Asia - Traveling Thru History

Putra Mosque

Erin — Tue, 25 Jun 2019 08:39:40 +0000

Putra Mosque is an beautiful rose-tinted granite modern mosque in Putrajaya that boasts Middle Eastern, Persian, and Malay architectural styles.

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The Taj Mahal

Erin — Mon, 27 May 2019 04:35:28 +0000

The Taj Mahal is one of the most famous monuments of history and is considered a Wonder of the World. Come learn the history of what makes this mausoleum so special. #TBIN

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Kompong Pluk Floating Village

Erin — Tue, 28 Nov 2017 09:18:35 +0000

When we went to Cambodia, our driver, Sarat, suggested we go check out this little floating village on our last day in Siem Reap. Since we’d visited most of the Angkor temples and it was only about 2:30pm, he offered to drive us about 40 minutes or so outside of Siem Reap to this little river that feeds into Tonle Sap Lake and is the home of local fisherman. He had said it was only a 20 minute drive, but it ended up taking us about 40 minutes to go the 10.5 miles in our little tuk-tuk. The drive out to Kompong Pluk was nice. We got to see quite a bit of the real Cambodia as opposed to what life is like around tourist attractions. This is a typical method of product transportation: hitch something to the side of a scooter. Bicycle shops are like gas stations in the US: one on every corner. Children and puddles: love affair that crosses the continents. Traditional Cambodian houses After our lovely 40-minute tour of some Cambodian rural areas, we made it to the entrance. After paying the entrance fee and driving for another few minutes, we made it to our boat! The chair he’s holding onto is what he put in the water to help us get onto the boat. Wasn’t super fun getting all muddy from the water, but in the end it was worth it. The part of the river where we started our tour was so narrow that we ended up getting run into by another boat who was also starting down the river. Our driver and the other driver yelled at each other for a few minutes and then we got back on our way. It was a little awkward being followed by a cranky boat driver who was giving us the stink eye for several minutes, but eventually that boat slowed down and we were able to put some distance between us. We saw a lot of fun things on our boat ride. The way rural Cambodians live is so different from anything I’d ever imagined. There were children playing everywhere while their parents gave boat tours. Some were clothed, some were not. Many children joining their parents for a fishing trips. It was fun watching them play and learn how to fish. Most of the houses on the banks are high on stilts to protect them when the tide rises. It’s pretty amazing that the water gets that high. The hand-made houses are suspended by 16-foot stilts above the water. During the rainy season (June to November) the water level rises to just about the height of the structures. The best time to go, however, is in December or January when the water level drops and you witness temples and schools balancing on thick, wooden trunks. This is Kompong Pluk. Well, part of it. The village spans the river and then part of it going out onto the lake. There are over 3,000 people living at Kompong Pluk, a name which means “Harbor of the Tusks”. I’m curious where the name came from, but nobody was able to tell me. Many of those who live here are fisherman, but some also farm. There is no running water in the village so the residents rely on the water in the lake for all their washing and cooking needs. They have what they need to get by and it was really interesting to see what life was like around the world centuries ago. Holy bananas! That baby can climb! There were so many tiny kids crawling up and down ladders. Parents in the US would be pitching a fit and getting social service involved. This is just their way of life here. I love how kids here can have so much fun without technology and the internet. It was neat seeing the bonds they’ve created with each other. If you want to stay out here, you can sleep and eat at Tonle Sap Guest House & Restaurant, though the restaurant isn’t shown. It’s floating further down the river. This is the restaurant. I wanted to see what kind of food they had, but we didn’t have time to stop and check it out. There is a point where they pull up to a floating wooden pathway so tourists can pay to be guided through the mangrove forest on wooden walkways. We were short on time, so we opted not to do the mangrove tour. Most people wash their laundry in the river and hang it up to air dry. Even though the river looks dirty, it’s actually pretty clean when the boats aren’t stirring the sit up. One of the things I learned is that during the dry season (which is when we went), many residents of Kompong Pluk will build these floating houses to spend more time fishing on the lake and then will come back to the houses on stilts when the water rises. The last little bit of foliage before getting to the lake. Tonle Sap Lake. This is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Asia. There are more than 100 varieties of waterbirds in this lake, including several threatened and endangered species, and over 200 species of fish. You will also find crocodiles, turtles, macaques, otter, and other wildlife that inhabit the inundated mangrove forests. The lake is also an important commercial resource, providing more than half of the fish consumed in Cambodia. The tour continues out into the center of the lake where you float around for a while and then goes to another section to see floating shops and other touristy stuff. It was late and we had to get back to our hotel so we could shower, pack and make it to our night bus, so we spent a few minutes on the lake before heading back up the river. I love how serene this woman looks. I thought it was neat that they have a floating clinic. Instead of taking an ambulance to the clinic, the clinic can come to you. I thought it was pretty neat that they have a school there. I had thought kids would need to go into town for school. It’s nice they have their own school in the village. Visitors are encouraged to bring school supplies to donate for the students. We didn’t know that beforehand, so we didn’t have anything other than money to give. They’ll take that, too, but it’s more convenient to donate school supplies so they don’t have to go into town to purchase them and then bring them back. I just love the expression on this father’s face. Right after I shot this picture, he gave the biggest smile and kissed his little girl. It was so adorable. Our guide told us this is one of the old tour boats. It would have been kinda cool to get a tour in that one. I love the roof. Troy and I couldn’t come to a consensus on what this little girl is doing. I think she’s washing dishes. Troy thinks she’s playing. What do you think? Fixing the ladder. No matter where you go, guys have long lists of ‘fix-its.’ Working on the nets. This looked like it was really hard work. Another little climber. It’s amazing how good these little guys are at such a young age. I love how ornate the buildings are. I believe this one is a government building. This is the police station. Our last view of the village as we went back up the river. This was our awesome tuk-tuk driver, Sarat, coming to help us climb off the boat. He was, hands down, the best tour guide and driver we’ve ever had. I really loved our time in Kompong Pluk. It was humbling seeing the different way of life people live in other countries. In the US, sometimes we get so caught up with not having the latest phones or the fastest computer or the nicest car or being able to go out to eat whenever we want, but even just having a phone or a car or a computer or having food in our cupboards makes us so much better off than many other places in the world. We are so blessed in the US. I hope I never forget that or take it for granted.

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Biking Around the Xián City Wall

Erin — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 06:50:31 +0000

I really love traveling internationally. There is so much to see, do and learn. It’s so fun being in other cultures and seeing how other people live. The most amazing part of international travel is that there are TONS of things you can do in other countries that you really can’t do in the US. Like climb around 12th century ruins, explore castles and actually SEE ancient mixed with modern. It’s really great. When we were in China, we got to have a pretty fun experience. I was a little iffy about it at first. I mean, I wanted to do it, but my thought was, “Okay, we’re going to go bike around a wall. It’ll be fun and unique and we’ll get to have a cool little story about how we road bikes in China on an old city wall, but really, what’s so great about biking around a wall?” What I didn’t realize, though, was how MASSIVE that old city wall is and how surreal of an experience it would be. The city of Xián is over 3,000 years old. The original city wall was started in 194BC and completed in 190BC. It was either rebuilt or modified for further fortification during the Tang dynasty, which lasted from 618AD-907AD. During that time the wall measured 13.74 kilometres (8.54 mi) in length, 12–16 metres (39–52 ft) in thickness at the base and encompassed a city that covered 14 square miles (36 square kilometres) Later, the wall was rebuilt on this second foundation during the Ming dynasty of 1368-1644. The size of the wall during each rebuilding measured 59ft wide at the bottom, 49ft wide at the top, 39 feet tall and 8.5mi long. No wonder it took 4 years to build! When we arrived at the Xián City Wall, what impressed me most was the size of the wall. That thing is HUGE! I thought it was going to be quite a bit smaller than it really is. Walking inside the wall is pretty neat, too. When you walk inside, you really get to see the magnitude of the wall and feel how secure the ancient inhabitants felt when they lived inside it. To help you feel even more old-timey and like you’ve stepped into the past, they have pretty cool little guards to greet you as you walk through the gate. Don’t mind the cafe sign. I’m sure they had signs like that in the past. haha. This is a map of the entire wall. It doesn’t seem quite so big looking at the map, but seriously. This place is huge. It took us the full two hours to go around it with hardly any stops. The last quarter of the ride we were biking as fast as we could so we wouldn’t have to pay a fine for returning the bikes late. It’s hard to describe what it was like riding a bike around the city wall. It was fun and just felt so surreal. Here we are on modern bikes riding around on top of an ancient fortification, going past buildings that go back further than I can count! It really was amazing. After you climb up the stairs to the top of the wall and rent your bike (at either the north or south gates), you are free to ride around the entirety of the top of the wall. Of course, there is a 2-hour time limit, but they will gladly extend your rental for a small fee…………..every 5 minutes you are late. lol. If you don’t think you can do the whole wall in two hours you can just drop your bike at one of the other bike stations around the wall and you’re good to go. After they return your deposit, of course. But I recommend trying to get the entire circuit. We arrived about 2 minutes past our time, but the guy was really nice and wrote down that we returned it on time. So, but nice to the bike wrangler. There’s also an option to ride a tram. We didn’t see any trams while we were there, but that would probably be a good option for people who have trouble walking long distances or who have little kids. Having someone else drive you around seems like it would be a bit more relaxing, but would probably take away from the adventure. And, really, it was an adventure. We were pretty much in awe our entire ride and the first building we came to, we just HAD to take a picture in front of. But it couldn’t be just any picture. It had to be an action shot! And then we did our still shot. And, yes, that stuff Troy is wearing is all his camera gear. You’d think he’d be losing weight, lugging all that around…………..but, no. He likes to eat too much. lol I think on of my favorite things about the experience was being able to see the old mixed in with the new. It was pretty neat to see this ancient Chinese architecture surrounded by all of these modern buildings. I felt like I was stopping to take pictures every 10 feet. There are just so many amazing views and neat things to see from the wall. I read some reviews about the ‘attraction’ of visiting the Xián City Wall and it amazed me how people said there was nothing to see and that it was just ‘okay’. Seriously? It was amazing! It was such a neat experience and there were a lot of interesting things to see. There is just something surreal about hanging out on the top of a structure that’s over 3,000 years old while being surrounded by skyscrapers and hearing cars honking just below the wall. It’s like stepping back into the past while still holding onto the present. The buildings on the wall were pretty cool, too. They all had signs next to them, describing what they were for, which I really liked. They were mostly barracks and storehouses for the troops that were once stationed on the wall or places for them to warm up or dry off when weather was bad. Some were office buildings, which I thought was interesting. I would have thought those would be inside the wall, but perhaps they were offices for military officials who had complete confidence in the structure’s ability to withstand enemy attacks. Some other interesting things we saw on our ride were: This cool building. I’ve googled and googled to figure out what this is, but I have no idea. Maybe one of my Chinese-speaking friends can tell me? There was this cute little street market by the East side of the gate. It was fun watching people wander around down there. They are working on restoring the Guangren Lama Monastery by the northwest corner of the wall. Was kinda bummed that we were there before it was completed. I bet it will look great once the restoration work is done. Another building that I’m not sure what it is, but I like how it looks. Slanted ramp to bring supplies up to the top of the wall, yet keep it from getting too slick from rain. Kinda cool. This is where ancient artillery was stationed for the defense of the city. There are several of these spots around the wall. It still amazes me how well this was constructed. And I just love neat it all looks. Fun snake sculpture on the wall to commemorate the Year of the Snake. Once we got to the snake (about 3/4 of the way around the wall), we realized that we only had less than 10 minutes left on our rental! I can’t remember how much the late penalty was, but we certainly didn’t want to pay it. We were closer to one of the other bike stations, but we really wanted to be able to say we biked the entire wall, so we decided to race the last bit. It was a rough 2 miles, but it was a lot of fun darting around people and trying to ride as fast as we could. Everyone must have thought we were pedaling like crazy people, but we had such a great time bumping along the bricks. And we were so glad most of our remaining ride was downhill and that the wall wasn’t too terribly crowded. Unfortunately, we didn’t make our time, but the bike checker was nice and put that we were in on time since it was only maybe 2-3 minutes past. After we turned in our bikes and started heading towards the gate we’d come in, we found the reason why the last part of our ride hadn’t had many people. Down at the bottom of the stairs in the courtyard, there was a demonstration getting ready to start! Once we had secured a decent place to watch the performance from, I popped out my little camera and recorded it. The video is a bit jumpy because it was super windy and crowded. I kept getting pushed by people………….and at one point a kid started peeing right next to me and I had to jump to avoid getting peed on. Good times. :/ Gotta love China. Always something interesting. lol Price: To get inside the wall, it is 54 yuan for adults and 27 yuan for children under 4ft. For entrance and the Forest of Stone Steles Museum, 100 yuan. To rent a bike for 2 hours, it is 45 yuan for a standard bike and 90 yuan for a tandem bike. Both have a 200 yuan refundable deposit. Sightseeing tram is 80 yuan for the regular and 120 yuan for luxury. We didn’t see them while we were out, so I’m not sure what the difference is. Hours: Warrior Parade Performance : 11:00, 14:00, 17:00 (peak season only) Relieving Guard Ceremony: 10:00, 15:00 Thanks for reading my blog! If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below. I’d love to hear what you think!

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Worst Night Bus Ever? You Decide.

Erin — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 14:00:53 +0000

Recently we had the opportunity to go to Cambodia and were there just before Christmas. If you ever have the chance to go to Cambodia, Christmas is a good time to go. Especially if you want to go to Angkor Wat. We were in both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, where Angkor Wat is, and were amazed at how few tourists were there. We actually were the only people at some of the ruins in Siem Reap, which surprised us a lot. Being in Cambodia and getting more familiar with the country was a really great experience, definitely one of my top international experiences. Our first few hours there, though, gave us quite an opposite impression and made us a little skeptical about the rest of our trip. As we were arriving at the Cambodian airport, we got a little weirded out. Southeast Asia has this strange thing where they fog their airplanes just before landing. I had no idea what it is for at the time and we both had some concerns about it. Thankfully, though, one of our subsequent flights said what the smoke was for and it made us feel a bit better. The smoke is just some kind of anti-bacterial fog and not actual smoke. Thank goodness. That tripped me out the first few times it happened. Before we got all concerned about the smoke, though, we had some nice views of the Cambodian landscape as we began our descent. I’ll apologize now for the low-quality photos in this post. My DSLR was packed away, so I took most of these either with my cell phone or my really old digital camera. Landing in Cambodia and getting through the airport wasn’t so bad. That was actually the easy part of the evening. The landing was smooth (which you will learn to appreciate traveling around that part of the world) and we were able to get off the plane without any drama. We had gotten our visas several weeks before our trip, so we were able to get through immigration fairly quickly, too. It only took about 10 minutes to get our visas examined, arrival cards scanned, passports stamped, and be out the door. It was after leaving the airport that things got a little strange. We arrived in Phnom Penh about 4:45pm and had booked an overnight bus to take us straight to Siem Reap. The one we’d booked didn’t leave until about 6:00, so we had a little bit of time to kill………..but that’s not the one we ended up getting on. When we got outside the airport, we snagged a little tuk-tuk to take us to the bus stop so we could get there early and not risk missing it. One thing that is common in Asia is that time is relative. Buses and trains rarely ever leave on time, but you never know which day they will leave early or which day they will be running late, so being decently early is a good idea. We figured being about 30-40 minutes wouldn’t be so bad. We could pick up our tickets, maybe get a little something to eat, wander up and down the street, and then get on our way. Our tuk-tuk driver, though, had other plans. Once we told him where we wanted to go, he got all excited and told us that he knew of another night bus heading to Siem Reap that was leaving right then and there. He said it was better than the one we had booked and that it was the exact same price, so he wanted to take us there instead of to the one we booked. Um, okay, great. We’d love to be on a bus that is leaving now. But, dude, we’re not there. We’re still at the airport. We’ve already missed it. Not to be deterred, our spunky little tuk-tuk driver drove all over Phnom Penh to track down the bus. It was hilarious at the time. He went to the bus depot and found out the route the bus was taking and took all these little side streets to get to each pick-up spot as quickly as possible. It was actually pretty neat to get a super speedy scenic tour of the city before leaving. These are some of the interesting things we saw. Our view from the back of the tuk-tuk as we left the airport. These things aren’t too bad for a quick trip around the city. The weather was nice and there wasn’t a lot of pollution, so we rather enjoyed the fresh air and pleasant breeze. Obligatory selfie. We were super excited to be in Cambodia. We were going to Angkor Wat first thing in the morning and were brimming with enthusiasm for this wonderful new experience. And, no, I didn’t cut my hair. It was just in a bun. Whenever I fly my hair is either in a bun or braids. Also, this is a rare photo of Troy smiling. Sort of. Usually he’s making a goofy face or sticking his finger up his nose. So, enjoy this rare treat. His smiles are quite handsome. Snack carts are so popular here. Most of the time people just push them, but this one was unique because it was attached to the guy’s motorbike. We both kinda wished we could buy some stuff from him since we were both a little hungry, but we were in a hurry and already had some snacks in our backpacks, so we just zoomed right on by. This is off to the side of one of the main streets in Phnom Penh. Every so often you will see a congregation of food carts and people coming to get snacks or meals. We really wanted to stop and check it out, but, alas, we were on a time schedule. This is a typical convenience store. This is basically what most stores on the main streets look like: open front with shelves of wares out on the sidewalk. We were only stopped here for a couple of minutes so the tuk-tuk driver could pop in the bus station office and ask which route the bus was taking and then we were off again. And you think YOUR traffic is bad. This is actually not that bad of traffic for this part of the world. Cars are always up on each other and nobody really pays attention to lane lines. At this point our tuk-tuk was halfway on the sidewalk, but nobody really cares about that here. The only time we got concerned was when we almost got squished by a big bus. Scooter gangs are the most common site on the roads in Asia, which makes sense since scooters seem to be the most maneuverable. They seriously do whatever they want. I’ve seen scooters drive on the sidewalk for a block to bypass stalled traffic, I’ve seen scooters at a red light dart across the road between cars that have the green light, I’ve seen scooters drive between cars going the opposite way, and I’ve seen scooters going up and down stairs. Nobody really cares what scooters do. Kinda wish we’d been driving around town on one, but alas, we were not. The tuk-tuk was fun and we don’t regret it at all. After driving around for about 20 minutes, we made it to this little hole in the wall shop where our driver stopped and ran inside. And I mean that literally. There were several doors lining a portion of the wall down an alley and that is where the tuk-tuk driver took us. I thought we were asking directions again, but the tuk-tuk driver came back outside and told us that the bus would be here any minute and that we could get tickets by paying the man inside. So, we paid the man inside and got our tickets. We were pretty happy about getting tickets for a bus that left an hour earlier than the one we’d reserved. And we were also happy that we didn’t have to pay to reserve a spot on the other bus, so it wouldn’t matter about taking this one. They were both the same price, so it all worked out in the end. Or so we thought. This is about $10.14 USD. Once the bus arrive and we got on the bus, we started to realize we may have made a grave mistake. This bus…….was………awful. And it was non-refundable. So, as unfortunate as it was, we were out of luck. The first thing we noticed about this bus was that it was not a sleeper bus. Troy had reserved us seats on a sleeper bus and this one was definitely NOT a sleeper bus. This was a double-decker travel bus…..kinda. There was a downstairs where all the luggage went that was tall enough for people to walk around, but it wasn’t set up so people could travel down there. The people went on the upper level………which was just seats, no sleepers. It looked comfortable enough, though, after we got on and looked around, so we just sat down and off the bus went. We figured we’d just lay our seats back and sleep that way. That is, until we realized how bumpy the ride was. Holy bananas was that ride bumpy. It was like going over train tracks the entire time. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of the craziness. After the bus stopped a few more times, we realized people were looking around and picking specific seats. Once we actually looked at our tickets, we realized we had seat numbers, so we got up and found those seats. And immediately wished we hadn’t. What we hadn’t noticed upon entry to the bus was that most seats only had one arm rest. The other arm rests were either missing or the plastic was gone, leaving only the metal body, which was rather sharp. My seat had the metal body on one side and plastic on the other. Troy’s had plastic on the outside, so we were at least fortunate that only one of us had sharp metal stuff. I put Troy’s hat over my one gimpy arm rest so I wouldn’t get my arm all scratched up. The other fun part about our seats was that mine leaned back really far and wouldn’t sit up. Troy’s sat straight (and I mean STRAIGHT) and wouldn’t lean back. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, Troy’s seat wouldn’t stay on. lol. The first bump we hit, he slid forward, flailing his arms around and almost tipping sideways into the aisle. It was sooooooo funny and I laughed really hard. Troy was only slightly amused. Every time the bus hit a bump, he would slide forward and have to catch himself. It was pretty funny the first 5-6 times. But by the 20th time, it wasn’t so funny anymore. He eventually wedged his backpack between his seat and the seat in front of him, but that meant he had nowhere to put his legs and had to straddle the backpack. We figured once we were on the road that we’d just switch to different seats, but by the time we left the city our bus was completely full and we were stuck in our less than ideal spots. For the first hour or so, we sat like that: me leaning at an awkward and uncomfortable angle and Troy with a backpack between his legs. I was able to doze for a bit, but couldn’t stay asleep for long because ‘things’ kept crawling on me. I’m hoping they were just ants, but my suspicion is that they were other things. Yuck. And it didn’t help when Troy got super excited because down the stairs (we were seated across from the stairs) on a piece of luggage was a spider the size of a half dollar. He turned on the flashlight on his cell phone and went down to check it out. Thankfully, the dang thing didn’t bite him, even though he was moving luggage...

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