Angkor Wat

I finally made it to one of the places that I always said i would go. Angkor Wat it is located in central Cambodia. I watched a program on the discovery channel about it when I was 12 and ever since then there is not other ancient ruin that I have wanted to go to more. For those of you who do not know it was created by the Khmer Dynasty an empire that ruled most of southeast Asia from Thailand to Vietnam from the 10Th-13Th century. They left behind huge temples that they built for Buddhist and Hindu gods. They built them for both because during the empires existence the main religion of the rulers switched from Hindu to Buddhist. Anyway they built some amazing temples that are scattered throughout the jungles of Cambodia just outside the City of Siem Reap. When I say they are huge i am not exaggerating Angkor Wat which is the largest of them is considered to be the largest religious structure in the world. It is absolutely enormous and beautifully carved stones are everywhere. As usual I lack the vocabulary to express just how amazing it is but if you are interested I would advise you to look it up on the Internet or come here on your own I am sure getting here would be much easier if you just flew anyway. This is also the place where you have the huge trees that have grown virtually on top of the ruins. It is truly magnificent to see these trees roots cover an entire wall and then on top of the wall see the tree go hundreds of feet in the air. I am sure all of you have seen pictures of this place at one time or another you just may not have heard of it because it is in Cambodia which is not exactly a tourist hot spot but that is all changing. Besides the incredible heat it is really something that everyone should see. I really enjoyed it but the only problem now is deciding where the next place that I have always wanted to go is. I am thinkin Manchu Pichu is next on the list.

Cambodian border

Man I do not know what to say about getting to Cambodia. It is really hard to describe. First we did not plan well we just heard it was easy to get here and looking back on it, it was pretty easy. We went to the bus station the night before we wanted to leave to buy our ticket and found out when we got there the town we needed to go to so we where not prepared but we stayed flexible. So we got up the next morning at 5 AM and went to the bus station. We got there an hour early which was good. We took a 4 hour bus ride through east Thailand to the Cambodian border and it was pretty easy no real problems. Then we got off the bus and got on Tuk Tuk that was waiting for us which we knew could take us to the border for 80 baht($2). Then they dropped us off at a travel agent to get our visa which was all good and we bought a ticket to ride in a taxi from the border to Siem Reap where Angkor Wat is. We thought we where Ok then we got to the border it is a crazy crazy place you have to walk accross it through customs. When you cross it into Cambodia you immediately realize you are in a third world country it is instant. The difference is ridiculous. Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world and has a the dubious distinction of being the most bombed country in the world and the most heavily land mined. It fought a 25 year civil War from the late 60's-early 90's. It was like night and day. So we got dragged to a place to wait for our car that would take us on. We waited for about an hour and finally got in a car with two random Danish guys who where not very talkative. The road from the border is the worst road that I have ever seen it is half dirt and half paved. The part that is paved has huge potholes the part that is not has never even seen a grader. So we drove 4 hours through some of the poorest areas in the world. It was really depressing. One thing that I thought was interesting was that it was as flat as it is in Kansas. It was the craziest trip that I have ever taken but we got here sage and sound and without too many problems so I guess I cannot complain althought a few times I did fear for my life.

Bangkok

Hello it is me I thought I would finish a few thoughts on Bankok. After we saw the kings palace we then took a tuk tuk to the largest lying Buddha in the world. If you do not know what a tuk tuk is let me tell it is basically a four wheeled motorcycle that you ride on the back of that you can fit 3 people in. It is alot of fun because they go really fast and you can feel the wind through your hair but the pollution in Bankok is so much that it almost makes you sick. It is also difficult to negotiate a good price with them since they do not have meters and you have to agree on a price before you start and give them exact change or else they will not give you any. So when we got there I must say the largest laying Buddha seemed to me to be unreal because it is made of gold and lying down inside a building. I took some pictures to give you an idea of what it looks like it was pretty fascinating. Then that night we ended up having a few drinks on Kosan road so after we got a little tipsy on the really strong Thai beer we went to a club where we met a lot of people but on the way to the club there where a bunch of Thia people trying to get us to go to the famous bankok red light district. So we started speaking to each other in only Chinese and no one knew what we where saying I think we had them convinced that we did not know anything else it was hilarious. Well that is all I have for right now there is more but I do not have the time I just got into Cambodia tonight and after traveling all day I am beat. I will trying and write again soon.

Khoasan Road

Hello all I am sorry I have not been writing much much I have been traveling the past week or so. I left Chengdu when it was 45 degrees and arrived in Bangkok Thailand where it was 85 degrees. We ended up on Koason road a famous starting point for travelers who are traveling in Southeast Asia. Just to give you an idea of who all is there while I was there I met people from South Africa, Australia, Canada, Cameroon, Kazakhstan, Germany, France, Brazil, you name it they are all there. We stayed in a hostel that had 3 beds in it and cost us a total of 12 dollars a night all it had was a fan. It was suffocatingly hot but a lot of fun. The food that the street vendors had was outrageous it would cost less than a dollar and you could see it cooked right in front of you and it was amazing. Pad Thai, Banana pancakes and Mango with Sticky rice are my favorites. I could not believe how many foreigners where there especially coming from China where there are hardly any foreign people at all. After the initial shock of the amount of travelers wore off we went and discovered Bangkok it is an amazing city with a lot going on. They had one of the most beautiful Buddhist temples you could ever imagine they are definitely way more colorful than the Chinese when it comes to there celebration of Religion. It was absolutely phenomenal.

Zoe's Bar B Cue

Well just so you know that I do not eat all of my meals at whole in the wall joints that cost under a dollar a meal. I thought i would tell you all about my favorite Western food restaurant. It is kidns of strange thing they have these really nice restaurants in some areas that serve western food and they speak English in them it is kind of fun to go to them every one in a while. The food is a little bit more expensive for example it cost about 26 Yuan($3.50) the food is pretty good but the reaso we love to go there is the service. There are about 7 girls in there waiting on about 10 tables. The are always smiling and happy to see you whenever you come in if you are every in a bad mood you should go there because you cannot walk out of that place unhappy. It is funny My friend Brian and I just started going there about a month ago but we already know all of the girls in there. The second time we where in there we asked them all what there names where and they all had English names and we told them ours and now everytime we go in there They always say Hi Brian Hi Derek before we get to our seats we have to say Hi to all of them. There are some people in our group who have been going there for 3 months and they do not know anyone. The main reason why I wanted to write about this is because of what happened last Saturday night when we went there. We where there and noticed that there was a new girl we had not met she did not even have a uniform yet so we asked her name but she did not have and English name so we asked her boss if we could name her. We named here mellisa because we thought it was a nice name. I always thought the first person that would get to name would be my children but it turns out it was a waitress in China who would have every thought.

Southwest University for Nationalities

Hello everyone I am back. I thought I would tell you all a little about the school that I am studying at. Actually I am not really studying at the school they are just hostinig the study abroad program that I am currently attending. It is a large school I think someone told me that it has around 50,000 students. The special thing about the school is that it is for the different ethnic groups that exist in China. There are over 90 different ethnic groups other than the dominant group the Han Chinese. Even though the Han make up 93% of the population. The other groups are Tibetan, muslim, Yi or any number of different kinds of people. The campus that I go to and have class in is very small and the buildings are all pretty old and are just cement buildings that are nothing fancy. But this last week I got a chance to go and visit the new campus with a friend of mine we call him Chinese Steve since we have 2 Steves on our trip already. He is ethnically Zhuang he is from Southeast China near the Vietnam border. He is a real interesting guy he speaks great English he said he watched Friends for 3 years to help him learn English. Anyway he took us to the new campus which they just built about 4 years ago and it is as nice as K-states campus they have two ponds on the campus. The main difference I can tell between a campus in America and one in China is that in China everyone has to live on Campus for all 4 years and even some of the teachers are provided housing and live on Campus this provides a very different kind of school atmosphere but like I said it was a beautiful campus. Just thought I would share this