Four Days to Go

This weekend was about preparations for our upcoming nuptials. It was our last weekend as bachelors. I had dinner with a friend (thanks Veness!) and then came home and knitted, and Fred went to a movie with a couple of friends. This is what guys like us do for bachelor parties. Woo hoo!

We don't have a lot to do, but we have enough going on that I needed to make a list. We picked Fred's suit up from the tailors, I dropped mine off to be cleaned today. It's new, but I've had it in the closet long enough that it needs a press.

We decided when we'll do things like the final dusting of the house, the final cleaning of the fish bowls and when we'll give each other haircuts. All of this timing is very important. We usually do these things on Saturday, but if we did them last Saturday, they would be right where they need to be done again on Friday and Saturday when we'll be too occupied with other things to dust - although Fred is the type who would take pleasure in getting up on the day of our wedding and giving the house a little dusting.

We decided on the wedding dinner menu last week and then a menu for Saturday evening - when we'll cook. And now we're going over the details of what we'll do with our out-of-town guests during the day on Thursday and Saturday. Because suspended animation is not an option, we have to plan tours and things. Friday is pretty much planned out.

Speaking of the dinner on Saturday, I made a pad thai on Saturday evening that was really good. In fact, I ate the left overs today for lunch and it was a really good cold pasta dish. It's from a recipe we got when we were in Thailand. Part of our surprise package was cooking lessons. I never thought a one-off cooking lesson would be worth anything. It just seemed like you'd learn how to make a dish...and then what? But we had two cooking classes and every pair made two dishes and then we ate additional dishes at the meals and then the teacher told us how to make a few more dishes and gave us a cook book. So I feel like I have a pretty good handle on how to make thai food. We've been to Chinatown and we have a bottle of oyster sauce, so we're ready to go.

Sally always thought it was funny that Fred and I do a dry run a few days before when we have dinner party. I hate to make something for the first time and serve it to guests. We did really good rub on a chicked breast that we learned in Thailand and it tasted fabulous, but was painfully dry. No amount of sauce would have saved it. Glad I caught that one.

The wedding cake is on the way. I've deligated that to a woman I know. I'm completely confident that it will be beautiful and tasty. And now all we have to do is cout the days.

By the way, that picture up there is from a temple we saw in Cambodia called The Mountain of the Crying Hermit...or something. I wrote it down hastily after listening to the guide say it quickly in sloppy English, so don't try to Google it. You'll come up with nothing. It's up about a zillion step and it's sort of a wreck from being old and in Cambodia.

And my Tomten is zipping along. I can't stop working on it. It's that much fun.

Cambodia in Three Snaps

We saw these monks on our long river trip. Any monk picture is fun to get.

We saw this while touring the Angkor complex. It's supposedly the best face. There are many.

This was on the river trip as well. It was amazing. I kept saying, "This is so real."

We're off to Chiang Mai now on the overnight train.

Angkor Wat in Cambodia

I don't have any pictures to post, but I will write a little bit about how it's going.

We flew into Bangkok on Friday and arrived on Saturday at noon. Our hotel was pretty great. We walked around and had a really great sushi dinner and then went to bed because we were being picked up really early the next morning.

We were driven to the boarder and went through Poipet. It's incredibly trashy. Wikitravel says the best thing about it is leaving. That's true.

Our driver picked us up there and we drove the Battanbang Province. It's not such a popular tourist destination and I can see why, but we saw some incredible stuff. I'll write about it later. I took copious notes. Tons of little villages made of grass and little brown babies running around.

The next day, we took a seven hour boat trip to Siem Reap. The boat trip was just incredible. I've seen more boat people than I ever thought existed. Village after village of people living on the water - just like I heard about in elementary school.

Today, we went to Angkor to see some temples, most notably Angkor Wat and the "Laura Croft doorway" - the one shown in the movie I've never seen. Tomorrow is more temples and then a silk farm.

Our hotel in Siem Reap is really nice. The one in Battambang Province was not so nice, but it was clean and they had really good coffee. It was actual coffee as opposed to the machine crap they're serving here. This is an amazing trip and we've only just started. We've taken hundreds of pictures which we'll whittle down to a managable lot.

Hope everything is well where you are.

Oh. And I'm knitting a really wonderful pair of socks that's already making me think of Cambodia.

Leaving for Cambodia

...but not on this boat.

I spoke to my favorite sister, Kathy, last night and she said, "You haven't posted anything in a while. It makes me sad." So here is a quick post before we run out the door to the airport.

I've been busy. We looked at this boat for the wedding. It's sort of perfect - built in 1920 - and small - but with a WC.

I've been working and editing like a madman lately. I've also got socks ready to knit on the plane. (I know you were concerned.)

We're off to our big Southeast Asian adventure. I'll try to blog from there.

Below are two more snaps. On of Fred and the boat pimp. It's big enough so I don't have to stoop - made for those tall Dutch, obviously.