Trips to Come

So, the new year is off to a good start: two vacations planned for the first half of the year, my cousin's wedding in the works... 2013 is looking good! 

First up, Cambodia (and Beijing)! 

At the end of February, we'll be heading off to Cambodia for 3 days with an afternoon stopover in Bejing. So the plan is to check out the Great Wall and possibly the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square (perhaps a tad ambitious). Then onto Siem Reap and Angkor! Really looking forward to that!

I've started looking up some info mainly about the weather, the dress code, what food to try and access to cash. Since I'll be spending the three days at Angkor, I'll basically only be bringing temple-friendly clothes and a couple of things for evenings around the town.
At the moment, we're planning on getting the 3-day Angkor pass and visit as many of the main temples on the first day (including the sunrise - if we can get up early enough) by bicycle. The main spots include: Angkor Wat (of course), Angkor Thom - the Bayon, the Terrace of the Elephants and the Terrace of the Kings - then Ta Prohm and Preah Khan. The next day, we're thinking of getting a tuk tuk to visit the more remote temples - apparently Banteay Thom and Beng Mealea are worth the trek, and the third day we can just wander around and get lost. The Angkor complex closes at 6, so we'll be exploring the city in the evenings. At the moment, things to check out around the town are the Old Market, the night market and a couple of shrines.

One useful piece of advice I picked up on the Conde Nast Traveler website is to head out early - the Angkor Complex opens at 5:00am - and have a little siesta or dip in the pool during the hottest hours of the day, and then head out again in the afternoon.

I'm so stoked!
Have any of you been to either Beijing or Angkor? Do you have any tips to share?

Hope you had a great weekend!

一路平安
(yī lù píng ān)