loveliness.

Tag: travel

• floating village

  Posted at 7:00 am by jasminedesirees, on August 5, 2014

  There are two floating villages near Siem Reap. If you have the opportunity to go to one, go to Kompong Phluk. The other village is closer to Siem Reap, but it is not an authentic floating village, it’s more there for tourists to visit.

  
  
  

  Kompong Phluk is different. It’s a real village, where people live all year round. For part of the year, during the rainy season, it’s only accessible by boat.

  It was really neat to see how people lived there. They have no electricity, and they are dependent on the river for their way of life, many of the people who live here are fishermen by trade. Our guide was telling us that the really rich people in the village are the ones who live in the tall houses, and some of them even have generators.

  
  
  

  The poorer families in the village just live in their boats, the entire family lives and sleeps there.

  We went all the way down the Tonle Sap river in our boat, checking out the village, there are homes on both sides, and the school. There is also a small health clinic.

  At the end of the river, you come out onto the Tonle Sap Lake. It is completely massive, I’ve never seen a lake that big, you can’t see land across it so it feels like the ocean on a very calm day.

  
  
  

  Also, because of the time of year when we were there, the water was a deep brown colour, due to the sediment that runs down from the mountains during the rainy season, so it didn’t even look like water at all, it kind of looked like the ground. It was pretty cool.

  
  
  
  

  Also, during the height of the rainy season, the mangrove forests nearby flood with water, and you can take a small canoe for a twisting, turning cruise through the trees.

  If you get the chance to visit Kompong Phluk, I’d definitely recommend it. It’s so different from our way of life, and gives important perspective. The people there get by with so little, and they are happy.

  
  

  Many of us have way more than we need, and still don’t feel like we have enough. We can definitely learn something from the people of Kompong Phluk.

  
  

  Posted in Cambodia, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged Cambodia, floating village, siem reap, travel

• ta prohm

  Posted at 7:00 am by jasminedesirees, on July 31, 2014

  My favourite temple out of all of the ones we saw at Angkor was Ta Prohm (and we saw a lot). Many of the temples at Angkor looked like Ta Prohm when it was rediscovered, and massive restoration was done to the temples to get them back to as close as possible to how they were originally, and to make it safe for people to visit them.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Ta Prohm was not restored the same way, it was left as it was found to give people an idea of what the other temples had looked like after so many years of neglect, when the jungle grew around and through the temples because nobody was there to stop it.

  

  

  

  

  

  Some parts of Ta Prohm have been minimally restored, in order to make it safe for people to come in and visit, but mostly it’s just as it was found.

  It is so, so gorgeous in there. It’s so green and peaceful, and you feel like you are discovering an ancient civilization. It’s very, very serene, and so beautiful.

  

  

  

  

  It even manages to maintain that serenity when there are bus loads of tourists coming in to see it. Ideally, everyone would get to see it with as few other people as possible, but it doesn’t alway work out that way.

  

  

  

  

  

  

   

  

  The best tip I can give for this, is to go first thing in the morning, when everyone else is at Angkor Wat, and then go back and visit Angkor Wat when everyone else has moved on to other temples.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  I truly loved the time I spent here, seeing the massive trees growing up through the piles of rubble, and everything is this amazing shade of green. It’s a very special place, and I’m so glad I was able to see it first hand.

  

  

  

  Posted in Cambodia, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged angkor, Cambodia, ta prohm, temples, tomb raider, travel

• angkor bayon

  Posted at 7:00 am by jasminedesirees, on July 29, 2014

  The second temple we visited at Angkor was Bayon. It’s a few minutes away from Angkor Wat by tuk-tuk, or a bit longer for those brave souls among us who chose to ride a bike all the way from Siem Reap, and then in between all the temples in the blazing hot sun (you are better men than I).

  
  
  
  

  Bayon is quite stunning, when you pull up and see it, it kind of takes your breath away. It’s made out of dark grey stone with the hundreds of jagged faces cut into it, and against the blue sky it looks very ominous.

  
  
  
  
  

  There are tons of faces carved into Bayon, it reminded me of Olmec from Legends of the Hidden Temple (90’s Nickelodeon kids? Anyone? No?), and they are all different. Bayon is a lot smaller than Angkor Wat, but there are lots of random pathways and sets of stairs, so there is lots to explore.
  
  
  
  
  
  

  We only had one day at Angkor, so we had to see as much as we could. I ended up getting physically dragged out of Bayon so we could move along to the next temple, but I probably would have spent the whole day in there if I could’ve.

  
  
  

  Posted in Cambodia, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged angkor thom, angkor wat, Cambodia, history, temples, travel

• land mines

  Posted at 5:52 am by jasminedesirees, on July 28, 2014

  While we were in Siem Reap, we made a trip out to visit the Cambodian Landmine Museum. It was about an hour away by tuk-tuk, but the ride itself was worth the cost (about $10USD).

  We drove through small towns and villages, and by farms and roadside stands, and I really felt like we got to see a part of the real country of Cambodia, outside of the bustle of Phnom Penh and the tourists in Siem Reap.

  
  

  The museum itself isn’t huge, it will only take you 35-40 minutes to go through the whole thing, depending on how closely you read all of the information there, but it’s really interesting.

  It all started with a man named Aki Ra, who was a child soldier for the Khmer Rouge. As a child, he planed thousands of landmines around Cambodia. He eventually switched sides, and fought for the Vietnamese allies that were fighting against the Khmer Rouge.

  
  
  

  Once the war was over, he saw the destruction that landmines had caused during the war, and were continuing to cause, and began finding and dismantling land mines, by himself, using just a stick and his knowledge gained from years working with all different kinds of landmines.

  He kept all of the land mines he dismantled. People began to come see his work to learn more about landmines, and the museum was born. It’s been in a few locations, it used to be pretty close to Angkor Wat, but has since moved.

  
  
  
  

  In addition to his work with landmines, Aki Ra and his wife also opened a school for children. They began taking in and educating children who were affected by landmines. All of the proceeds from the museum go towards the school.

  As a visitor you aren’t able to visit the school, since it is disruptive to the children, but you can donate goods such as toothpaste, shampoo, shoes, etc to the school for the children when you visit, just check the wish list on the museum website so you can see what they are most in need of.

  
  

  It was pretty crazy to find out that there are still an estimated 3 million landmines in Cambodia today.  I would definitely recommend visiting if you have time while you’re in Siem Reap, you will get a much greater understanding of the war and the genocide in Cambodia.

  You can learn more about Aki Ra and the landline museum here.

  

  Posted in Cambodia, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged Aki Ra, Cambodia, khmer rouge, land mines, siem reap, travel, vietnam war

• infinity

  Posted at 4:31 am by jasminedesirees, on July 24, 2014

  My view today, relaxing before three straight days of diving.

  

  Life is better underwater.

  Posted in Indonesia, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged Flores, Indonesia, Labuan Bajo, scuba, travel

• angkor wat

  Posted at 7:00 am by jasminedesirees, on July 23, 2014

  A lot of the places we’ve seen on our trip so far have been amazing, but one of the ones I was was looking forward to the most was Angkor Wat, mostly because it’s somewhere I never thought I’d be able to go.

  The first time I ever heard of Angkor Wat, I was sixteen, in my social studies class. I don’t even remember what the context was, or why we were talking about it, but I was instantly interested.

  I remember hoping that one day I would make it there, but at the same time, I figured it was very unlikely, since I was just a kid from a small town in Saskatchewan. The world seemed infinite to me then, and I didn’t even know anybody that knew anyone who had ever been to Cambodia.

  
  

  The next summer, I found a book called First Born by Doris Mortmain at my grandma’s house. It was completely ridiculous, but it is still one of my favourite books ever. In one scene, the author describes the two characters having a picnic at a beautiful ruined temple in the middle of the jungle in Cambodia. The book takes places in the 1960’s and 1970’s and she never names the place outright, but I knew it was Angkor Wat, and it made me want to visit even more.

  I always thought Angkor Wat was beautiful, but I was also fascinated with the history, it was built a thousand years ago, and was all but forgotten about (by the outside world, locals knew about it, obviously) until Cambodia was colonized by the French in the 1800’s. I always wondered what the first people who stumbled upon it were thinking, one minute they are chopping through jungle trees, the next minute they are faced with this enormous, amazing structure that nobody knew was there.

  
  
  
  

  It’s certainly not undiscovered anymore, millions of people visit Angkor each year. It’s only been reopened to tourists since the early 90’s, and the number of visitors has been increasing ever since, but even though it no longer feels like a forgotten place, it’s still pretty amazing.

  
  
  

  We got up early to visit Angkor Wat at sunrise, I’d read somewhere that if you get there super early, it’s quiet and you can even get some of the temples to yourself sometimes. That was not my experience at all, there were at least a few thousand people there when we got there at 5:30 in the morning.

  I’ve seen amazing pictures of Angkor Wat at sunrise, so if you have the opportunity to go, definitely do it, unfortunately for us, it was really grey the day we went, and we couldn’t see the sky at all behind the clouds.
  
  
  
  

  Even though it was pretty busy when we got there, Angkor Wat is pretty massive and there are lots of different areas to explore, so by the time we made it to the courtyard at the very back, there were hardly any other people around. It was really peaceful there, and we just saw on a ledge and hung out for a bit, while I tried to convince myself that I was actually really there.
  
  
  
  

  Angkor Wat wasn’t even my favourite out of all the Angkor temples (I would move into Ta Prohm if I could) but being there just reminded me that if you really want something, even if it takes a very long time, you can eventually make it happen.

  
  
  
  

  One tip if you are visiting Angkor, especially if you are only going to be there for one day, go to the ticket office around 5pm, right before it closes, the night before the day you are going and buy your ticket.

  The ticket will get you into the temples for the rest of that day, so you can check out sunrise, there are a few good spots to watch it, and it is good for all day the next day, so you can get up early and get started without having to wait in line for a ticket in the morning.

  
  

  Posted in Cambodia, travel | 7 Comments | Tagged angkor, angkor wat, Cambodia, history, siem reap, travel

• tiger

  Posted at 7:14 am by jasminedesirees, on July 22, 2014

  I’ve put off writing this post for awhile, just because I’m still not really sure how I feel about it. One of the very popular things for tourists to do in Chiang Mai is visit the Tiger Kingdom, a place where you can see, take pictures of, and even interact with tigers.

  You can choose which group of tigers you’d like to see, they have baby ones, teenagers, and full grown adults, the price varies depending on which group you want to see.

  I’d had a few friends that did it, so I kind of new what to expect, and I already knew I didn’t want to interact with the big ones. Tigers are wild animals after all, and in order to have people in the cages with them, taking pictures and touching them, they drug them, to keep them sleepy and easy to handle. The whole idea of that just made me very sad.

  We opted to just see the baby ones, because they are too small to do any damage they aren’t drugged, and you get to go in and see them and play with them for about 15 minutes. It was a really neat experience, the babies are mostly running around playing with each other, and you try to get a picture if you can.

  I was sitting on the floor and one of them came and laid beside me, and he batted at my fingers and wrapped his paws around my leg. He chewed on me a little bit, but I like to think it was out of affection, and it didn’t hurt at all.

  After our time was up, we went and had a drink at the cafe on site, where you can watch people doing their interactions with the big tigers. The adult tigers were mostly just laying on the ground, or up on a pedestal sleeping, while groups of tourists laid on them, pretended to be biting them, or made growling faces beside them.

  It was kind of awful to watch, these big, powerful, beautiful animals spending hours out of the day drugged to sleep so that tourists could pay to lay on top of them.

  It seemed very disrespectful, and I remember thinking that if one of the tigers did wake up and bite someone, it would serve everybody right. Not that I wanted anybody to get hurt, but if you don’t want to get bit, maybe don’t lay on top of a sleeping tiger.

  So even though playing with the baby tigers was really neat, I still wouldn’t go back, and I kind of wish I hadn’t gone at all.
  

  

  

  Posted in Thailand, travel | 2 Comments | Tagged chiang mai, Thailand, tiger, travel

• koh samui

  Posted at 7:42 am by jasminedesirees, on July 21, 2014

  Not much to report from Koh Samui, we were staying on the East side of the island, on Chaweng beach, and we pretty much settled into our beach chairs and didn’t move for three days.

  Chaweng beach was so gorgeous, the ocean was crystal clear, and the beaches were white sand. We had amazing weather (it was so hot the polish was melting off my toenails) so we weren’t feeling very ambitious to do anything that didn’t involve the water.

  
  

  We went stand up paddle boarding one day, which is one of my favourite things to do, they have hover crafts and jet skis that you can rent, and there is an inflatable obstacle course with trampolines, rock walls and sea-saws that is pretty fun whether you’re a kid or a grown up.

  Chaweng is the most popular beach on Koh Samui, so if you are coming here during the high season, December to February-ish, it would be pretty busy, and maybe somewhere you’d want to avoid. The whole island is beaches so you definitely have options, but because we were here in July, there were not many other people, and it was still really relaxing and peaceful.

  
  
  

  There are lots of fun things to do on Koh Samui itself, there is some really great shopping and restaurants, they have an English language movie theater which we checked out on a rainy Sunday night. It was three dollars per ticket for us to go see a movie on opening weekend, I’ll probably never be able to go to a movie in America again, just on principle.

  
  

  They also have tours to nearby islands, Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngan, both of which are supposed to be totally gorgeous. We absolutely meant to go, I swear, but our beach chairs were just. so. comfy.

  
  

  Koh Samui was probably the most expensive Thai island we visited but it was definitely one of my favorites. I’d visit again, anytime.

  

  Posted in beach, Thailand, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged beach, island, koh samui, Thailand, travel

• railay

  Posted at 7:16 am by jasminedesirees, on July 17, 2014

  We spent a few days in Krabi, near Ao Nang. It had a nice, long beach, lots of good restaurants, and shopping, and some fun bars, but unfortunately, it absolutely poured rain for most of the time we were there.

  We did get one nice day, and it completely made up for the others. We took a boat to Railay, about a 15 minute ride, and it was absolutely gorgeous there. The boats dropped us off on the west side of the island, but we were told to walk across the island to the other side, and then back across to a hidden beach on the southwest side, where there is a massive cave, and a lookout point.

  

  muddy path to the lagoon

  

  as close as I could get to the lagoon, you can just see the water mocking me for being a chicken

  It was not very hidden, as most of the people on the island find their way over the the cave beach eventually, but it’s definitely worth a visit. It isn’t huge though, so if you come on a day where it is really busy, come check it out, swim in the cave for awhile and then when you’re ready, go back to the main beach where you get dropped off, it is just as beautiful, and way less busy.

  The real story about our trip to Railay, is our struggle up to the viewpoint. I’d heard about it from a few people, and it’s mentioned in every description of Railay, so I figured it would be pretty easy to access, maybe up a set of stairs like the viewpoint in Phi Phi.

  It wasn’t.

  

  the start of the climb up to the viewpoint

  

  view from the top

  

  The viewpoint is just off the path to the cave beach, and it is a really intense climb. It is very steep, up a jagged rock face, with just a few areas of plateau where you can rest. There is a rope running up to the very top, wrapped around various tree trunks, but it is the same rope all the way up, and if anyone else is climbing (and it’s about 20 minutes to the top) and grabs the rope, it throws you off balance.

  Ordinarily, it would be a bit treacherous, but likely doable for anybody in even semi-decent physical shape, but when we visited it had been raining for 4 days straight, so on top of being steep, it was also very slippery.

  
  

  They actually rent mountain climbing equipment at little shops all over the island, which I obviously declined. Instead I wore flip flops and a backless Brandy Melville sundress, which was slightly annoying on the way up, but was actually a deathly nuisance on my way down, as it flared out whenever I moved so I couldn’t see where my feet were stepping.

  I ended up finishing the climb down in my underwear, with my dress tucked up into my bra. You’re welcome fellow climbers.

  
  

  
  

  

  The view from the viewpoint alone is worth the climb, but there is also a lagoon in the mountain crater at the top, although it is another, more dangerous climb to get there, it’s supposed to be gorgeous.

  Unfortunately, the rain that had turned the viewpoint climb into a sloppy mess had turned the lagoon climb into a suicide mission. We passed group after group of people who had tried it, but ended up turning back.

  
  
  

  Since I can never take anybody’s word for anything, we had to go too, and after slip sliding our way to the bottom of the first hill on hands and knees before we even reached the rocks to climb down, we realized that we weren’t going to make it.

  By the time we got to the bottom I was barefoot, and so muddy from head to toe that when we reached the cave beach, I just threw myself in, clothes and all. You can see my muddy little rat feet here, the rest of me was even worse.

  
  

  Posted in beach, Thailand, travel | 6 Comments | Tagged beach, island, railay, Thailand, travel

• koh lanta

  Posted at 3:36 am by jasminedesirees, on July 15, 2014

  The funny thing about Koh Lanta is that even though it was one of my favourite islands, it was so chill and relaxing that I took almost no photos the whole time we were there.

  It was super quiet, we maybe saw 10 other tourists the whole time were on the island, and our guest house was right on the ocean, so we had the whole place, and the pool to ourselves.

  
  
  

  We rented a moped because tuk-tuks were 200TBH each way, and you could rent a moped for an entire day for that much. I was a bit nervous since they drive on the opposite side of the road than we do, and also drivers there tend to be a bit erratic, passing each other constantly, even when other drivers are coming, so there are quite a few near misses.

  On our first night, we set off on our moped, looking for a restaurant on the southwest side of the island where we planned to eat dinner. Over an hour of cruising later, we realized we had hit a dead end. It was starting to get dark outside, and we were clearly lost, so we turned around and headed back the way we came. When we finally found a map on the side of the road, we realized we’d taken a wrong turn, and had ended up on the complete opposite side of the island from the restaurant we were looking for.

  
  
  

  Other than that little incident, it was pretty much smooth sailing. Quite a few of the restaurants on the island were closed because we were there during the low season, but the island was so gorgeous that we weren’t too upset.

  
  

  We did visit the national park at the very southern tip of the island, which was crazy-gorgeous, with monkeys and monitor lizards running around everywhere, a lighthouse, and a nature hike that takes about two hours to complete.

  
  
  

  One tip if you are going to visit Koh Lanta, we liked being there in the low season because it was cheaper, and it was nice to just relax after a few days of partying in Phi Phi, but the one downside was that some of the islands near Koh Lanta are designated as being part of the national marine park, and they aren’t open during the low season in order to give the reefs time to recuperate.

  
  
  

  There are lots of diving, snorkeling and tour trips to the other islands advertised everywhere, but you can’t go during the low season, so keep that in mind when you’re planning your trip.

  
  

  Posted in beach, Thailand, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged beach, koh lanta, monkeys, Thailand, travel

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