#Buddha is also a huge bae

[plussixtytwo]

The one with crocodile meat and deep-fried tarantula

I’ve always wanted to travel alone for my birthday and I decided to make that happen when I turned 25. I chose to visit Thailand and Cambodia since both are extremely exotic, diverse, and have some delicacies that I’m super excited to try. Besides, an exotic guy needs exotic destinations. *wink wink

 Chatuchak Night Market

The plan in Thailand is to explore nothing but food. I asked the hostel receptionist about their famous night markets and she directed me to go to Chatuchak weekend market. I had a yummy bowl of Tom Yum Goong, followed by mango salad, sea foods, bugs, and scorpion skewer (I’m not kidding). I didn’t normally eat that much to the point I was bloated, but you gotta do it when you’re in Bangkok, right?  

The next day, I went to the Train Night Market and made friends with a German girl who thought I was a local. We both then explored the market, bought some stuff, and tried some crocodile meat. It tasted like pork but just more chewy. We ended up eating sea foods - like the one in Chatuchak was not enough - and mango sticky rice while trying to understand Thai songs they played out loud on broken speakers.

Scorpions at Train Night Market

I managed to see some old friends in Bangkok and they took me to Ayutthaya, a historical city located north of Bangkok. Ayutthaya is such a bae and everything about it very much feeds my old soul. This archaeological gem features ruins from the Siamese kingdoms and its cultural value attracts travelers to do a day trip from Bangkok. We visited some temples and I personally was blown away with the beautiful ruins and the rich history behind them. The most popular attractions include Wat Phra Mahathat, a large stone Buddha head set in a colossal and deep-rooted tree. We finished the trip with another Thai food galore in a restaurant overlooking Ayutthaya river.

The stone Buddha head set in a deep-rooted tree in Ayutthaya  

Before flying to Cambodia, I managed to explore the city a bit more. I went to Wat Arun and The Grand Palace only to find that those places were swamped by tourists. You know that “A huge wave of zombies is approaching” phrase from Plants vs Zombies game? That’s exactly how I felt about the whole situation. I just didn’t feel like getting squeezed by the crowd so I decided to just walk around and ended up at a cute coffee shop. 

CAMBODIA

I landed in Siem Reap in the middle of the day and my friend, Syiqin, picked me up with our personal tuk tuk driver. We stayed at this up-and-coming hostel which was only 5 minutes walk from the lively Pub Street.

Pub street is where all the fun at. From cheap Cambodian snack stalls and fancy restaurants to clubs blasting reggaeton and local selling extraordinary Khmer delicacies. Few minutes walk from the street was this little restaurant called Bug Cafe where you could taste various cooked bugs, including tarantula - next level exotic. Though you can find these roadside on carts and at street food markets, for something this unappetizing, I opted to visit a proper restaurant to try it.  

Pub Street

I ordered their small platter which consisted of bugs salad, bugs skewers, fried tarantula, fried silkworms, and ant spring rolls. The spring rolls barely tasted like ants, the skewers were just alright and tasted like, well, bugs, as well as the salad. The silk worms were disgusting, but the tarantula indeed tasted slightly better than the others. It was probably the dough because the tarantula itself tasted rather bland. A few people had mentioned that it really looked and tasted remarkably like soft shell crab. When you tear off a leg you’ll notice a flaky whitish meat inside which is very similar to crab but the taste is nothing like it, at least for me.

I didn’t finish all of them but it was indeed a once in a lifetime experience. Did I regret spending 15 bucks for a small platter of bugs? Nope! I didn’t plan to do it again anyway, so it was totally worth it.

We explored Angkor Wat the next day and managed to catch the sunrise. We had to leave at 4 in the morning and queue for the ticket, at goddamn 4 in the morning! As if I didn’t stress that enough, they had to take our pictures for the ticket. 

Angkor Wat is massive and we’re told to spend 3 days to actually explore the whole area at a reasonable pace. Since we didn’t have much time, and were also on a budget, we squeezed the 3 days adventure to just a day, needless to say, we couldn’t really feel our legs after hours of walking and hiking under the intense heat and dry air of Cambodia.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

I’ve got a pleasant surprise when we’re just walking around the Bayon temple. I bumped into this guy that I met in Colombia back in 2016 when both of us were participants for a Spanish Course. We didn’t really talk to each other during the program but we just kinda knew each other. It took me a while to recognize him and he was as well giving me “man, I know you but who are you” kinda look. We both later greeted each other and talked for a moment. 

The last temple we visited was Ta Prohm, which was featured in Tomb Raider. I took a decent picture with the trees that overgrown and covered the temple. I didn’t stay long because it was packed with lots of tourists and I was just too tired with all the hikes. We went back to our hotel and took a well deserved nap and later went to Pub street for dinner and shopping. 

My heart was full when I left Cambodia. Though I live in a country that has Borobudur, I really don’t think that there is another country in the world with the ancient temples as amazing as Angkor Wat. Plus, I found the people here are extremely nice and genuine. It’s not as cheap as I thought probably because of the imposition of the dollar, but still affordable and I definitely recommend you to visit the beautiful country. I mean, Angelina Jolie comes here often and even Beyonce, so what else can I say?