After sleeping in we had our first western breakfast since we started our trip and it was delicious!

 

We took a tuktuk to get to the royal palace only to discover that it was closed during lunchtime. So we decided to walk to the next temple and adapt our tour to visit the palace at the end, while walking another tuktuk driver approached us and convinced us to do a 2 hour tour to various places around the city.

 

 

One of the temples we visited was full of monkeys and we had bought bananas to feed them. While we were wandering through the temple children approached us asking for money because they were hungry. Feeling bad and not wanting to support them with money we gave them a banana each. A few moments later another two children came to us asking the same thing… We gave them a banana too but they just gave it to the monkeys right away… They must have been sent out by their parents without really knowing what they do…

 

 

After getting back we headed to the palace only to be told by various tuktuk drivers that it would be closed due to “Buddha day” and that they could offer us a different tour. As we got to the palace it was open and full of tourists. It´s sad to see that so many people try to scam you and lie to you just to make some money.

 

Our bus leaves at 23h so we had some more time to spend at our  hotel at the rooftop bar before we had to leave.

 

 

 

 

I somehow did not manage the ride well because I had to trow up in the middle of the night and was sick for almost the whole ride. Even after we arrived at Siem Reap at 6am and walked to the hotel I was not feeling better. The fact that our swimming pool water was all green did not help to brighten up my mood but after a small rest we took a tuktuk to get to the Angkor Wat temple site.

 

 

We were there quite early and so we were lucky to get a few pictures without any tourists, but I was still not well and that ruined my first day at the temples quite a bit. I was feeling so sick that we had to get back to the hotel to have wifi to choose another hotel with a better pool.  Only a 2 minute walk away there was a gorgeous small hotel with an awesome swimming pool where we met Paul, a guy from Luxembourg who works in Siem Reap since 2 years.

 

Unfortunately the hotel was fully booked but he helped us with choosing a good place to stay and even offered us a few drinks 🙂

 

The new place was much better and we spend the rest of the afternoon in our room to get some missed sleep and we only went out to grab some food at a fancy restaurant to make up for the “lost” day.

 

 

 

 

We got picked up at 4h30 from our driver to get to Angkor Wat for the sunrise. Even though we were quite early, because of a semi-marathon taking place that day we were not even close to be alone. The place to stay for the sunrise picture was more than crowded and we were terribly lucky to get a spot close to the water.

 

 

Shortly after the sun rose we went of to get to the next temple because we wanted to be there before the crowd too. But first we had to find our driver, one of about a thousand tuktuk drivers waiting for their guests. He was not where he was supposed to wait and so we searched for about an hour before deciding to take another one to get around the temples.

 

 

This guy was awesome, he did not speak english very well but we managed to get along. The second temple the one I was looking forward to the most “Ta Prohm” was almost empty when we got there but it was not as spectacular as expected. After half an hour a huge group of people entered the temple and we heard a tour guide say “the chinese are here, now it`s time to leave”. Not because they are privileged, but they just have no common sense and scream and shout over the whole place. Not a little bit of respect is shown towards other visitors, nor to the temples itself…

 

 

We did not even got out of the temple as we saw our driver already coming towards us. That´s the service we were looking for!  And we were of for the next temple.

 

 

Later that day when he dropped us of we arranged that he would pick us up again the next day for another tour.

 

 

 

 

Today the tour starts at 10am but it´s the sunset tour so it´ll be more than 8 hours of visiting temples and driving around. The big tour is the one you want to do because for me the temples were more interesting and less visited than the main ones Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm. On the third day of visiting, Fabienne just could`t see any differences between all the temples we`ve seen, after a certain time they looked all alike to her.

 

Enjoy the pictures  🙂

 

 

For the sunset we drove to a special temple laying on a hill to get a better view. But as we were waiting in line to get up ( only 300 people were allowed on top at the same time ) one of the guards said that there were too many chinese tourists there today and that we would have almost no possibility to see the sunset.

 

This is what we´ve managed to get even though we were a bit late to see anything. “late” means being almost 90 minutes early for the sunset…

 

 

 

 

 

 

A day full of traveling lays ahead of us. 7h45 the bus to Bangkok leaves and is supposed to arrive at 16H15. Our plane leaves at 21h00. We thought we´d have a lot of time to get to the airport, but we´d be wrong… very wrong. The bus got there at 18h15 and we jumped right into a taxi to get as quickly as possible to the airport which was supposed to be 45 minutes away. Somehow our driver managed to be the slowest driver on the street and traffic did not help either and we needed 2 hours to get to the airport. At least the taximeter was not running and we had gotten a fix price. But we managed to get to the plane just in time.

 

The place we booked in Chiang Mai was already closed but our key was laying at the front desk and we checked in on our own. An lovely small room with a futon bed. We fell asleep right away after booking a hotel closer to town for the next day.

 

 

 

 

 

We wanted to stay in Chiang Mai only one day and so did some friends of us too, that this would be the same day was not planned because we both have our very own itinerary to travel. But we still ended up in the same hotel and we spend the afternoon together 🙂

 

 

We rented a motorbike to go for the Mae Hong Son loop, a 600km long road with over 3000 curves 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We booked the same hotel for when we´ll be back in Chiang Mai and left half of our Stuff there to travel light and both on one bike. But after the first 200km we had to rent another bike because the small Honda MSX was not ideal for two people with a backpack.

 

 

After getting the same bike for Fabienne we headed for a small hiking trip we knew we     wouldn´t be able to finish. The sun would set to early but we still did it halfway and enjoyed it anyways 🙂

 

 

We had dinner at a local street market and went to play some billiard  before heading to the place we slept. The bungalow we got was very basic but it was super cheap and had an awesome view.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here in Thailand at a lot of places you get muesli & yoghurt breakfast with fruit and honey which is delicious and I love to get it,as Fabienne sticks to egg with toast and jam. When the view is this nice there´s not much to ad for a perfect start into the day.

 

 

The road conditions are about as good as they are in Luxembourg and with all the small twists and turns one does almost not regret having only a 125 cc bike. Almost… Overtaking in uphill sections is hard and uphill itself too. But the bigger and more fun bikes are just too expensive compared to the small ones to rent.

 

 

The hotel we booked was nowhere to find and with no internet we ended up looking at 2 different places on google maps and 2 other places on maps.me where it should be but we just could not find it…

 

2 minutes later we´ve found another cheaper hotel nearby with a room available and we checked in there. A small rest later we decided to head for some hot springs with a spa nearby.

 

This is what we´ve ended up with:

 

 

 

 

 

25euros each for a 90 minute session is only the fraction of the costs for a similar therapy in Luxembourg so we thought why not 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another early start but only a 7 eleven breakfast because our hotel did not serve anything. 2 hours later we reached the Mae Surin waterfall where we wanted to do a short hike before heading to our next hotel.

 

Being confronted with a local 40 bath entrance fee and having to pay 200 as a tourist leaves a pale scent before even entering the place. The hike was supposed to be about one km long but we ended up with hiking about 150 meter. The place was worn down and 95% of the explications about the place are in thai, very thoughtful of the government…

 

 

Today we were able to locate our hotel in Mae Sariang easier. A place close to a treehouse with an awesome view from the bar. We wandered around town for an hour but the town around the loop are not very spectacular. There is no need to see them because tourists are not common to end up there. Finding an english speaking local is close to impossible even in hotels or bars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our last day on the loop we headed back to Chiang Mai which is a 4 hours ride. This meant we could sleep in again before leaving town around 10am. The road does not change a lot over the 600km, views are always awesome especially in the morning when you drive above the clouds and in the mist. It´s hard to get good pictures while driving and they come not even close to show how awesome the drive itself is.

 

 

The last 100km were mainly highway with a lot of traffic as we got closer to Chiang Mai. We got our bags, had an afternoon snack and went back to the hotel we´ve booked for two nights. Our flight goes in 3 days and in 2 days we have to give the motorbikes back which leaves us with a lot of time to do whatever. No clue yet…