Eating bugs in Bangkok

I have crossed several borders in my travels over the past few months. The Cambodia to Thailand border was by far the worst. There were tons of people, it was scalding hot, there was no food to be found (or atleast stuff I didn't want to risk eating) and the lines were endless.  After about 2 hours, I made it through to Thailand! Finally! Thailand has been at the top of my list for years, so I was super pumped.

I met some kiwis and a Californian couple on the bus and they were heading to Khaosan Road, party central in Bangkok, so I decided to tag along with them. Khaosan was a madhouse, but a fun one. There were tons of little shops selling weird shirts and street food stands as far as the eye could see. There is nothing like having pad thai whipped up for you in about 2 minutes. And it only cost 40 baht for a plate, $1.33. I stayed close to this road for the next 2 days while I waited for a bus south. It was a great time.

The highlight of course, were the vendors walking around selling insects to eat. There were trays of scorpions coated in soy sauce and one woman with an entire cart of deep fried delicacies.  After taking inventory, I decided I would sample a scorpion and a giant water bug (Bellostomatid). I had heard the giant water bugs taste like cinnamon.

First was the giant water bug. Excuse the slightly blurry photos, but I still think they capture the absolute revulsion on my face. It was disgusting. The worst texture ever, awful taste, really just disgusting. Someone lied to me, there was not a trace of cinnamon in there.

So excited

Thinking about it

Starting to taste it

That is just awful

For the life of me, I couldn't finish the little bug. I felt bad because it had died to feed a tourist, but couldn't bring myself to stomach the rest of it. Next up was a tiny scorpion. This was much tastier and I ate the entire thing.

There were several other creepy crawlers on the bug cart including grasshoppers and meal worms, but I decided that was enough for the moment. I will hit up the rest of the cart the next time I'm in Bangkok. Now it's time to head to the beach.

Siem Reap Temple Marathon - Day 3

The final temple viewing day started at a decent hour, 7am, but there was still a lot to see.

Chantha took us on a fun field trip on the way to one of the temples. Locals were making candy from palm trees. It tasted like maple syrup candy.

We also got to try a lightly fermented palm juice in addition to palm fruit. The fruit reminded me of a giant gusher.

Banteay Srei was by far the best preserved temple. The carvings were amazingly detailed. I can't imagine how it would have looked in its prime. It was begun in AD 967.

We visited the water temple at Kbal Spean. This is a carved riverbed that requires a 2km uphill walk from the trailhead.

And we finished off the day with some more beautiful temples. I definitely got side tracked by the cool spiders everywhere. I found a giant half eaten whipscorpion in a spiders web. The size that spider needed to be to take out one that size... wish I could've seen it.

That night we enjoyed the night life of Siem Reap. Pub Street is fantastic, with lots of food stands, cheap drinks and good bars. Angkor what? was a fun place with good music and drinks served in buckets. It was a good way to send off Cambodia. Onto Thailand the next day!

Siem Reap Temple Marathon - Day 2

Day 2 of the temple marathon started at 5am. Why so early? To see the sunrise at Angkor Wat. There were a lot of people present. Although beautiful, I think it would be better to go later in the day to avoid the crowds. A lot less people in your pictures that way.

We explored a lot of temples that day, including Ta Prohm, made famous as the setting of the first Tomb Raider movie.

That afternoon we explored Angkor Thom, a collection of beautiful temples in one area. My favorite was the Bayon and its 216 faces that look out into the jungle.

However, by this time, it was almost 8 hours in and we were exhausted. One can only look at so many temples.

Are we done yet?

We fit in one more and got back to our room 10 hours after we left. Phew. I took a nap around 5pm and ended up waking up at 4am, whoops.

Siem Reap Temple Marathon - Day 1

I arrived in Siem Reap at 4am. I didn't have a hostel booked ahead of time, which was not my wisest move, because I had no destination. I wasn't alone though, I had my traveling buddy, Octavio, so I was safe. There was this jerk tuk-tuk driver who kept trying to charge us extra money to drive 5 feet. Needless to say it was a stressful morning.  We ended up checking into a hotel way out of our budget, sleeping until early morning, then checking out and negotiating it for half price. Not too shabby.

This diversion was fortuitous because on the walk to find less expensive lodging we met Chantha, a tuk tuk driver. He helped us find a room for $5 a night (awesome) and offered to drive us around the temples for the next three days at a pretty good rate. He ended up being the coolest guy, always making sure we had cold water and even letting us nap in the back of the tuk tuk.

Chantha's tuk tuk

The first half day of our 3 day temple marathon took us to the Roluos temples, Preah Ko and Bakong. It was a good warm up.