What is this? Some planning is actually in the works!

The issue I left off with in my last blog is still left unsolved, but I am not as worried about it as I was at first. I figure that it will be pretty easy to either take a couple day trip and cross one of the boarders or possibly just pay the embassy so that they let me on the plane to Australia a day late (I'm staying 31 days in Thailand, but my visa is only for 30 days!). What I have found in my other travel experiences is that money can definitely talk! Although, taking a small trip across the boarder is pretty enticing. I looked up a few possible interesting places I could go in the neighboring countries and found a really cool route in Cambodia.



From Bangkok I could take the bus to the Cambodian boarder through Poipet. I would then take another bus to the city of Siem Reap, which is 6 hours by bus from Poipet. It is a cute little city with Chinese style architecture and a fun old market and old french quarter. This is also the best place to see performances of traditional Khmer dance. It sounds like a perfect little stop over! The name Siem Reap means "flat defeat of Siam"- today's Thailand. During that battle the prince of Thailand, Prince Ong, was shot dead on an elephants back! How crazy! This adorable little city is also very close to the ruins of Angkor, which are a definite must see in Cambodia. Angkor was the largest pre-industrial  city in the world and dates back to AD 802. The closest rival to it's size is Tikal, the old Mayan city in Guatamala, which is on my list of must sees during my next trip to central America.





Buddhist monks in front of Angkor

From here I can then return by boat and stop off in the "relaxing", as it is described, town of Battambang. The second largest town in the country, yet supposedly feels like one of the smallest and most easy going. It also has great colonial architecture.

I would say that if I do choose to make this journey, it would take about a week out of my Thailand travels. I am not worried, since I will be returning to the area at the end of my trip and can always go back and see anything I missed, but I do want to check with Dani and see if her and her friend would be down for this "mini trip".

If I do not do that, my other choice would be to just cross the boarder at the bottom of Thailand's peninsula into Malaysia. There are 6 different boarder stops to choose from down there, so it shouldn't be too difficult.We are planning to be down there anyway to explore the beaches, so this may turn out to be the better option of the two and I can always do Angkor on my Cambodian part of the trip.



For something so silly (Only I would forget to take into account 31 days of January) there are a lot of fun and exciting things that can come out of it!