Boats In 50mm
Tag: Water
HMAS Castlemaine
Cloudy Melbourne
Maximum Duck!
Wellington NZ
.:A few photos from my recent trip to Wellington, New Zealand:.
Our Asian Holiday – Day 8 to Day 9
Day 8: Our eighth day in Asia started with a sleep in until 7am; when the constant horns from the scooter woke me up. The weather had turned the rain on for us and it was bucketing down. I guess that is what happens when you travel at the start of their wet season; luckily for us we don’t really mind and the hotel had provided big umbrellas for us.
Tuyet picked us up from the hotel and drove us to the Dao Tien River View Restaurant for our Vietnamese cooking lesson. We met the restaurant manager Hung, and started walking towards the Hoi An markets as the rain stopped. Hung guided us around the fruit and vegetables, meats, fish and spices areas of the market and explained how the restaurant chooses their produce.
After touring the market we headed back to the restaurant via the river on a water taxi with Hung. About 15 minutes into our leisurely cruise the rain started again.
On arrival back at the Dao Tien River View we met the head chef and started our cooking lesson for day. First up was making rice paper and fresh spring rolls.
After eating our fresh spring rolls we prepared our lunch for after the lesson; grilled fish in banana leaf.
When the staff whisked away our fish into the kitchen for cooking we started preparing and cooking some eggplant and spices.
Next was the big challenge of the day, attempting to replicate the chef’s favourite; money bags. These seemed quite simple to put together; stir fried vegetables and meat inside of a thin flour sheet and tied up with a piece of blanched shallot.
After all the cooking was done we sat down to enjoy the food we had just made for lunch.
After what was the highlight of the trip so far, we ended the day with a walk through town and a quiet dinner near the river.
Day 9: With nothing at all planned for the first time on the trip so far and Hoi An with sunny, clear skies; we spent the day relaxing and enjoying ourselves. There were a few trips to the tailors for Carly to buy new clothes, lounging around the pool, sitting out the front of cares drinking coffee and aimless wanderings around town.
Our Asian Holiday – Day 2 to Day 3
Day 2: We woke up to a sunny morning in Phnom Penh and enjoyed a lazy breakfast on the top of our hotel overlooking the Mekong River. Our guide and driver arrived and took us to the airport for our flight to Siem Reap. Our flight was a quick 45min leg where our new guide Con and his driver were waiting.
We checked into our new hotel, The City River Hotel, just a few blocks away from downtown Siem Reap. A quick lunch in the hotel restaurant and we were off for a tour of the famous Angkor Wat temple.
We drove through Siem Reap and to the Angkor Wat tourist centre where our photos were taken and visitor ID’s issued. A quick 10min down the road and some history lessons from Con, we arrived at Angkor Wat with the thousands of other tourists; mostly Chinese and Vietnamese. In the land of Cambodia this whitey is a rare and much taller animal.
It is really a huge temple at Angkor Wat, the scale is only surpassed by the detail that is on every piece of stone and wall.
We left Angkor Wat for another temple at Pnom Bakheng built on top of a large hill overlooking the Siem Reap province. We were allocated an hour to scale the hill and climb the steep stairs to the top of the temple before enjoying the sun setting over the Great Lake. We made the steep climb in little over 15mins with no heavy breathing or excess sweating; unlike the other tourists in their terrible footwear and heavy clothing.
The top of the temple itself was ridiculously hot and after watching dozens of Chinese tourists climb all over an ancient temple and throw up peace sign selfies, we left for our dinner and dance show in Siem Reap.
The dinner was an Asian style buffet with some Western foods thrown in to appease the people not keen on trying something different. During the meal we watched an Asara dance that was pretty impressive and then headed back to our hotel for an early night.
Day 3: We went for a quick stroll around the markets near our hotel after a light Asian breakfast. The markets were bustling with vendors and I picked up a cheap cap for my journeys.
Our guide and driver picked us up and we headed out to Angkor Wat once again. This time we toured the South Gate of Angkor Thom and Preah Khan.
Later we headed off into the jungle to look a few smaller, less preserved temples. These temples were a lot quieter than the main area at Angkor Wat. I can only assume that due to the extra walking required certain groups just cut them from their itinerary. For both Carly and I it was a more enjoyable experience seeing the temples and ruins that the jungle had taken back.
In the afternoon we spent some time in and out of the balcony pool at the hotel drinking beers and enjoying the sun. As a huge storm started to roll in with retired to our room for a siesta before heading out to the night markets, pub street and a nice dinner.
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