Tag crowds
There are people absolutely eveywhere. They’re all around me, moving in all directions all at once. Each person has their own goal but together they become like ants, milling about frantically. Scooters mixing in with the people, normally so nimble, this crowd makes them feel big and clumsy, and they creep along at the same pace as the pedestrians. There’s noise all around, the omnipresent murmur of voices, the buzzing of scooter engines, and the shouts of vendors. I can see my wife ahead of me, but the sea of people has filled the gap between us. Beyond her, the … Read the rest
Two buildings right next to each other, one predominantly blue, the other predominantly green. The walls are covered in glazed, lozenge shaped tiles, each of which is adorned with a bas relief flower; the gaps between the tiles is painted gold. The multi tiered roofs, tiled in red and green, are supported by pillars covered in mirror glass mosaic sparkling with silver in the sun, and gold painted decorations. It’s all a bit hard to take in, so much splendor, so much fine detail. Of course, it doesn’t help that the place is crowded with tourists, every time you want … Read the rest
After our sunrise excursion yesterday we decided to let ourselves sleep as long as we wanted. We spent the morning shopping for handicrafts and taking care of various other things.
After lunch we called up our tuk tuk driver and set off to the temples one last time. We started with one called Preah Khan which is just north of Angkor Thom. It is in much worse shape than the others, with large piles of rubble, and whole rooms that are inaccessible. The parts that are still standing however have some beautiful carvings.
Entering Preah Khan 
The front of the
This place is absolutely massive, in fact it’s the largest building in the world, so it should be able to swallow massive amounts of visitors. Yet here I am, in the longest queue I’ve seen in more than two months of traveling. From the stairs leading up to the main stupa, it goes around the corner all the way along the north wall, down to the opposite side of the stupa. I don’t like standing in line but I can’t come to the most famous temple ruin in south east Asia and skip the main shrine, so here I stand…… Read the rest
I’ve heard from several sources that you should see Angkor Wat at sunrise, so this morning we forced ourselves out of our comfortable bed at four o’clock. Our Tuk Tuk driver picked us up and we set off into the cold, starry night.
When we arrived at the temple there were already some people waiting but we managed to claim a spot right at the edge of the pool facing the temple. Soon there was a veritable crowd, three rows deep lining the edge of the pool, we were lucky to be so early. After a while we started seeing … Read the rest
There’s a large tree straddling the top of the ancient building. The roots, as big as a man’s leg or bigger, come spilling down the walls like a mass of grey tentacles over the dark, moss covered stone. From the top of the roof, the trunk shoots up towards the blue sky, to the green crown high above. In front of the building is a small wooden platform, on it, two Chinese women posing for a photo and in front of the platform, a long line of tourists, all waiting for their chance to take a picture. The place is … Read the rest
It’s well neigh impossible to capture this place on a photo. In the middle, the giant, mountainlike central stupa, the peak soaring above the rest of the temple. The sides of the stupa are crumbling, large blocks of stone missing and the reliefs that used to depict faces have withered away during hundreds of years of neglect. Around it there are four smaller towers, one in each direction of the compass, the tops of which consist of four faces, facing four different directions. Lower down, on the sides of both the main stupa and the surrounding towers are dark openings leading in … Read the rest
Today was our last whole day in Italy, and we spent it in Florence. This is a much bigger city than all the other places we have visited, with lots of things to see. I’m sure you could spend several days there checking out the various churches, palaces and museums but we only had one afternoon, so we focused in on the main goals, the cathedral and the Uffizi art gallery. Because this is such a popular tourist destination, there was of course a lot of people, with massive queues for the biggest attractions; to skip the queue we decided … Read the rest
During most of my business trips my parents and I don’t bother to see each other but this time, since my wife joined, they couldn’t resist. So on Tuesday Yini and I took the train north from Napoli to a small town called Chiusi Chianciano Terme in Toscana where my parents picked us up in their rental car. The hotel is in another town not too far away from Chiusi but there are several picturesque little towns in the area so we stopped by a place called Pienza and strolled around there for an hour or so before going to … Read the rest