While I was in Cambodia, my parents took the kids up to Subic, about 2 hours north of Manila. Here they went to Ocean Adventure which is supposedly heaps of fun for a fraction of the price that you would pay for something similar in the USA. Here's some pictures of Stevii and Jaron "training" the whales and dolphins there.

TRIP TO CAMBODIA (with a short stop or two in Bangkok)
Welcome to Bangkok, Thailand! We're on our way to Cambodia, but thought we would stop here for New Year's Eve and stay a couple days before moving on. There are 4 travellers: Kim and Krissie have already been tooting around Thailand for almost 2 weeks when they meet us at the Bangkok Airport at an ungodly hour (around 1:30am - yes we are getting old). Kim and Krissie are teachers (and single. I can get you contact information if you need it.) at Faith Academy and are thoroughly enjoying their school break. Michelle Ruetschle and I have left husbands and children behind and are joining them for the second leg of our journey. After a lovely evening in the plane, where Michelle can't sleep cause she has chills and the guy in the row in front of us and across the aisle is snoring SOOO loud that there is no possible way he is still married (if he ever was), we head to Asha guesthouse and arrive there around 3am. We are set up in 2 fan rooms with community bathrooms and many loud guesthouse mates who don't realize that the doors/walls are paper thin (or don't care). Anyway, we slept the best we could and then ventured out around 7 or 8 to find some breakfast. And look what we found! Noodle soup! Actually it's quite yummy and quite cheap! We had this dish more than once for breakfast, lunch AND dinner. So sit back now and be entertained by our Thailand/Cambodia adventure. I highly recommend a trip there to see for yourself!

Mmmm! Breakfast! My travelling mate, Krissie enjoys a delicious bowl of noodle soup, readily purchased at the soup stand at the side of the street. You can add all kinds of spices and get a good morning cry. Krissie has obviously opted out of the hot stuff and is just happily enjoying a morning bowl of soup.

Michelle R., despite the nasty flu she had for the entire trip, chugged down an entire bowl of VERY spicy soup. I think she put 2 spoonfuls of chilli sauce in hers and barely shed a tear. She possibly thought that the spice could get rid of her flu bug. It didn't work.

Kim is either a little too happy in the mornings or so delirious from lack of sleep that she couldn't help but smile largely while posing with her bowl of soup. Behind her is the soup stand.

After breakfast, our first order of business was to take the skytrain to the river and take a canal tour (there are some old canals that are not used as much anymore for travelling, but interesting nonetheless. We were then taken up river to the Grand Palace, the one sight I missed on my last visit with the kids because of the celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the King's reign. The Palace was closed at that time because many visiting dignitaries were staying there.

The boat was so pretty, I just had to get a shot of the front.

This gives new meaning to the "travelling salesman".

Canal front property.

Just a funny sign. There are so many of these that I have to put them up when I see them.

On our canal tour of Bangkok, we stopped at a Crocodile farm (or was it a snake farm). Anyway, having already seen a snake farm and a crocodile farm, I really didn't take many pictures. Instead, I ended up with a picture of a funky cactus hanging just outside of the farm and the tip box that you see above. I really have no explanation for this behavior other than: I took pictures of what I felt like taking pictures of...this is by no means a comprehensive record of my trip. You can check out Kim's blog too for more pictures. She got some that actually had me in them so you will know for sure that I was there! Her blog is on the links on the side...

A trip to the Grand Palace to see the Emerald Buddha. We weren't actually allowed to take pictures of the Emerald Buddha, but I got almost everything around him...enjoy! I particularly like the cone shaped trees...

Temple details...

More temple details...

Pretty door!

After enjoying the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha, we were able to enjoy a bag of mangosteens while waiting for the boat back down river to the sky train. Yummy!

After our slight scare of 7 separate bombings in Bangkok earlier that night (only 1 killed 11 injured last I heard), we decided security should be tight enough and took a cab to the night market where we browsed the booths - so many pretty things, so little time - grabbed some dinner and watched the entertainers on the big public stage. We had a quick Thai foot massage before getting tickets for our midnight ferris wheel ride. This was pretty much a nightly ritual while in Bangkok - the foot massage, I mean.

Michelle R. was especially relaxed. A "little" under the weather, I think this is what she really wanted to do the entire trip - sleep.

Michelle R. and Krissie in the ferris wheel car. Somehow we timed it JUST right to get in line, get in a car and be at the top of the wheel at exactly midnight! Probably one of my best New Year's Eve celebrations in years!

Not a perfect view of Bangkok, but you get the idea. All the major hotels in the area were shooting off fireworks at midnight and it was fun to look at the horizon and guess where the next one would appear!

The ferris wheel at the night market where we spent the end of 2006 and the first moments of 2007. Happy New Year!

With absolutely no agenda and an entire day to kill in Bangkok, we stopped in at a local zoo to view the wildlife. For a small zoo, it was actually quite impressive and we took advantage of the fruit and vege snacks along the trail. Here I am with my bag of sliced jicama and a small back of sugar, salt and crushed red pepper for dipping! Yummy!

Interesting flowers I had never seen before...and of course, no major blog posting would be complete without the famous close up of nature.

Kim in the rear view of our tuk-tuk.

No McDonald's in Thailand would be complete without Ronald McDonald in the Thai "thank you" pose.

Cambodia

After flying from Bangkok to Phnom Penh, we rode on the back of motorcycles to the center of town where we caught a "cab" (translation: man with a car who needed some extra cash and was willing to drive to Siem Reap with 4 foreigners though he didn't know a lick of English) and took a 4 hour drive through the rice paddies and houses on stilts, bicycling school kids, family haystacks competing to see which was the highest and/or most originally shaped, school yards with bicycle "parking lots" looking like the police impound lot for stolen bikes. Our first order of business when we arrived in Siem Reap was to check in to our guesthouse and get the lay of the land. We grabbed a quick fruit shake (so yummy in Asia!) and lined up a tuk-tuk driver, Waa, to take us to Angkor Wat for the raved about viewing of the sunset. All that said, the temple was amazing, but the sunset was not all that. We did come back a couple days later to see the sun rise there which also was nothing to write home about, but our visits to other places that morning more than made up for it. So, here it is - Siem Reap and Angkor Wat, Cambodia.