Mekong Boutique Hotel, Siem Reap - Review

Whenever we travel, I always submit a review of hotels we stay at on Tripadvisor.com (because I rely on it myself)...that is of course if they can locate the darn hotel. Some remain undiscovered by the website, regardless of providing them with detailed details. Ho hum!

While in Siem Reap we stayed at the Mekong Boutique Hotel, booking directly via their website for US$20 per night, per room, which included breakfast and arrival transfer from the airport, by tuk tuk.

I'm so relieved I left my hand grenades outside!

Here's the review.

Before we leave Siem Reap

28th Feb - 2nd Mar 2012

Some holiday photos and experiences don't warrant a full post to themselves, but it'd be a shame to not include them, somewhere. So, before we leave Siem Reap...

Flying in.

Where the river meets Tonle Sap lake

Looking a bit dry or perhaps the havest's over, as we near Siem Reap

The language. A native Bangkokian recently said to me that Khmer reminded him of 'rock n roll'. Until then I thought I was the only one that visualised languages. Khmer to me was like someone plucking a banjo, Deliverance style...and from time to time, I could have sworn I'd recognised some (Thai) notes. Possibly, but more than likely, not. Malaysian conjures up a pot of something really thick bubbling away on the stove, but that's another post.

Onward to the Bayon and Thom - Cambodia

1st March 2012

A good hour and a half later after wandering around Angkor Wat, we cooled down in a nearby café. It was SO hot, other tourists where asking the gardener to hose them off, instead of the plants. We located our tuk tuk driver, Sojetta, in the parking area opposite Angkor Wat and after Stray had abruptly interrupted his nap, he convinced him to swap places.

Poor guy still looks half asleep.

Changing back, shortly before we arrived at The Bayon, notorious for it’s huge faces…just in case the cops were about.

Angkor Wat's off the bucket list

 1st March 2012

Angkor Wat has now been struck off our bucket list. This, the largest pre-industrial urban development,  once connected by a hydraulic network of canals and dams, is for some people, their only reason for visiting Siem Reap. Opting to fly in and fly out in one day...so we were told. It's a pity, because Siem Reap itself is a well worth a few days stay.

Our one day pass to Angkor Wat...OK, we look a trifle dishevelled, but hey, it was stifling hot, already!

 

Standing at the front entrance of Angkor Wat, I'm starting to appreciate why the women behind me are dressed the way they are. 

Arriving in Siem Reap

27th - 29th Feb 2012

After our usual overnight transit through Kuala Lumpur at the Tune prison Hotel, we took off to Siem Reap (the Flat Defeat of Siam) early the next morning. The airport is small, quiet and quaint and there was no need for me to download visa forms from the internet, pre-complete them in duplicate and whack two photos on the front.

The only necessary form is on hand at immigration, fill it out and hand over a passport size photo plus US$20 and a painless few minutes later you're on your way to a passport check and fingerprint scan...something I was surprised to see in such a small city, country.

Precious Cargo - Siem Reap, Cambodia

Stray and I have spent the last 3 weeks visiting Cambodia and parts of Malaysia. Before I get blogging (blah blahing) I love this photo and wanted to share it, even though it does make me shudder!

Snap's other blog Chiang Mai Thai

So we came all the way back, just to go back - Cambodia

We've been back in Oz for just over one month now. Happy to say Mr Bundy's ears are still intact, minus the points (Solar Dermatis, fancy name for my cat can't tolerate the sun. So he's doomed to a life of zinc cream coated ears). And, I've given into the fact that I WILL have to move more than two chairs and a bed back into the house and have started to do so. Can see a big garage sale coming up soon...more culling.

Stray's undone the termite damage, bar the aesthetic touches. But, I'm still pretending that the upstairs doesn't exist, even though I can safely walk up the steps. Less cleaning that way.

OK, getting to the point! Cambodia, especially Angkor Wat just outside of Siem Reap, was one of the places we intended on visiting while being so close, in Thailand. But, one thing lead to another and we never got there. So, we're heading off early next year to see that, Phnom Phen and Sihanoukville. All via Malaysia where we'll stop off in Georgetown (Penang), Langkawi and Melaka
.

Batu Caves outside of Kuala Lumpur

Sabah (Kota Kinabalu, Borneo) fishing boats

Kuching (Sarawak, Borneo) riverfront

We've visited Kuala Lumpur a couple of times, and Borneo, and our plans are fairly well set in jelly ...but if you've been to any of these places and can recommend 'what to see's' and 'what to do's' (or not) apart from what's on the usual tourist spiels, please do!

Snap's other blog Chiang Mai Thai

Reflecting on Marriage

Seems like a life time ago...and then again, just like yesterday. Nearly 33 years of knowing and 29 years of marriage. I think there must be some sort of medal or prize forthcoming...lol.

 Must have been a bloody hot day, get a load of that candle.


Snap's other blog Chiang Mai Thai

From Chiang Mai to Australia

From Chiang Mai to Australia  (23rd – 28th October)

THAILAND FLOODS

It’s been three WHOLE days since we landed on Australian soil...we left with very mixed emotions, and that’s not taking into account dodging the flooding in Bangkok. For those living in, or keeping a close eye on, Thailand, the feelings have been mixed, if not angry at times. There have been many discussions across the blogging world about the ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’. The fact is that this was and is a flood of phenomenal proportions. I don’t think anyone was or could have been prepared for its enormity.

The way we might handle such a national disaster in our birth land, could be much different to the way Thailand chooses to approach this catastrophe. I joked with a friend in Chiang Mai, when the river Ping was flooding (she was high and dry), who couldn’t swim.

“Just get a couple of empty 2 litre milk bottles and use them as floaties.” and re-enacted how LJ used to swim (flap) around the pool as a toddler...it seems I wasn’t that far off. Kidding aside, looking at the sand bagging efforts in central Bangkok, the inner city residents did not seem as concerned as I was.

I did have the pleasure of meeting up with an email pen-pal of mine while there. A very educated man (engineer) and assistant managing director for a large construction company. We got chatting about the floods and ‘who was to blame’, if anyone. I mentioned the sandbags, or lack of, in my hotel area and he (not verbatim, but extremely accurately) said “Thai’s don’t prepare...when they see the water coming up the street, they might move...or, not...or if the flood is coming into there house...They live in the present.”

Whether it's possible to make such a broad sweeping statement or not, remember I’m only the messenger!

LEAVING THAILAND

Most people write a list of what they’ll miss and what they won’t miss, but I’ll try not to go down that track. But, but, but.... Before we left Chiang Mai, Stray and I did ask each other what we would miss about Thailand, and I replied I wasn’t sure. He did point out that the $2 a week laundry fee would be hard to beat. And, I will certainly miss my fruit being pre-cut for me, the smiley 7-11 boys offering to open my large bottle of beer in-store (accompanied by a straw), the many friends I’ve made during my stay there...some still there and some who have moved on. Stray will surely miss his teaching and students...and massages. But, for every *thing* I’ll miss, there’s something to look forward to back home... especially working, to save the money for the next adventure.

The long part of the trip back home, from Kuala Lumpur to Gold Coast, was pleasant. Avoided (after a light dinner, inflating of a blow up neck pillow, snuggling under a sarong, come blanket) with the aid of a sleeping tablet. My first try and I highly recommend it. Never battered an eyelid until I heard the breakfast cart coming down the aisle.

ARRIVING HOME

We didn’t (quite) have to machete our way back into our yard, so that was a plus. CJ, less 20 odd kilos, looking just wonderful, and grandpumpkin met us at the airport, then chauffeured us to our house where frozen home cooked meals awaited us. Shortly after, my trusty steed (small car) was delivered back to me by its foster parents (thanks Dad and Mum) looking better than I’d left him. Not to mention an esky or two of food, cheese! ham! and drinks...wine...WINE...RED and WHITE WINE...made in AUSTRALIA!

Getting in my own wheels and taking off, wherever, whenever, would have to be on the list of ‘biggest things I’ve missed in Oz', along with being able to drink water straight from a tap. However, I did feel out of sorts staring at the fruit today in our local store. Grapes $17.00 per kilo and nectarines, not much less. Nup!

And then, there was using my bank card at the shop. I had acquired a new one before leaving Australia and wasn’t sure if I’d remembered the PIN number correctly...and evidently, had not. A long (on hold) call to the bank is in order tomorrow.

Back in May, we received word that our house had been invaded by ‘termites’. A word synonymous to ‘cancer’, if it were in the human context. The deluge earlier in the year had no doubt driven the little critters indoors, away from the hundreds of more appetising trees on our property. It’s now October, and they’ve just apparently been halted, killed, exterminated. If it hadn’t been for CJ and her partner listening, touching, poking and crumbling off bits off our house, it would have been in much worse shape than it is. Still, they’ve eaten a path from the rear, through a staircase, in between floors, inner wall and door/window frames, to the front.

So, for now, it’s clean up, settle down, repair and back to work time.

Snap's other blog Chiang Mai Thai

Heading home via BKK

So, here I sit with a pore pack on my nose, relaxing in our Bangkok hotel writing this update. After arriving at Suvarnabhumi airport yesterday we dumped our cumbersome luggage (including camera>PC cable, grrr) at the ‘Left Luggage’ facility and sky trained it into the city.

Apart from the usual swampy areas along the way, there was little excess water to be seen. Looking down, only several low lying roads and house yards were partially submerged a few inches. That’s not to say it will remain that way...but here’s hoping!

Our thoughts are with those who have, are and will be effected by this massive, slow moving tragedy.

And, my biggest frustration (well, one of them) is seeing photos and T.V. footage of people standing chest deep in putrid water washing their clothes, preparing food on floating makeshift tables and of children playing, bobbing along in flotation devices.

STAY OUT OF THE WATER PEOPLE! The murky water can harbour cholera, typhoid, skin infections and hepatitis. One death from, and cases of, leptospirosis was reported in the newspaper just as we left Chiang Mai the other day (the details are in my luggage). The exact wording I can't remember, but 'wear shoes, especially if you have open cuts or wounds on your legs' rings a bell. Perhaps something was lost in the translation? 

Houses and buildings in our hotel area (Ratchathewi) remain high and dry. Some have made serious sandbagging efforts, some half hearted (and to tell the truth are a bit puzzling, strategy wise) but most, have not. Many outer lanes on high-set bridges and overpasses have become car parking lots for residents living in susceptible suburbs, which must make peak hour(s) in Bangkok even more hellish than usual.

Floods aside, today I had good intentions of trawling Chatuchak’s outdoor weekend market, however, after strolling through JJ’s (next door) for couple of hours I decided I’d pushed my baggage weight limit to the max, otherwise I would have bought this little beauty as a keepsake...

Apologies for the mobile phone quality.

...and besides, there’s no air con outside.

Snap's other blog Chiang Mai Thai