Pics...Zarcero in SE Asia
Dec 16, 2004 | 2:26 am
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Pics...Zarcero in SE Asia
Singapore 16 Dec 04, 1600 hrs.
Zarcero's Pics from SE Asia Y'all may want to print this off and read as you go through the pix. Dbl-clik on the pix and they get bigger.
I put this site together for some of my cigar buddies, and also for my college buddies. There’s no narrative for the Jakarta pics, as this was all work and no play. Cambodia was a side-trip for touring, and Singapore for minor marketing, touring, and of course transit. I’ve been to Singapore quite a few times so I only visited a few places that I missed on the other trips. This trip I am lodged at the Sheraton Towers. I used the MRT [trains] on this trip. I am headed to Tokyo in the morning.
Clik thru the different albums for the relative pic number. Albums 1 Cambodia and 2 Cambodia are probably of the best interest for most of y'all.
Siem Reap 001 – This is a pic of the hotel. This is high-end living in Siem Reap. The locals don’t get to enjoy this. Though they are very close by, they are worlds away, or I should say “economies away”.
Siem Reap 019 – Found a fellow cigar smoker in the hotel bar. This was on my arrival night. The older fella in the middle is a Vietnam vet. Both these fellas rode their bicycles from Hanoi to Saigon with a larger group. They were also traveling without their better halves, like me. We did a lot of smoking & joking in the bar. There were a couple of American women in the bar that took the pic of us. They were pretty funny and didn’t give us any crapola about the habano cigars.
Ankgor Thom 007 – This old guy is a Buddhist monk. This is his life. He hangs out in the old temple doing his Buddhism thing. He was not there asking for alms, and didn’t speak or look up. There are some small children who run around where this old monk hangs out. Compare that with the cigar/bar picture. We are economies apart.
Ankgor Thom 020 – This is one of the old temples. I won’t be narrating too much on the temples, as there are plenty of books on the subject that one can view at B&N. I’ve got hundreds of temple pics, but will just show a few on the photo site.
Angkor Wat 014 – This is the most famous of the temples, and the largest.
Angkor Wat 027 – Inside and close-up of Angkor Wat.
Angkor Wat 044 – Local Buddhist monks who hang out at the old temples.
Angkor Wat 047 – The monks and I. These guys wanted to practice some English. I invited them to go out drinking and skirt-chasing with me during the evening. They declined.
Outside Siem Reap 062 – Land mine victims. These guys play music for donations and also sell CD’s. The revenue is shared in an association for land mine victims. Front guy is missing both legs. The guy behind him is missing one leg. The guy on the extreme left, who’s pic is cropped is missing an eye. From the people I talked to, none of them knew what the civil war was all about. Sad stuff. This made me think of soldiers we have coming home from Iraq & Afghanistan. I lived in Guatemala for a time during my mid-teens. I used to see stuff like this there too. My guide comes from a family of twelve siblings, only five survived the “killing fields”.
Outside Siem Reap 059 – The jungle temple, me in the door. Really cool how these trees grew.
Outside Siem Reap 050 – More bizzare tree growth.
Floating Village 060 – This is what the floating villages look like. The trees you see are not on dry land. They stick up out of the water. At the peak of rainy season all trees are covered. At the bottom of dry season the waters recede and the village moves further out into the Great Lake. These people live on the water, and are fishermen. During rainy season, some will not see dry land for a few months. I call them the “Water People”.
Floating Village 008 – This small boat of women is actually a floating market. They peddle their fruits to the homes they visit.
Floating Village 021 – A typical home. Notice the pontoons that the home floats on. They will have boats also, for their fishing livelihood.
Floating Village 030 – They learn to work the boats at a very young age. No adult supervision on this boat, or anywhere else around. Independence comes at an early age. Looks like this little girl went to the market to pick up some goods, and also baby sits her little sister. Guess it’s “sink or swim” at an early age.
Floating Village 032 – Pride in “home” ownership.
Floating Village 042 – A family decides to move from one village to another.
Floating Village 054 – My lunch at a floating market. Fresh kill, and not too much different from the gator in Louisiana.
Singapore 001 – Twin pagodas at the Chinese Gardens.
Singapore 009 – Bonsai trees at the Chinese Gardens [not at the Japanese Gardens].
Singapore 056, 064. Okay, I like birds. I guess it’s the Costa Rican in me. This is from the Jurong Bird Park.
Singapore 021 – This is the Raffles Hotel. Considered the grand lady of Singapore. It’s decorated for Christmas. I stayed at it’s sister hotel in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Singapore 018 – Me again. On the terrace of the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel.
Cheers,
Z
Zarcero's Pics from SE Asia Y'all may want to print this off and read as you go through the pix. Dbl-clik on the pix and they get bigger.
I put this site together for some of my cigar buddies, and also for my college buddies. There’s no narrative for the Jakarta pics, as this was all work and no play. Cambodia was a side-trip for touring, and Singapore for minor marketing, touring, and of course transit. I’ve been to Singapore quite a few times so I only visited a few places that I missed on the other trips. This trip I am lodged at the Sheraton Towers. I used the MRT [trains] on this trip. I am headed to Tokyo in the morning.
Clik thru the different albums for the relative pic number. Albums 1 Cambodia and 2 Cambodia are probably of the best interest for most of y'all.
Siem Reap 001 – This is a pic of the hotel. This is high-end living in Siem Reap. The locals don’t get to enjoy this. Though they are very close by, they are worlds away, or I should say “economies away”.
Siem Reap 019 – Found a fellow cigar smoker in the hotel bar. This was on my arrival night. The older fella in the middle is a Vietnam vet. Both these fellas rode their bicycles from Hanoi to Saigon with a larger group. They were also traveling without their better halves, like me. We did a lot of smoking & joking in the bar. There were a couple of American women in the bar that took the pic of us. They were pretty funny and didn’t give us any crapola about the habano cigars.
Ankgor Thom 007 – This old guy is a Buddhist monk. This is his life. He hangs out in the old temple doing his Buddhism thing. He was not there asking for alms, and didn’t speak or look up. There are some small children who run around where this old monk hangs out. Compare that with the cigar/bar picture. We are economies apart.
Ankgor Thom 020 – This is one of the old temples. I won’t be narrating too much on the temples, as there are plenty of books on the subject that one can view at B&N. I’ve got hundreds of temple pics, but will just show a few on the photo site.
Angkor Wat 014 – This is the most famous of the temples, and the largest.
Angkor Wat 027 – Inside and close-up of Angkor Wat.
Angkor Wat 044 – Local Buddhist monks who hang out at the old temples.
Angkor Wat 047 – The monks and I. These guys wanted to practice some English. I invited them to go out drinking and skirt-chasing with me during the evening. They declined.
Outside Siem Reap 062 – Land mine victims. These guys play music for donations and also sell CD’s. The revenue is shared in an association for land mine victims. Front guy is missing both legs. The guy behind him is missing one leg. The guy on the extreme left, who’s pic is cropped is missing an eye. From the people I talked to, none of them knew what the civil war was all about. Sad stuff. This made me think of soldiers we have coming home from Iraq & Afghanistan. I lived in Guatemala for a time during my mid-teens. I used to see stuff like this there too. My guide comes from a family of twelve siblings, only five survived the “killing fields”.
Outside Siem Reap 059 – The jungle temple, me in the door. Really cool how these trees grew.
Outside Siem Reap 050 – More bizzare tree growth.
Floating Village 060 – This is what the floating villages look like. The trees you see are not on dry land. They stick up out of the water. At the peak of rainy season all trees are covered. At the bottom of dry season the waters recede and the village moves further out into the Great Lake. These people live on the water, and are fishermen. During rainy season, some will not see dry land for a few months. I call them the “Water People”.
Floating Village 008 – This small boat of women is actually a floating market. They peddle their fruits to the homes they visit.
Floating Village 021 – A typical home. Notice the pontoons that the home floats on. They will have boats also, for their fishing livelihood.
Floating Village 030 – They learn to work the boats at a very young age. No adult supervision on this boat, or anywhere else around. Independence comes at an early age. Looks like this little girl went to the market to pick up some goods, and also baby sits her little sister. Guess it’s “sink or swim” at an early age.
Floating Village 032 – Pride in “home” ownership.
Floating Village 042 – A family decides to move from one village to another.
Floating Village 054 – My lunch at a floating market. Fresh kill, and not too much different from the gator in Louisiana.
Singapore 001 – Twin pagodas at the Chinese Gardens.
Singapore 009 – Bonsai trees at the Chinese Gardens [not at the Japanese Gardens].
Singapore 056, 064. Okay, I like birds. I guess it’s the Costa Rican in me. This is from the Jurong Bird Park.
Singapore 021 – This is the Raffles Hotel. Considered the grand lady of Singapore. It’s decorated for Christmas. I stayed at it’s sister hotel in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Singapore 018 – Me again. On the terrace of the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel.
Cheers,
Z
Last edited by Zarcero; Dec 27, 2004 at 4:57 pm
Dec 17, 2004 | 4:33 pm
#4
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Enjoyed your pictures. I'm probably going to check out Cambodia this next year. Those tree photos you have are amazing. Enjoy Tokyo. It's lots of fun.
Dec 18, 2004 | 4:18 am
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Originally Posted by Doppy
Great pictures. Really beautiful birds in Singapore.
Z
Dec 18, 2004 | 4:30 am
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Originally Posted by letiole
Enjoyed your pictures. I'm probably going to check out Cambodia this next year. Those tree photos you have are amazing. Enjoy Tokyo. It's lots of fun.
Just as an example, my wife was there in Feb '03 while I was working on Borneo, there was very little there in terms of tourist infrastructure. Now after nearly two years, there are restaurants all over the places and hotel construction is rampant.
I told my guide in 20 yrs time the Water People of the Great Lake will be gone. He looked at me in disbelief. I told him that when I was a child we used to fly into Costa Rica on a propeller airplane, land at the old airport, get our suitcases and walk down the street to my aunt's house on Paseo Colon. That's all gone now. Once progress gets in, it starts moving very fast, and the old goes away and is soon forgotten. Many young in Costa Rica don't even know that La Sabana park was once the old airport, and that the museum building was the control tower. How could it be, since it is right in downtown
Oh, I did my sightseeing tour in Tokyo and am now back at the Narita Hilton. Took the train down this morning and back this evening. That was fun. I'll add a few more pics later. I leave tomorrow in the PM.
Z
Dec 18, 2004 | 7:16 pm
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Final Photos & Epilogue
Tokyo 19 Dec 1030 hrs Narita Airport Hilton, final photos and epilogue.
I am flying back today. Tokyo was a quick and pleasant stopover. I have been thru Narita-Tokyo airport several times, but have never take the opportunity to get down to Tokyo. I took a an express train called Skytrain to the Nippori station, and from there took a subway to a bus station to meet a tour bus. Taking the train and the subway was an interesting experience, and I managed NOT to get lost. On the way down I appeared to be the only gaijin riding on the train/subway. I heard some Japanese folks speaking Spanish, and it turns out that they are nisei from Peru. They indicated that there is a large Japanese population in Peru and also in Brazil, and that both groups maintain very close ties with Japan. Pleasant conversation, in Spanish, on the ride to Tokyo. Weird, huh?
On the bus tour were several US and European businessmen, like myself, who were simply taking a side trip on the way back from China, SE Asia, and other points in the region, eagerly waiting to get back to their families for Christmas, but also wanting a brief look at Tokyo. All of us in our 40’s and 50’s. It was fun yukking it up with these fellas. The lady guide we had on the bus was hilarious. I found the Japanese to be very polite, and for a short day trip, this was a pleasant experience.
On the way back, via train/subway, I struck up a conversation with an Aussie lady who was also headed to the airport for a flight back to Australia for the holidays. She is here teaching English, and her Japanese was impeccable. Apparently there is a push to get Japan to be less monolingual.
I’m not loading a lot of pics. Tokyo is a big modern city. Temples/palaces, etc., are rebuilt structures made to look like the old ones, as replacements after the war bombings. Word is that Kyoto is the city to visit to see “authentic” Japan.
Clik here for pix
Tokyo 001 – This is a guard house outside the Imperial Palace. No pics of the palace because it is closed to the public but for a couple of days out of the year.
Tokyo 008 – Asakusa Kannon Temple. This is a popular site. Notice the crowd. If you own a Cannon camera, it was named after this place.
Tokyo 021 – Tokyo Tower. This is their version of the Eiffel tower. They are proud of the fact that it is actually a few meters taller than the Paris tower. It is 333m tall.
Tokyo 015 – Me again. My departing shot.
In my several conversations with people, many brought up the subject of how nice it is to be alive in this day and age. This subject came up first with the Vietnam vet I met in Cambodia who did the bike ride from Hanoi to Saigon, and ended with the Aussie English teacher on the train in Tokyo. I’m sure every generation thinks this, but it is so very cool now that one can communicate globally from just about anywhere in the world to keep in contact with family, friends, run a business, send pics, internet in the hotel or a cafe, etc. Transportation systems, communications systems, information systems are a true marvel in this day and age. Unthinkable just a generation ago, that a sole individual could globetrot like this while running a profitable business. I thank God he chose to put here in this day and age.
Well, time to pack and catch a plane home. Merry Christmas.
Z
I am flying back today. Tokyo was a quick and pleasant stopover. I have been thru Narita-Tokyo airport several times, but have never take the opportunity to get down to Tokyo. I took a an express train called Skytrain to the Nippori station, and from there took a subway to a bus station to meet a tour bus. Taking the train and the subway was an interesting experience, and I managed NOT to get lost. On the way down I appeared to be the only gaijin riding on the train/subway. I heard some Japanese folks speaking Spanish, and it turns out that they are nisei from Peru. They indicated that there is a large Japanese population in Peru and also in Brazil, and that both groups maintain very close ties with Japan. Pleasant conversation, in Spanish, on the ride to Tokyo. Weird, huh?
On the bus tour were several US and European businessmen, like myself, who were simply taking a side trip on the way back from China, SE Asia, and other points in the region, eagerly waiting to get back to their families for Christmas, but also wanting a brief look at Tokyo. All of us in our 40’s and 50’s. It was fun yukking it up with these fellas. The lady guide we had on the bus was hilarious. I found the Japanese to be very polite, and for a short day trip, this was a pleasant experience.
On the way back, via train/subway, I struck up a conversation with an Aussie lady who was also headed to the airport for a flight back to Australia for the holidays. She is here teaching English, and her Japanese was impeccable. Apparently there is a push to get Japan to be less monolingual.
I’m not loading a lot of pics. Tokyo is a big modern city. Temples/palaces, etc., are rebuilt structures made to look like the old ones, as replacements after the war bombings. Word is that Kyoto is the city to visit to see “authentic” Japan.
Clik here for pix
Tokyo 001 – This is a guard house outside the Imperial Palace. No pics of the palace because it is closed to the public but for a couple of days out of the year.
Tokyo 008 – Asakusa Kannon Temple. This is a popular site. Notice the crowd. If you own a Cannon camera, it was named after this place.
Tokyo 021 – Tokyo Tower. This is their version of the Eiffel tower. They are proud of the fact that it is actually a few meters taller than the Paris tower. It is 333m tall.
Tokyo 015 – Me again. My departing shot.
In my several conversations with people, many brought up the subject of how nice it is to be alive in this day and age. This subject came up first with the Vietnam vet I met in Cambodia who did the bike ride from Hanoi to Saigon, and ended with the Aussie English teacher on the train in Tokyo. I’m sure every generation thinks this, but it is so very cool now that one can communicate globally from just about anywhere in the world to keep in contact with family, friends, run a business, send pics, internet in the hotel or a cafe, etc. Transportation systems, communications systems, information systems are a true marvel in this day and age. Unthinkable just a generation ago, that a sole individual could globetrot like this while running a profitable business. I thank God he chose to put here in this day and age.
Well, time to pack and catch a plane home. Merry Christmas.
Z
Dec 18, 2004 | 10:15 pm
#8
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 3,218
Nice pics and thanks for taking time to add captions. Captions enhance the value of the pics tenfold 
For those in Siem Reap looking for more reasonable food options, go to the old Frenchtown are (Psar Cha)and look for the Red Piano bar and restaurant. Another nice option is the Bopha Angkor Hotel restaurant on the other side of the river. Then again, outside of the 5* hotels, the food is never expensive. Even the nicely decorated Angkor Cafe (cum high end souvenir shop), directly opposite the main entrance of Angkor Wat, is very reasonable.
For those in Siem Reap looking for more reasonable food options, go to the old Frenchtown are (Psar Cha)and look for the Red Piano bar and restaurant. Another nice option is the Bopha Angkor Hotel restaurant on the other side of the river. Then again, outside of the 5* hotels, the food is never expensive. Even the nicely decorated Angkor Cafe (cum high end souvenir shop), directly opposite the main entrance of Angkor Wat, is very reasonable.
Dec 18, 2004 | 10:24 pm
#9
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 3,218
Originally Posted by Zarcero
In my several conversations with people, many brought up the subject of how nice it is to be alive in this day and age. This subject came up first with the Vietnam vet I met in Cambodia who did the bike ride from Hanoi to Saigon, and ended with the Aussie English teacher on the train in Tokyo. I’m sure every generation thinks this, but it is so very cool now that one can communicate globally from just about anywhere in the world to keep in contact with family, friends, run a business, send pics, internet in the hotel or a cafe, etc. Transportation systems, communications systems, information systems are a true marvel in this day and age. Unthinkable just a generation ago, that a sole individual could globetrot like this while running a profitable business. I thank God he chose to put here in this day and age.
Well, time to pack and catch a plane home. Merry Christmas.
Well, time to pack and catch a plane home. Merry Christmas.
No doubt indeed. Traveling has never been cheaper and easier. And digital cameras have made travel photography far more accessible. One of these days I hope that I can scan all my favorite photos before they turn to dust...
I still remember the days when ATT Direct (at $15 for a minimum of 3 minutes, so it really sucked if you got the home answering machine) was the cheapest option for communicating back with the States while on the road, and the only way to get to an IDD phone was to go to the local airport! Nowadays, it costs me less per minute to call halfway around the world than it does to call across state lines. Incredible.
Merry Xmas
Dec 19, 2004 | 6:59 pm
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Originally Posted by fallinasleep
...For those in Siem Reap looking for more reasonable food options, go to the old Frenchtown are (Psar Cha)and look for the Red Piano bar and restaurant. Another nice option is the Bopha Angkor Hotel restaurant on the other side of the river. Then again, outside of the 5* hotels, the food is never expensive. Even the nicely decorated Angkor Cafe (cum high end souvenir shop), directly opposite the main entrance of Angkor Wat, is very reasonable.
Z
Dec 22, 2004 | 1:07 am
#11
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Great report and pics! I went to Phnom Penh a few years back and was quite blown away. But I haven't had the chance to get to Angkor Wat yet. I'll have to try soon.
Dec 23, 2004 | 11:35 am
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Thanks for the positive comments in the foreground and background. Pix site has been closed. Next gig that involves travel is in Feb, loc California, a regular loc for me. Meanwhile I'm working here at home in Houston for the month of Jan.
Z
Z
Dec 23, 2004 | 7:50 pm
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Originally Posted by yevlesh2
"No photos are available
Sorry, catusas has not enabled any public albums in their account.
Learn more about sharing albums."
Sorry, catusas has not enabled any public albums in their account.
Learn more about sharing albums."
Merry Chistmas,
Z