Already excitement at the Raffles

We had a fabulous dinner that had a dance show go on at the same time. The dinner comprised of seven or eight stations that we could choose as much or as little as we wanted from.  The stations included the salad station, the amok station, the barbecue station, the stir fry station, the tempura station, the Tandoori station, the ethnic Cambodian food station and the desert station yummy.  I particularly liked the barbecue stations is they had giant prawns and the Tandoori station because it was so tender and spicy.  The amok station had small dishes cooked inside banana leaf bowls.  The dances were spectacular and were performed by a dance troupe of 15 dancers and a seven man live band.

Arrival in Cambodia at the Raffles Hotel D'Ankor

The Internet makes the hotel looks fabulous. However it's even better than the Internet makes it look. We're staying in the old wing circa 1920. Our room is fantastic as we have a balcony overlooking the pool. Which is 34 meters long and we had a great swim. We are off to our dinner with a show of native dancing.

Early morning alms with the monks

We woke up at 5 a.m.. It was still dark and we were sleepy. But we made it outside to see the monks. We had read that you were not supposed to take close-ups or use flash photography. However not everyone knew this and so we were a little embarrassed for them. Got some good Temple pictures afterwards and now we're ready to go out to Cambodia.  Thanks to all at the Mekong Riverview especially Mr Noi.  The personal send off from the owner, Mr. Urban was super special. 

Out for an afternoon stroll in Laos

We took in a stroll in the afternoon post elephants.   During a rain shower we ducked into the palace museum.   It showed alot of the personal items belonging to the former King.   We stopped in for a bite to eat.   We passed many temples along the way.

Elephant Adventure part 3 the Baby

After our ride we took a boat up river to some local waterfalls.   Since the rainy season is not yet in full swing the falls were dry.   We did get to see a fairly large construction project under way.   Pavillions, walkways, spa pools and the landing zone for a 20 stage zip line.   Most of the work is done by hand.  As we were going back to the boat 3 girls on top of an elephant had just crossed the river.  The elephant had a 6 foot piece of palm in its mouth.  That is a lot of heart of palm.    Next we visited a mother elephant with her 13 month old baby, Maxi.  We fed them bananas.   Whole for the mother, peeled for Maxi.  Thone asked if we wanted to see them swimming and we said yes.   It turns out that a 13 month old is the same, human or elephant.   Maxi wanted to play with Thone but since he was 300 lbs at birth, he is much too big to play with humans.   I got some video of Thone running away from him. Then some of us running away too!

Check out this video on youtube - you will probably need to copy the link.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arOiFwwoMs8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFkMzSX5MIE

Elephant adventure part 2 Riding the Beast

After a brief stop for some tea we met the elephants.  They led us around to the mounting area where we climbed into a basket/bench on top of the elephant. It had a safety belt type piece of wood slide in front of us. We're pretty high up there and we feel pretty confident for two minutes.   Our mahout was sitting on the elephant's head steering her nicely with a lot of repeated loud calls.  Then we started up a very steep trail.  It got a little scary for me.  However, Leslie has no fear so she was smiling and enjoying herself.  Five minutes later as I relaxed we started down a steep part and really had to hang on.  At this time perhaps we were both apprehensive.    Our mahout turned around and asked me for my camera.   I thought nothing of it until he slid down the side of the elephant and took pictures from the ground level. It took another 5 minutes for us to get used to that and settle down.   The next 45 minutes were great fun.  We even tried to do our vows but we dropped the page and tried to wing it.  See facebook for that one.