Cambodia

Cambodia!

I love how close and how readily accessible everything is to Singapore.
Everything that once seemed like it was another world, like it may not even be real, is a 1-3 hour flight away now.
We flew in Thursday early evening and were greeted by fields of green, smiling faces and a light breeze.
All a welcomed change from our current home country of Singapore.

We got to our hotel, dropped off our things and wasted no time hailing a tuk-tuk to get our adventure started.

There are actually no road rules here.
I know this may be true for a lot of non-first-world countries but this place is special.
It seems like it's more organized chaos than other places I've been.

Cars, tuk-tuks, motorcycles, pedestrians, bicycles, trucks, food carts and mopeds all share the road.
But the lines drawn down the middle don't necessary divide the street but rather just act as a visual guideline.
Kind of scary pulling out of our hotel parking lot in a tuk-tuk for the first time, getting driven head on into oncoming traffic and weaving around trucks.
But once you see everyone does it you kind of accept it as normal and start enjoying the landscape.

We headed to Pub Street as we heard it's full of places to eat.
And decided on a Mexican/Khmer one.

Afterward we explored the Night Market.
$2/30 mins massage
$5/1 hour mani-pedi
$40/2x3m oil paintings
$.50 beer
$10 for an all day tuk-tuk driver
Amazing!
It kind of makes you question why you're paying so much more in your own country.

You get followed/stalked/bombarded with people wanting to massage you, and for $2, we said why not?!

Not only did we get a foot massage, we also got a show.

We think they were cross dressers, but the more you looked at them, the more they looked like women.

We could not stop laughing at the lip sync show they put on.
Panties slung into the audience, little kids dancing on the edges of the stage, pistols pulled from under skirts.
It's not a lip syncing show until a mouse with a squeaky voice runs onto the stage and a pair of panties gets shoved into someone's mouth.

Full and happy we returned to the hotel to plan our next day.

Chinese Gardens

Chris and I are away on a little holiday at the moment which is a massive bucketlist tick for us.
And while I get the posts ready for that here's one from last weekend.

Take the green line west and you'll eventually come to a MRT stop called Chinese Gardens.
If you've got a free day on your hands, go!
Admission was $10.. not sure if it's a regular admission price, or a one off things as there was an event going on that evening.

That's besides the point though.
As opposed to a lot of other places in Singapore, there are barely any people here.

The garden is huge with lots of areas to sit down and explore.

There are lots of little gardens tucked away into this big one.
My favorite though is the bonsai garden... it's magical.

I've talked to so many people who have never even heard of these gardens.
They're perfect for a weekend getaway!
I might even have a sneaky little date in the works at this place....

Singaporean Chilli Crab

Every country is famous for one food or another.
Singapore's food is the chili crab.

We've been meaning to try some for a while, but have never gotten around to it.
While strolling through Chinatown last weekend we made an on the fly decision to get one at the Chinatown Seafood Restaurant.
It was epic. SOOO tasty. No wonder Singapore is famous for this goodness on a food dish.

There were a lot of utensils provided to eat this with, we used our hands and a great big spoon.
Not sure if you're supposed to eat the "sauce" it's cooked in, but we made sure to finish that too.
We had some little buns to dip into the sauce which are really good with it.
We also had some garlic prawns; those were great too, the shells practically fell off the prawns.

Any other food special to this part of the world someone can recommend for us to try here?

The Perfect Birthday Gift

And speaking of birthdays... I got an amazing gift from Chris for mine!

   

He was very coded about what it was saying things like:
"You don't really need it."
"We'll go do something with it after."
"It's something you wanted."

Turns out he got me a Libyan Tektite pendant!

   

When we first got to Singapore we found a great little shop with all sorts of crystals.
The lady at the shop was extremely knowledgeable about them and read our chakras; afterward she told us what stones we needed to keep grounded and our energies clean and topped up.
This was the stone she recommended for me. I love it.
The stone itself has an incredible history.

It's only found on the Libyan-Egyptian border and is said to be extraterrestrial.
It was used by Egyptian pharaohs to channel their energies through the gods.
It's also used by healers to keep their energy from being affected by the people they're healing.
It protects you and inspires you.
It grants you the wish you most desire.
It helps you problem solve more constructively.

And it keeps your chakras open and cleanses them.

As a side benefit it looks beautiful!

Thank you so much Chris! What an incredible, thoughtful, beautiful gift my sweetheart!