Tokyo Love Hotel

Tokyo was wildly expensive--and a place that severely contrasted the cities we'd visited. 24 hours there cost us the price of one week in south-east Asia.

But, we gladly paid for the experience.

We had no guide book, because we'd heard there was good English in airports and trains stations, along with free maps of everything. We took a train from the airport to central Tokyo which lasted 1.5 hours one way and cost 80 USD round trip. Imagine what a taxi would have run us!

We heard that a room would cost atleast 70 dollars per night. But the cheapest option around was a sleeping capsule--a coffin-like compartment that's rented by the hour and costs 30 dollars for 8 hours. We both wanted to try it, but figured we'd pay the same amount to get a bonafide room. And was it ever!

We'd heard about Love Hotels as a cheap option because they could also be rented for hourly rates and would cost much less than a regular room if checked into after 9pm. We heard these Love Hotels were clean and safe, so when we saw what inevitably must have been one, we checked in.

Everything in the lobby was clean and classy, compartmentalized and flashy. But the room, the room, the room. Mirrors on the ceiling, velvet red and gold walls, karaoke machine with microphone, lotions, gels and toys, packaged robes and towels, a computer toilet, a jaccuzi tub, and a radio with 10 stations and a glowing heart that throbbed with every beat. We had two doors and thick walls, a microwave, two refrigerators and a tea pot.
Who would've thought Tokyo was a honeymooner's paradise?

The next day, we walked 4 or 5 miles through central Tokyo before we took the unbelievably fast train back to the airport.

Tokyo was a beautiful clean city with pristine air in the sky and clunky Amsterdam bikes in the streets.

It was very different from any of our other Asian experiences.

More Photographs

I've posted a new batch of images from Tokyo and Missouri.

You can view the images here.

I had to create yet another flickr account because my images are too large and I don't want to process them right now. So, now I have three accounts of honeymoon images.

They are:

www.flickr.com/oldoutsider

www.flickr.com/oldoutsider2

www.flickr.com/oldoutsider3

There it is. Thanks for viewing.

Back in the States

Well, we're back in the States and trying to get our schedules straightened out.

But, we'd like to write a few more posts about Angkor Wat, Bangkok, Tokyo and our re-entry.

So, if our three readers are still out there, keep checking; we've a few more stories to tell.

Photographs

I've added images.

Click here to view.

Angkor Contrast

We stayed in Siam Reap, a town lower to the ground than any I've seen. Outside our hotel door, we could see water buffalo grazing, farmers feeding pigs, and construction workers playing with a dead rat. Everyone rose early (I mean 4:30am) and didn't mind making a ruckus at that hour.

The chaos we've described about South-East Asia was heightened in Cambodia, but so was the kindness, simplicity, beauty and coarseness of the people.

Angkor Wat was devoid of this chaos, which made a sharp contrast with everything we experienced in Cambodia. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so it's maintained in a much different way than the world in which it exists. It was clean, vast, quiet and empty--covering nearly 50 miles of jungle and farmland. Roads were paved and at every stop there were clean toilets and snacks.

So, we got to wander around at our own will, as if we were at a national park at home. We had a lovely time there and enjoyed the respite from noise, chaotic traffic, and the like.

Cambodian Jungle

The jungle surrounding Siam Reap was enough to keep us busy for days.

The silk cottonwood trees were as big as our Redwoods, with roots that grabbed hold of everything around them and got ready to take it down. They were huge, towering over everything else in the jungle and glimmering with a reddish/silver glare in overcast light. Some of them grew sideways, ready to fall over in a loud crash only the lucky will see and hear.

The ants were as big as our roaches. We saw several packs of them transporting worms or leaves across roads.

Bugs like our cicadas whined at a high pitches in the trees and when they wound down to start up another round, they sounded like a space-ship landing nearby.

Birds cackled in packs.
Monkeys laughed at sunrise.

Although the sun never blared, a heavy heat weighed on us the whole time we were in Cambodia. It was a humid, wet heat. We soaked scarves and handkerchiefs.

The jungle is an aggressive strong thing. We're glad we could ride bikes around in it with plenty of water and clean bathrooms.

Cambodia

We're back in Bangkok, readying ourselves for the flight to Tokyo, then Chicago. We just got back from our last adventure.

Cambodia was a riot.
A lawless rampage of mud, contraband, smiles, colors and hospitality. We'd heard it was just "Cambodia". We didn't know what that meant. Maybe we still don't.
This is all I can say:

A Poem for Cambodia

Multicolored neon lug nuts,
Military green men and Hello Kitty,
hand cranked bicycles,
Indiana Jones, casinos, cattle girls from Europe,
Glass box vending bicycles, Styrofoam on unicycles,
Corruption,
Two monks and a driver.

'93 Camry, spirit house,
Straw lady fans,
Electricity comes from Thailand,
Palm trees, open tour, rooster detour,
Head-on road improvement project,
Barber in the mud, water buffalo, two Dutch doctors
Young men playing with dead rats,
Ancient elixir of immortality,
Mud nausea road session,
Stolen head dress,
French acquisition,

Goodnight,
Cambodia.