Travel Day
We're up before dawn to check out of the Nha Trang hotel, and the crowd is already active in the ocean-front street and park outside our hotel balcony. Hundreds of people are running, walking, swimming, moving with Tai Chi, or playing ball games. They're in the main street, both sides of the road, and heedless of the traffic direction. A guy is jogging head-on into our taxi's traffic lane, in the fast lane.
We're so early, the airport terminal is a ghost town. Well, almost. We encounter some residents... Jim buys a cinnamon roll and coffee and while he's munching and I'm taking his picture, a small-kind roach crawls up my pant leg. (Yes, Sons. I did.)
After brushing off my backpack and standing around outside for a while, we fly from this small airport, which is in Cam Ranh Bay (Jim recalls being here once on a short leave during the war), into Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) so we can transfer to another flight to Cambodia.
Check out the smog in Ho Chi Minh City. Worse than I ever saw in LA, growing up.
Baggage claim sushi bar?
Siem Reap, Cambodia, is a medium-small town surrounded by agriculture. Lake nearby. Rivers and flooded fields abound.
When we get to our hotel, Tara Angkor, we have lunch while our room is readied --we're a little earlier than usual check-in time but since it's low season, no problem. I have padh thai for lunch. Not as good as what we cooked in Bangkok.
In Siem Reap, drivers aren't devoted to so much horn-honking, which is required driving practice in Vietnam, but the darting here and there without signaling, including down the wrong side of the street, is just the same.
We get out in it, though, in a tuk-tuk. We tuk-tuk a couple of kilometers to buy entrance tickets for Angkor Wat complex for tomorrow. They take our photos and print them on our $20 entry tickets, which we must show at each temple.
And then, we really get out in it--we borrow the hotel bikes and peddle off to the central market. Darting. Wowee--this is a different viewpoint from a taxi or even a tuk-tuk.
Notice we're in the correct lane.
But I wish I had video of us crossing traffic at the 3-way intersection by the market.
(Where are our bike helmets???)
Back at the hotel, Jim runs on the treadmill (I forgot my running clothes back at Keith and Pan's in Bangkok) and I sit poolside and read till dusk.
We're up before dawn to check out of the Nha Trang hotel, and the crowd is already active in the ocean-front street and park outside our hotel balcony. Hundreds of people are running, walking, swimming, moving with Tai Chi, or playing ball games. They're in the main street, both sides of the road, and heedless of the traffic direction. A guy is jogging head-on into our taxi's traffic lane, in the fast lane.
We're so early, the airport terminal is a ghost town. Well, almost. We encounter some residents... Jim buys a cinnamon roll and coffee and while he's munching and I'm taking his picture, a small-kind roach crawls up my pant leg. (Yes, Sons. I did.)
After brushing off my backpack and standing around outside for a while, we fly from this small airport, which is in Cam Ranh Bay (Jim recalls being here once on a short leave during the war), into Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) so we can transfer to another flight to Cambodia.
Check out the smog in Ho Chi Minh City. Worse than I ever saw in LA, growing up.
Siem Reap, Cambodia, is a medium-small town surrounded by agriculture. Lake nearby. Rivers and flooded fields abound.  |
| A lemongrass straw |
 |
| Lunchtime |
In Siem Reap, drivers aren't devoted to so much horn-honking, which is required driving practice in Vietnam, but the darting here and there without signaling, including down the wrong side of the street, is just the same.
We get out in it, though, in a tuk-tuk. We tuk-tuk a couple of kilometers to buy entrance tickets for Angkor Wat complex for tomorrow. They take our photos and print them on our $20 entry tickets, which we must show at each temple.
And then, we really get out in it--we borrow the hotel bikes and peddle off to the central market. Darting. Wowee--this is a different viewpoint from a taxi or even a tuk-tuk.
Notice we're in the correct lane.
But I wish I had video of us crossing traffic at the 3-way intersection by the market.
(Where are our bike helmets???)
Back at the hotel, Jim runs on the treadmill (I forgot my running clothes back at Keith and Pan's in Bangkok) and I sit poolside and read till dusk.
 |
| Our hotel. Our room view is into someone's backyard, but the hotel clean and neat and friendly. |
Tomorrow, we've got a 5 a.m. rendezvous with the sunrise at
Angkor Wat.
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