A Road Well Travelled

Since my last posting on travel which was to Bali, I have been to Haadyai, Pangkor, Singapore last year. This year so far has been Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Haadyai was so-so, you know how it is.., the usual binge on eating and window shopping, with no nice photo's to take. Haadyai is truly for serious cheap shoppers who like to haggle/bargain over prices and yours truly is not one of them. My idea of shopping is asking for the price and paying for it. No exchange of unnecessary words, no ding-dongs back and forth that irritate me. But food, booze was delicious and cheap.

Pangkor was fun-filled for the kids and laid-back for me. I always like the sand and sea. Sleeping and reading on the beach, boating to some nameless island in the hot hot sun. We always stay at Boral Bay Resort because the rooms are huge and restaurants are just down the road, so is the beach. There is this particular restaurant that opens for lunch and dinner (most restaurants only open for dinner) that serve the best fish and chips, as in the fish is filleted fresh fish and not frozen dory fish we get in the great city of Kuala Lumpur. I remember when the kids were still small, I had to pack their foodstuff as they could not eat adult food yet and now here they are choosing their own from a menu. Well, it will be Pangkor again this year as we always an annual visit.

Singapore for me was one big boring ride. But not so for the kids of course, with all the rides they went on at Universal Studios. Will fare better at the Singapore Zoo next trip, as did not have time for it this trip. I can't imagine that I spent a whole day at Universal Studios, what with my aversion to man-made amusement  parks. But yes, I have to admit that I did ride on the 2 rollercoasters (once each, but the kids happily lined-up for seconds) and the 3-D Transformer ride (which I did enjoy actually..hmm..). Food was shitty of course (sorry Singapore), the only palatable food was at the Padang restaurant a walk away from our budget hotel.. The Science Centre was informative for children and adults alike, the Night Safari was unentertaining as most of the animals were sleeping or hiding away from the spotlights! I think our Night Safari at the Taiping Zoo is better.

But, I have to tell you that the highlight has to be Cambodia. Such a greatness the grandess of all the temples, though long disposed. We clambered, climbed, scouted, discovered every inch of the temples we visited (future travellers to Angkor, please bring along a torchlight)  from those on the outskirts to the well known ones. We were all in awe of the carvings, the maze of corridors, columns, height and architecture of every single temple we visited. Could anyone imagine how they were built? Being inside was peaceful and quiet, though you had people walking all around. But as you exit the grounds, you are 'ambushed' by vendors selling their wares and I had my fair share of vendors being annoyed by me, hah! But all taken humourously by me. But seriously, by the last day, I was so tired of saying 'no thank you' that I started mumbling in Malay and they backed-off, thinking that I do not understand English I hope. Hah!! Food was rather bland if you compare with Thai food (there I was splashing liberal dashings of fish sauce onto every dish I was eating), but good for kids as it was not spicy. For me, the best was Fish Amok (one of their national dishes), like a watered down version of our masak lemak but very tasty with the mixture of fried ground lemon grass. We will visit Angkor again, next year for sure..