Most people are familiar with batik as a style for creating patterned clothing. Originating in Indonesia, it’s been a part of Asian clothing design for a couple of centuries now. During that time it’s also spread throughout the world and batik is now used in the making of all types of clothing, not just traditional wear. Over the years, I’ve even owned a few batik t-shirts featuring my favorite bands. But until we landed in Penang, Malaysia, I never knew that it was also a painting technique. In the heart of downtown George Town, there is a compact Batik Painting Museum (map) that showcases this unique style of art. It was pretty fascinating and a delightful place to visit.

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The reason that Siem Reap, Cambodia exists as a tourist destination is because of the sprawling Angkor Temple complex and the world famous Angkor Wat. That’s why everyone travels there, and we were no exception. We had so much fun during our three days at Angkor that I couldn’t even squeeze it all into one post. But there were many other things to see and do, and we had no trouble filling the two weeks we spent there.

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After visiting Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom on day 1, we took a few days off before returning to the role of part time explorers. Getting up early to climb temples all day in the Cambodian heat can be pretty tiring, so it’s nice to get a break. This is one of the reasons the 3 day (or 7 day) Angkor Pass is great, as it allows for visits on non-consecutive days. Fully rested, we headed back into the jungle.

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Most people are familiar with Angkor Wat, but that’s only one of dozens of temples within the enormous Angkor Temple complex. While nearly everyone who visits Siem Reap will set foot inside Angkor Wat, there are plenty of others that are worth visiting as well. Bayon, Ta Prohm, Preah Khan, Banteay Kdei, and more are all worthy stops. These temples and others throughout the sprawling jungle site range from amazing old buildings to piles of rubble where your imagination is required, sometimes even within the same grounds.

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The last stop on our two month Thailand visit was the island of Phuket. Since we had just spent a month being beach bums on Koh Phangan and Koh Samui, we opted to start our last two weeks in Thailand where there isn’t a beach in sight. We stayed for a week in Phuket Town, sometimes called Old Town in reference to the downtown area. Here we found some gorgeous buildings, delicious food, and some wild animals that would want to steal it.

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