The magnificent temples of Angkor (Jan. 16/09 - Siem Reap, Cambodia)

At the crack of 5am this morning, we were climbing into a tuk-tuk (covered seat for two pulled by a motorbike) and whipping along the streets of Siem Reap in the dark, heading for the one and only Angkor Wat in time for sunrise. It was still pitch black when we were picking our way across the stone causeway at the temple's western entrance, which spans the massive moat surrounding the square complex. Along with a couple hundred other people, we picked a spot on the edge of the pond facing the temple and watched as the pink sky defined the intricate towers and the sprawling walls before us. The silhouette reflected in the water of the pond dotted with pink lillies and lily pads; it was such a beautiful sight.




Once it was light enough, we set out to explore the temple itself. Built in the mid 12th century near the end of the monument building period at Angkor (about 870 to 1220 AD), King Suryavarman II constructed Angkor Wat as a dedication to the Hindu god, Vishnu. It served as the state temple and is considered to be the largest religious structure in the world (in addition to being one of the Ancient Wonders of the World!). The complex was built to symbolize the shape of the religious universe, with the central towers symbolizing the mythical Mt. Meru, the inner courtyards symbolizing the continents, and the perimeter moat symbolizing the oceans. A long stone causeway leads up to the temple from the west, flanked by square ponds on each side. Inside the temple's walls, corridors encircle the towers on the outside and inside of the inner courtyard, and literally every wall surface is engraved with symbolic carvings. It reminded us a little of exploring the temples in Egypt - the structures were massive, ancient, and elaborately decorated. We wandered the courtyards and the corridors, admiring the detail in the engravings and trying to recognize the meaning based on what we remembered from the museum yesterday. Stone Buddah statues were placed here and there in the hallways, and some had been draped with gold cloth and surrounded by decorations and offerings. Monks would offer us burning incense to place at its feet, blessing our families as we did. Then he asked for money, of course. What else is new?! A strange warm mist hung in the air outside as the sun heated up the day, and we stepped back to admire the temple in the sunshine before walking back to the entrance to find Mr. Khen.



Several kilometers north of Angkor Wat is the ancient royal city of Angkor Thom, which was the last capital of the Angkorian Empire, built in the late 12th to early 13th centuries when the capital was moved from Angkor Wat. About 12km of stone walls enclose the city, which includes numerous large and small temples and other structures of various ages. The Bayon temple is the most elaborate, and it was our first stop. The king that built it wanted to always keep an eye on his people, so he adorned most of the 50+ towers with large carved faces that look all four directions and probably measure 5 or 6 feet across. We tried to avoid the throngs of tourists that swarmed the temple now that it was late enough for the masses to be out and about. Much of this temple had crumbled, and piles of broken columns and severely leaning walls were strewn everywhere. Reconstruction work was underway here and at many other temples as efforts are made to stabilize the remaining structures and locally restore the decorations that existed before a thousand years of erosion wiped them away.



Tourists lined up outside to ride elephants around the temples, but after gaining such an appreciation for them in Africa, we couldn't help but feel bad for the poor things. Beyond Bayon, the grounds were shaded by a nice open, leafy forest. Little temples were spread all over the place, and we made a valiant effort to visit and understand each of them. On one side of the main road through Angkor Thom, the Terrace of the Elephants extended 300m, where large 3D elephants were carved head to tail along its length. By the time we finished our loop of the complex, we had visited multiple giant gold Buddah statues, climbed to the top of multi-storey pyramids with very steep stairways, and politely fended off dozens of cute little Khmer kids doing their best to sell postcards and bracelets to tourists amongst the temples. They cracked us up, actually, because as soon as they saw our flags or asked where we were from, they always said "Ahhh, Canada - capital Ottawa! Stephen Harper prime minister, two official languages!" One kid was hilarious, he added "population 34 million... minus two!" They must all study the fact sheet on first world countries because we probably heard that whole schpiel over a dozen times today! Speaking of Canadians, we were surprised to come across a lot of them today - even a couple from Nelson and a family from Revelstoke.

A few smaller temples were scattered in the trees outside of Angkor Thom, but they were great because you could climb all over them without tripping over anyone else. It was pretty amazing to be able to explore them all so freely, really - structures and artwork a thousand years old out in the open for anyone to get right up to and climb all over.




The last temple we saw for the day was Ta Prohm, which turned out to be one of the most memorable. At all the other ones, vegetation has been completely removed to minimize its effect on the already deteriorating structures. At Ta Prohm though, nature has been left to take its course, and it seems to be fully intent on claiming back its land. Big shady trees surround the site, and in many places, huge strangler fig and silk-cotton trees have started to take over the temple. This was also the set for the Tomb Raider movie if that jogs a memory - there are places where the long, twisted roots of enormous trees have completely enveloped the structure as if to take a huge handful to crush. Steel reinforcing has been installed in a few places to resist the trees' strangle, but odds are pretty good that eventually nature will win this battle.




That was about all the temple stuff we could handle for one day, so we headed back to town and had a lazy evening to rest up for another day of temple hopping tomorrow!

Cambodia bound (Jan. 14-15/09, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia to Siem Reap, Cambodia)

With nothing on our agenda today until our evening flight to Kuala Lumpur, we savoured a sleep in and leisurely breakfast before wandering around town for the bulk of the day. There's a trail up to an observation deck that looks out over the city, so we climbed up and had a view out over the port, the lush little islands just offshore, and the jumble of buildings and stores comprising the city below. We killed some time browsing the markets and treated ourselves to the first real western sandwich we've had since leaving home.



It was a long wait at the KK airport until our 9pm flight rolled around, but eventually we were lifting off from Borneo and heading west across the South China Sea. Kuala Lumpur's lights came into view a couple hours later, and by midnight we were picking up our bags and looking for a place to sleep until our 7am flight to Siem Reap. Normally, airports have these wonderful inventions called chairs where people can at least sit to wait out ridiculously long layovers - especially an airport in a huge hub of a city like Kuala Lumpur. But no - not a single section of chairs to wait in, no airport hotel to splurge for, and even the first class lounge was about to close. To make matters worse, they chose tonight of all nights to fumigate the entire airport, which meant shutting everyone outside until they were finished at 3am. Fabulous! What few benches and chairs there were along the curb outside the airport by the taxi stand had all been claimed by the time we got outside by hundreds of other people who were waiting out the night too. We did manage to snag a couple of cafe chairs that were stacked in a corner, so we huddled in a free corner with our bags and hoped we could get at least a little sleep. Not so much - between the cigarette smoke, outdoor air conditioning (?!) and blaring leaf blower clearing dust off the sidewalks for hours, it was hopeless. So we read and people watched in our uncomfortable chairs until the hours finally passed and an airport guy suddenly started to run around frantically, shouting at everyone to hurry up and get inside. Around the corner came a guy with a sprayer that billowed massive clouds of thick dark pesticides, and we had just seconds to haul our stuff out of the way before he would have coated us in it. So now we're inside, still with an hour before the check-in counter opens, and still nowhere to go. Desperate for sleep now, we passed out on our packs on the floor and waited it out. The Air Asia girl was almost an hour late showing up to the posted counter, only to tell us finally that our flight was switched to check in at a different one that was open already. The whole process was infuriating, especially since we had been awake for pretty much 24 hours. When we finally got to sit down at the gate, we saw the most ironic poster ever: a big banner claiming that "Kuala Lumpur International Airport is the world's best airport!" SERIOUSLY?!?!

Somehow we were pretty refreshed after two solid hours of sleep on the plane, and we woke to see the flooded rice fields on the edge of Tonle Sap (the large lake in central Cambodia) glimmering in the morning sun out the window of the plane. The air outside was refreshingly cool and misty, and soon we were being driven into town. All along the 10km stretch between the airport and Siem Reap are enormous luxury hotels with names like "Royal Angkor Palace" and "Le Meridien Cambodia". Our awesome little guesthouse was right in the main part of town beside the river, where the streets are home to restaurants and shops, yet they are pretty quiet too. The Lonely Planet gets kudos again for recommending this place - with a leafy entrance and cozy downstairs restaurant, we were taken to a comfy, bright, clean room upstairs that had all the basics for a whopping $7 a night! It felt good to have a sweet little place to settle into for a few days - especially at that price!


We cleaned up a bit and then ventured out into town to see what Siem Reap is all about. Close by on the river is the busy little market area, with food stalls, book shops, tailors, hostels... you name it. We found a spot called the Khmer Kitchen ("Khmer" meaning the indigenous people of Cambodia), where we savoured fresh spring rolls, cold Tiger beer, and some kick-ass pumpkin coconut tofu soup. Just as we were leaving, two girls at another table noticed our Canadian flags on our bags and mentioned that they're from Nanaimo! Another small world moment. It was fortuitous though, as they were just about to fly out after spending two days driving around the Angkor temples with their awesome little tuk-tuk driver who doubled as a tour guide. We were on the hunt for someone to do just that, and it just so happened that he was waiting outside to take them to the airport! So we chatted with "Mr. Khen" and agreed on a plan and a price for the same deal for us. He was pretty funny - a scrawny little Cambodian guy with very good english, but with a weird Australian-ish accent from the way he was taught! ANyway, we now have a plan for seeing the sights over the next couple days.

To get some of the background info on the huge array of temples that comprise the Angkor area, we paid a visit to the brand new Angkor National Museum, where huge displays are beautifully presented with tons of artifacts and relics from the temples. Considering that we went in knowing basically nothing about the cultural and religious history of southeast Asia, we left with a pretty solid idea of what we would be seeing over the next few days, how and why it was built, and all the mythology and symbolism behind it. On the way back, we stopped in to a supermarket to get some water and were surprised to see Whistler brand water on the shelves - exactly the same as the brand at home, bottled from the hills around home sweet home on the other side of the world!

Sleep deprivation caught up with us late afternoon, so after a decadent nap, we went for a walk through the night market in search of some dinner. We found some awesome cashew chicken as well as tons of beautiful handmade stuff like silk scarves, handbags, placemats, bedspreads, and clothing. It's probably a good thing I have no space to buy anything or else I would be lugging around an extra bag and I would be broke!

Lazy day in KK (Jan. 13/09 - Kota Kinabalu, Borneo, Malaysia)

The rain was incessant today for the first time in weeks, so it was good that we had planned today to be a lazy blog catch up day. Between waking up and leaving the hostel mid morning, we had already met people from New Zealand, Denmark, Phillipines, Britain, Australia, and no fewer than 6 Canadians - including one guy from Surrey and another from Kelowna. Small world! We had to find a room at another hostel for tonight since last night's was full, but that was easy since there are backpacker joints all over the place here. We spent a few hours updating the blog and then braved the rain to wander the city a bit. A few streets were set up as pedestrian shopping areas, so we browsed a bit but pretty much found everything for sale to be cheap and tacky. The Sarawak Laska we had for lunch, however, was cheap and awesome. Spicy, filling, and $1.50! Another hour or two polished off the blog and then we spent some quality time with the Lonely Planet to form a game plan for Cambodia.

Caution - winding road for 565km (Jan. 12/09 - Kota Kinabalu, Borneo, Malaysia)

I have no idea how we managed the bus ride to Semporna the other day in the dark without barfing - even in the daylight today we were both getting queasy! At least we were prepared for the turbo A/C this time, but even with fleece shirts and long pants, we still froze. Literally the entire drive west from Semporna to Ranau (over 300km) skirted land that had been stripped of its natural rainforest and replanted with sprawling oil palm plantations. It was deceiving actually, because with a quick glance it looks like nice lush green hills, but then you realize the monotany of only one type of tree, all the same height, all planted in tight rows, all devoid of wildlife. It was a bit upsetting to see what our demand for certain products (like anything that uses palm oil) can do to our planet.

As we neared Ranau, the curvy road became even moreso, heading uphill and eventually past a magnificent view of Mount Kinabalu, the huge pinnacle-topped mountain that towers out of the low surrounding hills to claim the title as highest peak in Southeast Asia. The road followed a ridge past its west side and then headed steeply down to the ocean towards Kota Kinabalu. The bus driver had us a bit worried a few times as he plouged into sharp corners at speeds that seemed a little too fast for a fully loaded bus. But here we are, comfy in a downtown hostel after wandering the seaside night market for a dinner of grilled chicken, fresh melon, and some sort of mysterious fried Phillipino thing that was dripping with grease but tasted damn good. We spent some time online booking flights to Cambodia, which gives us a couple days of downtime here before we embark on the next leg of our trip: Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor.

Waterlogged (Jan. 11/09 - Singamata lodge near Semporna, Borneo, Malaysia)

After breakfast this morning, we decided to go for a snorkel in the 'natural aquarium' before heading out for our first dive. They've packed a crazy amount of fish in there, which at first glance was fine until I realized that they might be hungrier than your average reef fish. Ken went in first and stuck to the stairs leading down into the water, taking pictures of the abundant spadefish, a huge grouper, and a guitar shark resting under the stairs. I called him a wimp for not swimming out into the swarm of fish, and dove in. I got about 30 feet out and then felt something grab my foot. Turning around to give Ken crap for trying to creep me out, I realized that he was still back sitting on the steps and all that was behind me was a bunch of hungry fish! Stupid fish bit me on the toe! Needless to say, I was out of the water a few seconds later with no interest of going back in!

The calm sea made for a speedy and smooth ride out to Pulau Mabul, where villagers' houses crowded the shallow water on stilts and a beautiful resort sprawled out over the coral on the other side of the island. Our first dive was underneath the Sea Ventures platform, which basically looks like an old oil rig that has been converted to accommodate divers a few hundred meters offshore. Practical, but damn ugly. The flat bottom was about 45 feet down, and despite the poor visibility, there was lots to see. Large schools of jacks swirled above us, and reef fish ducked in and out of piles of debris. We found more colourful nudibranchs, three different types of moray eels, a huge crocodile fish, a scorpionfish, a blue spotted stingray, and FINALLY, completely camoflauged on a bright green fan coral, was a frogfish! Ken and I have over 2000 dives between us and neither one of us had ever seen one. These suckers are weird - big and lumpy, with fins shaped to mimic the contours of the coral, and big leg-like limbs underneath. They even have a translucent "fishing rod" sticking out of their head, which has a flesh-like chunk of skin attached that dangles in front of its face. When the frogfish is blended right in with his surroundings, he wiggles his baited fishing rod to attract prey and then gobble them up when they fall for it. Nature is so amazing!

For our second dive, we pulled up in front of the swanky over-water resort and dropped onto a series of jungle gym-like structures that had developed into artificial reefs. Tunicates, hard and soft corals, and invertibrates completely covered the beams, and the maze-like interior was swarming with large schools of jacks, smaller schools of spadefish and sweetlips, and lots of lone filefish, puffers, moorish idols, scorpionfish, trumpetrish... too many to name. We swam from one structure to another, past schools of little barracuda and the wooden hull of an upside down boat that had seen better days. We drifted past the beams, scanning for critters, and found pipefish, more fancy nudibranchs, another big crocodilefish, and a little slender filefish. Afterward, we pulled up to a dock and enjoyed some noodles for lunch and a pretty view out across the blue water to the hills where we came from this morning.

One last dive for the day was along a shallow natural reef a little farther south, where bright sunlight lit up the big coral heads, where a wide variety of creatures packed into every available surface. Highlights included another Pharaoh cuttlefish, spot-face moray eel, bright purple and orange nudibranchs, and several painted brightly with yellow, blue, and orange. Tiny porcelain crabs hid amongst the fingers of hard coral, seahorse-like pipefish drifted in the current, and yellow-eyed jawfish peered out of their burrows in the sand. It was over all too soon though - easy dives like this where there is 'critter overload' are so enjoyable that we could stay down there all day if we could. We surely swam right past dozens of unique little creatures that could be spotted if you took your time, but the variety and abundance of life we did se was very impressive for sure.

We sped back to the lodge over shallow reefs submerged under the high tide and unloaded the mountain of tanks and gear from the boat. We are loving it out here so much that we tried to stay another couple days, but it turns out that they're booked so full that there aren't enough tanks for us. So we'll stick to our original plan and head for the bus back to KK tomorrow morning. We'll just have to find paradise somewhere else down the road!

Hangin' with the fishies (Jan. 10/09 - Singamata Lodge near Semporna, Borneo, Malaysia)

A boat showed up first thing this morning as planned to take us out to Singamata's offshore lodge. It was a quick ride - just a couple miles from town, but still somewhat isolated out on the water. Houses seem to be randomly built on stilts over the water here and there too. The facilities were pretty impressive - big open air covered restaurant area, open sunny patio for dive gear, and three little buildings containing rooms with wooden floors and spaces just big enough between the boards to see the fish swimming below! They've fenced in an area about 60x150 feet, where fish are contained but water and small creatures are free to move in and out. Steps lead down into this "natural aquarium" where you can swim and snorkel as much as you want. We only had time to drop our bags and grab some dive gear though, as the boat was leaving right away for the day's diving. A group of eight from Hong Kong and one guy from Holland joined us for the three dives today at Pulau Sipadan, a 25 minute boat ride northeast from Semporna. The island was right out of a magazine - tiny, with palm trees crowding the center and white sand all around. Turquoise water turned a deep blue where the wall dropped off, and a few families had houses built on stilts out over the water. We did three dives here, with an hour or so inbetween to lounge in the sand and swim in the warm shallow water with the green peaks of northern Borneo as a backdrop. It was pretty much perfect!

The diving was perfect too - warm water (29°C), no current, great visibility (80ft+), sloping wall to dive at whatever depth you chose, and tons to look at! The sandy bottom gave way to bustling coral heads at about 15 feet, and it was one of those perfect spots where you could float in one place for ten minutes without moving just to take in all the marine life around you. Hard and soft corals, strange anemones, tons of fish, large schools, bizarre little creatures, sea stars in werid shapes and patterns, brightly coloured nudibranchs - there was so much to see. Since this was my first time in Asia (Ken's second), I had never seen some of these species except for in magazines, so it was exciting to be seeing them for real! Anemonefish of all different varieties were everywhere, snuggling into anemones of blue, green, yellow, orange, and white. We found a few different types of pretty nudibranchs (sea slugs), including an elegant purple and black one, black and white spotted one, and a pale blue one with black stripes. Red and white hairy banded boxer shrimp, transparent cleaner shrimp with bright purple spots, granulated and necklace sea stars... the list goes on and on. On the fishy side of things, we saw lots of the common species seen readily elsewhere, including parrotfish, butterflyfish, trumpetfish, wrasses, gobies, lizardfish, triggerfish, and lionfish. Anemonefish were still a highlight even though they were everywhere! And so many different varieties - spine-cheek, clark's, bridled, western clown, and pink anemonefish. On the first dive, we were lucky enough to see two huge Pharaoh cuttlefish, at least 40cm long! One swam out in the open and put on a mesmerizing colour changing display for us, and the other hid in a coral head but had an odd "frilly" look to his head. We also saw a couple Giant Moray eels and four turtles. Some people caught a glimpse of a small (~5ft) manta ray cruising out in the blue, but I couldn't see it since the careless divers ahead had the annoying tendency to kick up a cloud of debris everywhere they went. It was an awesome day of diving, and it was so much fun to see new creatures that we had only heard about before. Tomorrow we will go to Pulau Mabul, which is named many times in the "Underwater Malaysia Macrolife" ID book I just read. Sweet!

The rest of our day was pretty sweet too - kicking back in lounge chairs by the water, reading, and watching the sun set behind the Borneo mountains. And if I shine my headlamp to the floor beside my bed, I can see fish swimming by!

Overnight busses suck. (Jan.9/09 - Semporna, Borneo, Malaysia)

It didn't take long to realize that it was going to be a long and restless night. The road to Semporna crossed some pretty mountainous terrain, which made for a curvy roller coaster-like road that the bus driver bombed along in the dark. Sure, the seats were comfy and reclined enough, but the friggin' air conditioning was blasting so hard and so cold that we may as well have been riding in a deep freeze! Our packs were inaccessible, so we were left to shiver for the entire eight hour bus ride. I even resorted to wrapping myself up as best I could with the curtains hanging from the window! We did manage to fall asleep around midnight, and at 3:30am the bus came to a stop and the lights were flipped on. They told us it was a ten hour trip, so we expected to arrive in town at about 5:30am, when at least we could find a cafe to curl up in and daylight would be breaking soon. But no, it was the middle of the night and a random guy is offering to take us to town to get a room at the hostel above the dive shop we had picked from the guidebook. He knocked so hard on the door that the whole street probably woke up, but someone did come to the door and show us to a room. Phew. I thought we'd be curling up on the sidewalk with the stray dogs for a minute there! Daylight woke us up at 9am, and we set out to find some breakfast and then someone to take us diving.

Unlike everywhere else we've been in Borneo, where foreign travellers are few and far between, Semporna is crawling with them - and they're all divers! I guess when a place becomes known amongst the dive community as one of the world's best dive sites, it will always be busy. When we inquired about diving out at Sipadan tomorrow, the lady behind the Scuba Junkies desk pretty much laughed at us. She said there are eight divers on the waiting list, and the first available day is two weeks from now. So much for that! Luckily, there are tons of other islands surrounding Sipadan, so we will have to work with that. While sitting at breakfast in a little Chinese coffee shop, we saw a poster on the wall advertising a company called Singamata that has a lodge built on stilts over the water on a small reef a few miles offshoer, where you can stay and snorkel and dive for two days for the same price as one day of boat diving with someone else. We tracked down their office and discovered that a group of eight would be there tomorrow, and they had requested to dive Mabul Island (Sipadan's little sister, with essentially as fabulous a reputation) tomorrow instead of the default nearby islands. Score! So we signed up and even talked them into giving us gear rentals for free. So for two days and two nights, we'll call a 'floating' lodge home and dive so much that we'll be waterlogged on the bus ride back to KK on the 12th.

We wandered around town for the rest of the morning, checking out the fish and veggie markets spread out along the waterfront. We enjoyed some fresh grilled prawns for dinner and called it a night for our early boat pickup in the morning.

Tarzan never had it this good (Jan. 8/09 - Kota Kinabalu, Borneo, Malaysia)

Most of the life in a rainforest happens up in the canopy, 100 feet or more above the ground. We were able to get right up there where all the action happens by way of Mulu's canopy skywalk, which is a 480m long series of suspension bridges (the longest in the world, in fact!) that traces a path through the canopy. To get there, it was a lovely 2km walk through the rainforest, where we spotted pygmy squirrels, chameleons, and transparent dragonflies. As we were walking along, our guide suddenly jumped and then took a few quick steps backwards - never a good sign! Then we saw the 7 foot green racer snake slithering its way along the boardwalk railing. It certainly didn't look innocent, but we were assured that it is 'generall' not aggressive and "only mildly poisonous". Great. We passed by slowly and got just close enough to take a picture. A while later, I had to do a double take when I could've sworn I saw a lizard fly across the trail in front of me. Turns out, that's exactly what it was! Once it had landed on a tree trunk, it looked like a normal black lizard, but mid-air it had a set of bright red parachute-like wings that fanned out and let him glide from one tree to another.

We walked slowly through the canopy, across shaky cable bridges surrounded by birds and butterflies of all different colours. The sun was bright up there, unlike on the forest floor, where very little sunlight gets through (only about 5% apparently). Info boards posted at each tree platform explained the various components of the rainforest canopy, naming the species and how they depend on eachother for survival. The setting was beautiful, with the cool river flowing below us and the towering limestone cliffs above.

Our flight to Kota Kinabalu left mid afternoon, so we bid adieu to the quiet paradise of Mulu and headed back to civilization. We skirted the coast of Brunei en route to KK, as the locals call it, watching the immense oil palm plantations pass beneath us. The next stage of our trip involved getting ourselves over to Semporna, on the east coast of Borneo, so we could do some scuba diving at Pulau Sipadan, which is one of the world's best dive sites! Option #1 was to fly there if a flight was leaving in the next 6 hours or so, since we were already at the airport. As expected though, the next flight wasn't until tomorrow, so we opted to check out the bus schedule and go from there. Our timing was perfect to catch the evening bus to Semporna, which meant an overnight bus ride that might be uncomfortable, but it was way cheaper than flying and would save us a night's accommodation elsewhere. Rush hour traffic made the drive to the bus terminal on the other side of town rather long, but little did we know that the trip to Semporna would seem infinitely longer!