor Thom was brief, which was probably good because we were getting OD'ed on temples.
Here's the entrance to the temple site.
The face of Buddha is in the entrance structure.
There's a road around the main part of the temple complex, which includes the Bayon temple, and we only stopped for a short while to take a picture of the temple. Unfortunately for photography, the sun was behind the temple which made it difficult to get a good photograph. The pictures I took were not good, so here's a picture from the web - about the same view we had.
From here we went to a "Killing Fields" museum. I have not read much about the history of Cambodia, and why so many people were killed, so I can't offer much here.
The killings were carried out by the Communist Party of Kampuchea during the time the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia.
Our guide, talking to us about the museum and the time of the Killing Fields. I didn't take any pictures of the exhibits there. Just didn't seem appropriate.
A young monk (a novice) at the site.
Next we went to a restaurant for lunch. The schedule called for a visit to a school and to the Tonlé Sap Lake, but Judy, Jean and I, along with Everett and Julie, decided to go back to the hotel.
Jeff hired two tuk-tuks to take us back while the rest of the tour group continued on the bus.
The tuk-tuks are interesting. They're a trailer attached to the back of a motorcycle, which is different from the standard three wheel vehicle that most people associate with the word "tuk-tuk". I searched to see if these vehicles had a different name and the only word I found was "auto-rickshaw".
We spent a quiet afternoon at the hotel.
People who went to the school in the afternoon reported that it was a very good visit and the kids really appreciated the gifts the group had donated. Here's a picture of the kids. It was taken against a bright background which affects the quality.
Note that all the kids are barefoot.
Even though we didn't go to the Tonlé Sap Lake, I'll include some information about it, and some pictures taken from the web. It's the largest fresh water lake in southeast Asia, and is part of the Mekong River system.
During the dry season, the average depth of the lake is one meter - so you could wade across most of the lake. During the wet season, it gets quite a bit higher. Those living on the lake have to accommodate this change over the seasons.
Here are a few pictures. I don't know if the group saw these specific sights.
We had dinner and then that was the end of our day. Tomorrow is a travel day as we go to Chiang Mai.
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2/2/2024 (Friday) We have to fly to Bangkok and then change planes for the flight to Chiang Mai.
We departed the hotel at 9am for the drive to the Siem Riep airport. The airport is medium sized, but not very busy. I think they're hoping that tourism will increase for Angkor Wat.
Here's the outside of the terminal.
There were not many people checking in - our group made up the majority of people at check-in.
There were a grand total of three airplanes at the airport.
Our plane arrived, an Airbus 320, and our flight to Bangkok was uneventful.
We cleared customs and passport control in Bangkok, and then boarded our flight to Chiang Mai.
We were met by our local tour guides, Sam (left) and Tra (right).
We boarded the bus, took a short bus tour around historic Chiang Mai, and then headed to the Four Seasons Resort. The resort is about 22km north of the airport.
It's a lovely resort, but it's difficult to understand why they built it where they did - there's not much else in the area. I suppose the resort is a "destination" in and of itself.
We were greeted by a nice young lady who gave us an orientation to the resort.
Our room was superb - large and well appointed. Beyond that, we learned that they serviced the room very carefully. If we used anything, it was replaced. Overall, the service throughout the hotel was exceptional.
We were on the second floor, and there was a deck off our room. Jean had the room next door and we could wave to her if she was on her deck.
We had a buffet dinner that evening.
Some dancers came and entertained us with several dances. Tauck runs this tour every few days, so the hotel was well experienced in handling a Tauck group. The buffet dinner is standard on the first night for each Tauck group. After that, we ate à la carte in the restaurants.
That was the end of a travel day.
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2/3/2024 (Saturday) We go to the Kanta Elephant Sanctuary and the Mae Rim Hill Tribe Village today.
On our way to breakfast we saw this flower display. The resort has (at least) one person who specializes in creating these displays. She's expert at creating these designs, which are throughout the grounds and are replaced every day, in new patterns.
After breakfast we gathered at 8:45am to meet the water buffalos that live at the resort. Here's Judy with the water buffalos, one is albino and the other is the normal color.
Jean with the albino.
And the two of us with the buffalos
We left the hotel and went to the Kanta Elephant Sanctuary.
I have a LOT of pictures of this visit, and Tauck hired a professional photographer who took pictures of us. His pictures were made available to us on the web and I downloaded all 1,254 of his pictures. I then curated those down to 171 pictures, mostly of Judy, Jean and me, and added them to the pictures I took. So, I could go on and on with pictures. But I won't submit you to that. I've chosen a few that I feel are representative.
The first thing they had us do was to change into some colorful clothes they provided. Fortunately we had hats that were somewhat unique, and that helped me when I selected photos from the ones the professional took.
One of the employees gave us an orientation about the elephants, their environment and habits, what was going to happen, and what we should do.
While we were listening to the talk, the photographer was taking pictures. Photographers never get their picture taken so I thought I'd give him some air-time:-)
After the orientation, we went down to the elephants. They're waiting at the fence because they know they're going to get fed. They've been through this a few times:-)
The employee told us some of the story of each elephant. All except the small elephant are female because they are better at interacting with the tourists. The baby elephant is a male and will eventually have to be removed from the tourist show.
Incidently, in Asian elephants, the females do not have tusks - and only some of the males have tusks. In African elephants, both genders have tusks.
The man in red squatting by the baby elephant is a mahout, a person who trains, rides, and works with the elephant.
Here are some pictures of us with the elephants. First Judy.
And Jean.
And even one of me.
We fed the elephants pieces of sugarcane, cut to about 1 foot lengths. Here's Judy feeding one of the elephants. Those are not tusks, but large incisors.
And Jean.
I was in the area.
The elephants took multiple pieces of sugarcane in their trunks. They weren't going to miss any:-)
A better view of the baby elephant. Note that he has tusks.
At first, Jean was a bit reluctant to get close to the elephants but here she is giving one a big hug.
The next activity was to make "meatballs" for the elephants from bananas (peel and all), commercial elephant pellets, and a few other things including vitamins. While I'm using the term "meatball", there's no meat in it. You shape the ball into something the size of an orange. It's all vegetable.
Jean making her elephant meatballs.
Then they showed us how to feed the meatballs to the elephants. First, you hold it up in the air in front of the elephant and the elephant raises her trunk, giving you access to her mouth. Next, you have to place the meatball fairly far into her mouth.
The elephants are very familiar with this feeding so they know exactly what to do.
The command "bone" tells them to raise their trunks.
Here's Judy feeding a meatball. She has just let go of the meatball and the elephant is starting to close her mouth. They don't try to bite anyone, and their teeth aren't in the front, anyway.
And Jean. I chose this picture because you can see the meatball in Jean's hand. I have another picture with her hand further into the elephant's mouth but you can't see the meatball.
Then the elephants were guided over to the pond where they were going to be washed. A few of our more adventurous guests joined the mahouts in the pond.
The elephants seemed to really enjoy it.
The baby elephant liked to squirt water at the guests. Jeff is getting the treatment.
The elephants laid down in the water, which made it easier for the people to scrub their skin.
The baby received some special attention.
After the bath, the elephants and their mahouts lined up to take a bow.
And our group in front of the elephants.
Judy got a "good-bye" kiss from the baby.
After this, we went back to the main part of the sanctuary and changed back into our street clothes. The Four Seasons had prepared a "box lunch" for each of us and it was way too much food. We left what we didn't open for the staff at the sanctuary.
When we left the sanctuary, we went to the Mae Rim Hill Tribe Village. A sign at the entrance to the village.
I found the place to be somewhat sad. The people have commercialized their culture. While I can understand why they did so - they need to support themselves - it comes across something like the freak shows of the late 1800's and early 1900's.
They charge an entrance fee. Then once you enter, there is a path that has souvenir shops on each side of the path. There's a woman in the dress of her culture, and our guide explained the culture.
Here's the entrance. The ticket office is to the right of the picture and the path is in the middle.
Here's a picture of one of the souvenir stands.
And some of the women working at the stands.
This little girl was 11 years old.
Then we got to what they call the "Long Neck" area. Here's a view into their area.
A mother and daughter. The daughter is six years old.
A closer look at the daughter. They said the daughter had the option of having the neck rings or not, but how can a six-year-old make an informed decision? The rings do not stretch the neck - they push the shoulders down.
Another young girl with rings.
A weaver with the rings. They told us she was 23.
Two young women.
Then we went to where the "Big Ear" had their shops. The pierce the ear lobe, and over time insert larger and larger devices into the pierced hole, stretching the skin of the ear lobe. I've seen men in the US with these types of stretched ear lobes.
Here's a woman with "ear rings" in her ears.
And showing the stretched ear lobe.
Then it was back to the hotel. We had a nice Thai dinner in the hotel restaurant.
That was the end of our day, and the end of this installment. We have one more day in Chiang Mai and then fly to Bangkok the next day.