Pulau Pangkil Kecil

Imagine renting a whole island to yourself? No other paying guests except yourselves. To sleep in driftwood palaces and buffet meals, 3 times a day. The only thing to do on the island? "Energy Minimisation. This is without a doubt the primary activity on Pangkil and includes the categories of Sleeping (there are hammocks everywhere), Sun Bathing (choose your beach), Slounging (classy Indonesian furniture is scattered at both ends of the island), Dozing and Reading" (as advertised on www.pangkil.com)

Serendah Getaway

For a quick getaway from KL city. Just a mere 45 minutes drive away, to an excellent retreat - back to nature, to the mossies, and a wonderful experience of cool forests and river water. Property owned by Ng Sek San, an established landscape architect in Malaysia.



There are currently 4 'sheds' that can be rented. They're all about natural ventilation, and being part of the forest - typical Malaysian kampung living, though with a modern twist - glass and steel hardly falls into the natural landscape! Still, it's a wonderful feeling of being out in the open, and yet protected (to a certain degree!).


www.serendah.com

Checking out some stones in Siem Reap

A study trip they call it - fully paid travel by the office for the purposes of widening our experiences. And so it was, to Siem Reap in the Kingdom of Cambodia, to visit the ancient city of Angkor, an architectural marvel as intriguing as the pyramids of Giza. Within our tour, we visited Angkor Thom, Bayoun, Ta Prohm, the Elephant Terrace and of course, Angkor Wat. There were much more smaller temples and structures around the whole complex that would take a couple of days to explore, but I think our visit was just about right. I mean, after half a day, in the tropical summer dust and heat, anything will begin to look uninteresting...

Lake Tonle Sap was an interesting detour. The floating village, a network of structures built on rafts and boats that float along the edge of the lake following the water level of the season. To see life centred around the lake - from washing, to cooking, and floating schools, church and pig pens! - was an eye-opener. The thing that caught our eye was of kids playing in the water. I mean, we're talking about a water body that's brown in colour, has an awful stench... Yes these kids were jumping in an out, seemingly having the time of their lives!

Of course, escaping the lake, it was wonderful to be back at our resort, the Victoria Angkor

Colonial-style building, though only 2 years old, there seems to be a conscious effort by all the staff to maintain a French flavour throughout the place. Oh, breakfast was excellent!! Wonderful breads and pastries, including fresh fruit juices and a variety of other stuff. I love the lifts in the building - with wooden doors, and a double external cage around it, sort of like the ones we see on American TV in old flats.

Angkor Balloon was quite a trip too. It was nice to be 200m up in the air, seeing the whole of Angkor in perspective. What was once a thriving civilisation is now almost completely covered by trees. Yet at the same time, to see the scale of such a huge construction project humbles a lot of what we try to achieve nowadays. If the ancients did it, what's the big deal about what we're doing, right? And they've got better craftsmanship than us too! Haha!

A nice and relaxing trip generally. Not so much a *studying* trip, but for what it's worth, at least I've seen Angkor... :)