temples

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Time changes everything- Boeng Mealea temple Cambodia

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The previous post in this trip series is here..

Our first day in Cambodia started with a nice early breakfast at the Golden Temple resort hotel. Our guide and driver Sarak was prompt and picked us up. We had a quick chat with him to introduce ourselves. Told him we can walk fast. We can walk and talk and listen to him to save time. We preferred to go to places less crowded to get pictures. He understood the assignment. He was also a very creative photographer and San was happy that she had two photographers to cover her during this leg of the trip.

Our first stop was Boeng Mealea temple (also known as Indiana Jones temple.. even though no Indiana Jones movie was shot here!). This was built for the flower in the pond that used to grow in the place and was a temple to honor the kings daughter who died as a child. The entire thing is in ruins. It is an amazing place that is still being restored.

The trees have taken over the stones! What caused the stones to slide off without any damage is weird!

These pictures don’t put this ruin to scale!

More photos in portrait format.. the first photo below will be very useful for folks planning a trip. Buy the 3 day pass if you are going to any temples in this complex all three days.

A highlight reel of our day 3 till this point..

We had started before 7AM and were pretty much the only people in this temple that early. We were coming out of the temple when a big bus full of people showed up. We were going to hit our next stop before the buses showed up there..

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Trang An in Ninh Binh, Vietnam - a unique experience

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The previous post in this trip blog is here..

We woke up bright and early on day 2. It was a San’s birthday. On any given day she has me wrapped around her finger.. that morning she just woke up happy and was radient. I was just happy to capture the day with my cameras.. Swear to god, had no idea she picked that dress for the day. Matched her completely by accident and saw that as a sign of good things to come!

San did not want to miss out of eating Pho in Vietnam. She got her wish first thing in the morning at breakfast. The La Nueva Boutique hotel had a fantastic breakfast spread! The yoghurt made it special for me. We started our trip for the day at 7 AM. The same driver who had scared us with his texting and driving showed up. We used google translate to tell him that we were scared everytime he took his eyes off the road. He said he will try not to text but it is hard as they get calls and next trip plans (like Uber) and they have to talk to the agency and other drivers during the day! He was a nice kid and a driver who managed to get us from Hanoi to Ninh Binh and back to the airport in time. For day 2 he got an A.

It took us two hours to go to Ninh Binh from Hanoi. For a Saturday morning there was just too much traffic just to get out of Hanoi city. We crossed the most expensive villa in Vietnam that belonged to a Cement mogul.. 300M $ villa that had gold plated domes! Then we went to the Trang An area. We got tickets for the 3 hour boat ride. It was 4 people to a boat and a group guide somehow counted the two of us to fill his party but once we got through the ticket area told us we are on our own.

Luckily we were welcomed by another couple. They had done their homework and picked route 2 (there are three routes for the boat). They said “if you don’t have a preference you can join us in this boat!”. We were glad to be included and hopped in. This couple Moshe and Ikka were great role models for us when it comes to traveling and enjoying each other’s company. Moshe regaled us with stories of his time in India.. he had traveled the world, taught yoga and had been the head of the martial arts foundation in Israel. it was like we got a ride wtih Yoda. They made the entire 3 hours enjoyable. Moshe may have been a very knowledgeable big shot but his wife quietly showed us who called the shots.. San obviously took notes as though she needed them!

No pictures or videos will do justice to the beauty of this place or how beautiful my wife looked thorughout that day. A cover photo for the blog..

and the rest in these two collections.. Trang An is amazing. The place is organized well at that scale. Hundreds of boats at any time. Women and men who row the boats are also expert photographers and know how to steer the boats to the perfect locations. There are three stops where we go through caves for upto 300 meters and enter areas of water where there are temples built 800 years ago. In some of these complexes there are 3-4 temples, immaculate gardens and well kept courtyards. When we are in the water there is wild lotus and fishes an aquatic plants that give the landscape a unique feel. Then there are the limestone rock formations towering over us. The only weird thing was that there were no birds or animals in sight anywhere!

Portrait format photos..

After the three hour boat ride we made our way to the car and our driver asked us if we are okay with Indian food as there was a good vegetarian Indian food place right near Trang An. We told him okay given the time crunch. The place did not disappoint. Fantastic food and great service. We really needed that chai after sitting in the boat with the sun being up in the last hour. The second photo of San is from the breakfast.. shows two happy people side by side.. one tasting local cuisine and the other tasting Indian food for every meal..

After this we raced to the Hanoi airport.. well raced is not the right word. The traffic crossing the new city was horrible. We were crawling. At one point we were worried about making it on time but our driver told us he will get us there and he did. We thought he was 22-23 year old kid. Turns out he was 30 and had two kids! We told him to keep his eyes on the road at all times when driving for the sake of his family. He smiled. He was a good guy. Hopefully he gets a touch free interface on his next car and picks up more English so he doesn’t have to rely on google translate that much! Here is a pic of him I clicked in Ha Long bay the previous day..

Trang An was so beautiful. Had 120 video clips from the day till our flight. Have compiled all of those 30 minutes of clips into this ~15 minute video. Cannot exactly call it short but it is highlights reel!

We thanked our driver and said bye and were off to our next stop.. Siem Riep in Cambodia.. Angkor wat was beckoning.. the day was not over..

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A morning in Hanoi - Thanksgiving 2025 trip

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We just got back from a 10 day trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. The last part of the trip was planned in January. We knew our friends son was getting married in Phuket and we were going. It was post thanksgiving week given the stars aligned for the kid and his bride to be a week after!

Having put in for the entire week after thanksgiving off, our planner in chief had plenty of time to decide what to do in the run up to the wedding in Phuket. She did change things a few times and came up with a Hanoi-> Angkor Wat -> Chiang Mai -> Phuket plan. 2 days to 2 1/2 days tops for each location. I was asked for a wish list of places to see and apparently my plan would need a month, not to mention underground caves needed permits that were not available. As usual, all I had to do was follow instructions!

One tip before going to anyplace these days. Do not bother looking at facebook feed. Had barely checked in and was waiting at gate when FB told me that Ho Chi Minh city was under water and what we need to do to prep for it. This was not a one off thing. Before we went to any place or as soon as we landed we got the worst negative fake news about each place be it floods, fires, wars, etc. Total BS! Facebook needs to do something about this nonsense soon. or folks should take them to task for this blatant misinformation. At this point these bastards maybe responsible for most wars around the world if they stream this type of fake news and create unnecessary panic. It was good I turned off my wifi and having no international data plan also helped. used the phone pretty much as a video camera for the trip.

There was no direct flight we could find. So we went SFO -> Seoul , Seoul-> Ho Chi Minh city with a very tight connection on Korean air (gladly we made it as did our luggage). We had a 6 hour wait in Ho Chi Minh city and took a taxi to a airport hotel (5 min ride from the airport). We took a shower, had some wagh bakri chai at 3AM local time and took a 45 min power nap, charged phones and were back in the airport to check in bags on a domestic flight in Vietjet to Hanoi.

Given our crazy plan, we had arranged a personal car/driver. The driver was supposed to speak English but he knew 4 words and used google translate. It was painful as he would drive and use his phone which made us really nervous throughout the trip. Our suitcases were in the back of the car and we went straight to sightseeing. The plan was to see the main places.

  1. The lake area and the temple with turtles in the middle of the lake in the old quarter

  2. Temple of literature built for Confusious

  3. drive by Ho Chi Minh memorial

  4. One pillar Pagoda

  5. drive by the railroad street

The time budget for all this was 4 hours. This was to be followed by a max one hour lunch break and then we were to drive out of the city for 2 hours to HaLong bay in Vietnam traffic.

We actually did everything in spite of a 45 min waste to try and find the entrance to the one pillar pagoda. Our guide was told he cannot park near pagoda entrance. He had also said that given the security check and crowed we would only drive by the memorial. Turns out that the entrance to the pagoda is through the same complex and we had to go through the security check. We walked around all over the place and leaving voicenotes in English for the driver did not help. The cops on the roads had no idea either till we showed them the image of the pagoda. Finally a cop directed in sign language that we had to go through the check to see Pagoda! No English anywhere. These are the most interesting experiences in stretching our communication limits. The highlight of the morning was watching toddlers walk through the temple of literature as part of a school tour. They were sooo cute and adorable!

Here are two sets of pictures from the morning (haven’t edited them either). I am severely jet lagged and writing is post is keeping me awake. It is also refreshing my memory a bit. The heat and humidity, rickshaws, the lake, the agarbathies, the pagodas, the street vendors, the red sickle flags, kind of felt like a cross between Mumbai, Chennai and Cochin all at once.. Hanoi was very clean!!

First photo is an example of the bullshit fake posts that we saw at every location. Truth is dead!

Here is a video highlights reel of the morning..

Was still scared of getting allergies on day 1, so played it safe and ate pizza while san tasted local veggies cuisine. Then we were off to Halong bay!

Will write about that tomorrow..

Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.