random pix: lavatopy directions, a huge butt & a Mexican Burrito

 

I wonder, where does the inventory go when it's closing time...

Why wouldn't you want a giant ass on the hood of your car?

This, my friends, is a Mexican Burrito. It is scrambled eggs, beef, Tabasco sauce and cilantro on top of Doritos.

leg #2: travel China, Haikou

Our first day at the resort in Haikou it rained, again, so we were basically stuck indoors. We determined, after a thorough investigation of the resort, that we were two of maybe ten guests. We later found out that the whole place was basically just dead during the week; on the weekend there were a lot more people around, mostly Chinese, and more services/amenities were available. We preferred the dead times.

No one that worked there really spoke English, there was one concierge (Bruce), one front desk agent (Linda) and two servers (Doris and Jack) in the whole place with a basic grasp of the language. Jack cracked us up, the first time we met him, he said, "Hey!" as a greeting. It took a second to register that he had spoken English and said something really informal; when it dawned on us, we looked at each other and started laughing. Whomever had taught Jack English only taught him really casual language, so everything he said was completely inappropriate for a staff member at a five star resort, but really fun for us.

The place was pretty nice though, it had a private beach, hot springs and a huge spa, including pools with the fish that eat the dead skin off your body. I did the fish thing in Cambodia, but you can only do your feet there, not your whole body (which was very cool as long as there wasn't really anyone else in that pool).

These were some of the hot springs. I was a bit disappointed, I was expecting something natural looking, like pools carved into the rocks where the water came from. Not so much here though. The pools were all like regular pools, tiled and whatnot, with the hot spring water piped in; they just looked dirtier then regular pools.

The trappings of a great day: beach, beer and treasure.

We signed up for a three day spa package at the resort. We never did figure out if they thought we were dating or what, but they turned our package into a couples' thing, so all of our services were tandem, same room, same time. It was very romantic, lol.

The spa gave us these sweet, silk pjs to wear. That were huge. So we added pillows and wandered around sumo wrestling in them. The beauty of having a resort to yourself.

We mocked this card in our room for the disposable underwear, but we actually ended up wearing some after each spa service. They were ridiculous.

And yeah, these were in our room too. I think there miiiight be a typo.

We hired a driver for the day one day and checked out some local attractions. The hotel had a big list of things to see and do nearby, so we hit a volcanic geopark, a temple and an old shopping street. A lot of the other stuff on the list was way to expensive for what it was. Hainan is basically just known for its beaches and the hot springs.

Our driver that day was AWESOME. He didn't really speak English, but between his English and my Chinese we were fine.

Fist pumping to Chinese techno, ha!

view from on top of a volcano

inside the volcano

This is our driver riding a giant penis. WHY is there a giant penis at the geopark where many tourist go with their families? Who knows, it's China.

random pix: camouflage, fortune telling & Obama in Shanghai

Why do all their clothes blend in to the walls?

You put a one kwai coin into this thing, choose your zodiac sign and it spits you out a Chinese fortune pellet. What this has to do with QQ (Chinese AIM), I'll never know. Nor why there was one on every table at a coffee shop.

Not sure if kids or monks put the little model city on this tree...

IXAT, duh.

Obama's got a restaurant in Shanghai???

random pix: hk visa trip

This was on my hotel bed... is it necessary to let me know the pillow is clean?!?!

Tallest bar in the world, 118th floor. Your ears pop in the elevator. Twice.

Hong Kong taxi drivers can open and close the back doors from the front seat with a button. Sweet.

World's coolest car park.

From the bus in Shenzhen, 5th icon down... no puking?

Pakse/Vientiane (days 13-14)

The next day was a traveling day. I was flying out of Vientiane, Laos the day after, and that was a solid 12ish hours away. We took a three hour bus to Pakse, Laos and hung out there for a about five hours before catching the next bus to Vientiane. Pakse really didn't have a whole lot going for it. We mostly aimlessly wandered with another guy we had seen around Don Det that was also on our bus.

The gold thing on the mountain is a crazy huge Buddha.

Wild boar!

Our bus from Pakse to Vientiane was a sleeper bus with double beds that we rode overnight. Each bed had two "seats", so if you were traveling alone (like our friend), you were going to end up sleeping in the same bed as a stranger. Like all the buses, the roads and drivers were completely nuts and unsafe, so if we hadn't had my sleeping pills it would have been a really long night.

We arrived in Vientiane at 7am and went to our hotel to take a nap before showering and sending me off on my 2pm flight. We got to the airport an hour early and were told my flight was delayed at least six hours, so we had some time to play in Vientiane. We got ridiculously massages, wandered around the riverfront market and had an amazing Italian dinner before I left. All said and done my flight was delayed nine hours, and it made for a great last day.

Battambang (day 4)

The next day, my Songyuan friend, my friend from America and I got up early and caught a bus to Battambang, Cambodia. It cost six USD and took about three or four hours. A shuttle picked us up from our hostels to take us to the bus and we met a really cool American girl that had been teaching English in Busan, South Korea and doing some post contract traveling. She hung out with us at all the bus stops and such and ended up traveling with us for a few days.

We got to Battambang mid afternoon, so we decided to do something relatively quick and easy. Also, as soon as we got there, I wasn't feeling too hot, so crazy things weren't on my agenda. We ended up taking a tuk tuk to ride the bamboo railroad. We weren't quite sure what to expect from the railroad, Cambodians had described it to as something that was made of bamboo and could rev like a motorbike but ride along train tracks.

Once we got there, it made sense. There used to basically be only one set of train tracks in Cambodia, so if you were going one way on the tracks and suddenly encountered someone going to opposite direction, basically about to hit you head on, you were SOL. And so came the birth of the bamboo railroad. These bamboo platforms with small motors serve as the railroad "cars"; they're really easy to dismantle and remove (think, two minutes), should an obstacle (or another "car") appear ahead on the tracks.

As a tourist, the bamboo railroad takes you on a really shaky 30 to 45 minute ride down the tracks to a small village where they make bricks and try to sell you stuff. Then it brings you back; viola, end of trip.

brick making area

All the jostling proved to be my downfall for the afternoon; I got off, walked about 20 feet and proceeded to puke my guts out. With like 20 Cambodians as an audience. I was feeling moderately better afterwards, so we went back to the hostel and then wandered around town. We checked out the river and watched some of the evening exercise classes.

Sliiiiight European influence.

From first impressions, we really liked Battambang. It didn't rely on tourism to survive like Siem Reap. It had its own life and culture, and the locals were fine with tourists coming in, but they only paid so much attention to us (which was nice).

That evening, I stayed in, because I was basically dying, and enjoyed the wonders of English speaking television (Grey's Anatomy and chick flicks only for some reason). I was quite happy to be comfortable in a pretty nice hotel for my bout of food poisoning. If I was destined to get it at some point, that was the best possible time. As we discovered the next night, the city shuts down quite early, so I really didn't miss much.

Siem Reap (days 1-2)

Between taxi rides, flights, layovers and whatnot, it took me about 12 hours to get from Changchun, China to Siem Reap, Cambodia. When I arrived, I got my visa at the airport, it took literally about three minutes. The airport itself was incredibly small and tropical looking and kind of adorable. My hostel picked me up there and we took a 20 to 30 minute tuk tuk ride back so I could drop off my stuff and meet my friend from Songyuan.

This is a tuk tuk (and kind of a nice one).

I was slightly exhausted from all the traveling, so we didn't do too much the first night. We grabbed dinner and a few beers, checked out the night market and that was about it. We wanted to rest up in preparation for a temple filled day the following day!

The next day we hired a tuk tuk for the day for 12 riel and set out to see some temples. My friend had already spent three days at the temples with her boyfriend and his mom but was happy to repeat some of them. She picked the best few and we ended up hitting three of them. To see the temples, you have to purchase a ticket for 20 USD, but it's good all day for all of the temples; for 40 USD you can purchase a three day pass.

I absolutely fell in love with the temples in Cambodia. In China, I kind of feel like if you've seen one temple, you've seen them all. They're really similar. They're all either new or newly restored. Sure they're cool, but they can't even compare as far as I'm concerned. In Cambodia, each seemed to have its own "personality" if you will. Even the ones that were being restored still felt old, like a part of ancient culture. They kind of feel like you're in a movie, like Tomb Raider or Jurassic Park, or a video game. A lot of the pagodas and such are newer, like in China, but still distinctly different. Stay tuned for photographic proof.

First we went to Angkor Wat. Someone had said it was one of the Seven Wonders of the World, which then brought up a big conversation about what they were (apparently it's not so set in stone). Either way, Angor Wat was amazing. It's the most popular temple in Cambodia and the largest Khmer temple in the world.

My friend had been with a tour guide when she had gone the first time, so she had some great history and trivia for me that I had wanted to include here, but that information has long since left my brain. You'll have to be content with pictures.

 

After exploring the inside of Angkor Wat and all of the surrounding buildings (mostly libraries), we saw a little road wandering off to the side. Nobody was going down it, so naturally we decided to explore (plus, as usual, I had to pee, and we hadn't encountered a WC yet).

As we were walking down the road a monk came up behind us. He didn't speak English of course, but he motioned for us to follow him. We didn't know where the road was going anyway, so we did. He ended up taking us to a small, hidden side temple on a lake. There was absolutely nobody there, it was very cool!