After Siem Reap, we flew back to Thailand to visit Chiang Mai. Some of our friends raved about the evening cooking class at Siam Rice Thai Cookery School so we decided to give it a try. 

The cooking class turned out to be the highlight of our visit to Chiang Mai.  I highly recommend it, even if you are like me and hate to cook! Our teacher, Sim, picked us up at our hotel and brought us to the local market to learn about common Thai ingredients.  Then he brought us to the school which is located in a home outside the city. Here is where our group cooked 5 courses together in the outdoor kitchen. Our group included 3 other really nice ladies from France (2 of whom worked in Barcelona).  After cooking and we all ate together and got to know each other.  It's a great way to meet new people, learn a new skill and enjoy a delicious meal. 

Here are some pictures from our class:

First we went to the local market, similar to a farmer's market:

Next we drove outside the city to the school and started prepping our dishes. Here is what we cooked:

Our teacher, Sim, was quite a character.  He liked to dance while he cooked and encouraged all of us to join him.  Here is a video of Chris shaking his hips while he cooked his stir fry. The video is a little loud so you may want to turn down the volume before you hit play.

At the end we all got to eat our dishes and they were fantastic. My favorite were the Hot & Creamy soup and the Coconut Sticky Rice. 

While in Cambodia, we spent a lot of time in a tuk-tuk. Our driver took us all over the Angkor complex, through tiny villages and around downtown Siem Reap which allowed us to see a little more of daily life in Cambodia. 

Our next stop was Chiang Mai, Thailand and we had our best tuk-tuk adventure yet in this bad boy:

For a bit of adventure, we decided to take the bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia.  We purchased our ticket online from Thailand's version of Ticket Master, called Thai Ticket Major.  You have to pick up the ticket at one of the Thai Ticket Major booths throughout Thailand.  Ours happened to be on the top floor of a Bangkok mall.  

The bus departed at 9am from one of the many bus terminals peppered throughout Bangkok.  The standard coach bus was completely full.  They served breakfast and lunch on the bus but the food looked questionable (even Chris took a pass) so we stuck with our water and mints.  If you take the bus, bring your own snacks!

Beware - Visa Scam Before the Border!
After driving for about three hours, we approached the Cambodian border.  This was where the fun began.  First, the bus stopped off at an official-looking place called the Border Visa Office.  Fortunately, we had read about this bus trip in advance, and it turns out that this is simply a third-party visa agency that will do you the service of securing your Cambodian visa for about double the official price.  Despite being told that this would be our only opportunity to get visas, most of the people on the bus were wise to the scam.  Only three or four of our fellow passengers gave them any business, to the dismay of the bus driver who must get some sort of kickback.

Crossing the Border
Next, the bus drove about 100 feet up the road and let the passengers off at the border.  You have to walk across the border and meet up with the bus on the other side.  First we had to go through a building where our passports were stamped and we officially left Thailand.  Next, we had to walk about 1,000 feet along the road through a sort of no man’s land before reaching Cambodia.  This road is dotted with run-down casinos, dusty food stands and the ‘official’ Cambodian visa center.  

This is where you should purchase your Cambodian visa.  The official sign says a visa costs 20 USD (Cambodia generally uses USD for currency).  However, there is another sign on the counter made from notebook paper and crayons that says it costs $20 + 100 Thai Baht (about $3 USD).  Even the official border agents are on the take! Still, this was our only option at this point, so we paid up and went on our way.  

Next we had to wait in line to cross into Cambodia.  This took quite a while, as there were only a few immigration agents and lots of travelers.  The immigration office consisted of a plywood shack with no A/C, no fans and lots of bugs.  I was bitten by ants.  Luckily, spirits among the tourists in line were high as everyone was excited to see the famous temples in Siem Reap.  Interestingly, once we reached the immigration counter at the back end of the shack, the process was fairly high tech, with fancy fingerprint reading machinery and computers.

Finally in Cambodia!
About two hours after arriving at the border, we were all back on the bus and on our way to Siem Reap.  This segment of the voyage took another two hours or so, but it was a really pretty ride through bright green rice fields, muddy rivers where the locals swam waist-deep to fish, and cute kids riding bikes and waving at the bus.   We pulled into town around 5pm.

All in all, it was a successful journey and only cost us about $25 plus our visa fees, which we’d have had to pay anyway.  Still, next time I think we’ll fly!

Great Hotel: Diamond D'Angkor
Lately we've been having a lot of success picking hotels that have received very few reviews on Tripadvisor, all of which were 'excellents'.  Even though all of their reviews are 'excellent', they are typically buried far down in the rankings due to the small number of reviews.  Usually it's because these hotels have only recently opened.  These places often offer some really great deals as they're trying to build word of mouth and generate more positive reviews in order to move up in the rankings.  We found this to be true at Diamond D'Angkor hotel in Siem Real. For just $55USD/ night we got a wonderful corner room on the top level, free breakfast every day, one free dinner, our own tuk-tuk driver for our entire stay, a free cell phone to use during our stay and free mini bar & daily fruit in the room.  The hotel was about a 5 minute walk from the center of Siem Reap nightlife - Pub Street. The staff was incredibly friendly and service oriented. We strongly recommend this hotel to anyone visiting Siem Reap! 

Tuk-Tuks in Siem Reap
Upon arriving at the bus station, we hired a tuk-tuk to take us to our hotel.  (A tuk-tuk is basically a motorcycle towing a cart that can carry up to four people.) There were tons of tuk-tuks waiting for our bus and most of them offered us a free ride to the hotel if we'd hire them as our daily driver during our stay. Since our hotel provided a complimentary tuk-tuk we just paid our driver $3 to take us to our hotel (by the way, we knew we overpaid as this ride should have cost no more than $1, but at the end of the day $2 extra means a lot to the driver, so we did not mind). 

If you ever travel to Siem Reap, a daily tuk-tuk driver should cost you about $6 for an entire day. Tipping is optional and not expected, and we learned that people from other countries have varying opinions about it.  We ended up leaving our driver a tip at the end of the our three days there.

Stay tuned for our next post where we'll take you inside the cities and temples of ancient Angkor!

After China, our next stop was Bangkok, Thailand, where we'd spend a quick three days before heading to Cambodia.  We stayed at the Eastin Grand Sathorn in Bangkok, a hotel we'd highly recommend.  The hotel was connected to a BTS stop, which was fantastic, as the traffic in Bangkok is horrendous. The rooms were modern and spacious, the breakfast was abundant, the price was reasonable and the pool was awesome.  

One of the highlights of our time in Bangkok was that we got together with some of Chris' friends from business school who currently live in the area. We went to a delicious Japanese restaurant not far from our hotel and had great time catching up with everyone!  We also got some great advice on where to go and what to do in the area - not just in Bangkok but all over South East Asia. 

We spent a lot of our time in Bangkok just chilling out.  Since we'd spend the next four days visiting temples in Siem Reap, Cambodia, we decided to pass on the major tourist attractions in Bangkok this time around, figuring we'd be back in the city again before leaving Thailand.  Instead, we went down to the major shopping area to pick up our bus tickets to Siem Reap. While we were there we had a look around the malls and both of us really enjoyed the Siam Center.  While it's technically a mall, it's full of pop-up concept stores showcasing really artistic and unique fashion.  I'm living out of a backpack and don't have the luxury of high fashion, so I really enjoyed looking through these stores!  Even Chris - who abhors shopping - liked it! 

One night we went next door to our hotel to have a delicious dinner at the Blue Elephant. The Thai food was awesome and the building was beautiful.  It dates back to 1903 and was once the Bombay Department Store. Twenty years later it became the chamber of commerce, and during WWII the Japanese used it as a command center.  In 2000 it was restored and is now used as a restaurant and culinary school.  Definitely worth a visit!

We also went to Asiatique on Saturday night.  Asiatique, once a bunch of wharhouses, is now a compilation of restaurants and stores located right on the river. To get there we took a free ferry boat down the river.  Since it was Saturday night, the place was absolutely mobbed. We ate dinner at a French restaurant by the pier which was good, but then headed back early as the place was a zoo!  While the complex was really well done and there were tons of interesting restaurants to chose from, next time we'd probably head over during the week, as the weekend here is crazy! 

We had a great time in Bangkok and look forward to returning. On our next visit we hope to see the Grand Palace, Jim Thompson House and have a drink at Sirocco (rooftop bar notable for its appearance in the Hangover II).