Vietnam & Surrounds Day 16

By travelerdon on April 29, 2025

Day 16, Friday, 3/28/25, to Bangkok

It is time to bid farewell to the charming city of Siem Reap.

We get up today at 5:30 AM. Elee discovered last night that our flight is an hour earlier than we thought. So our travel friends make sure we get our bags first and head into the airport. The hour ride to the airport is uneventful. The architecture and decoration of the Siem Reap International Airport (REP) is beautiful. We are traveling today to Bangkok where we started this trip. The sole purpose is to get us back where we will travel home from. Little do we know what’s in store for us!

We go into the airport and there are no lines. So we get through security and still have an over an hour to go. It turns out there was no mistake of flight time. Our travel friends, Rich and Esther with their sons Dusty and John, are also on our flight. So we board on time for a one hour flight. When we land we are 25 minutes early! How does that happen?

Anyway, I order a Bolt ride and it costs $5.50 USD, including tip, to get to our hotel, the QG Resort, only 15 minutes from the airport. Try paying that in the States! At the hotel, we have to take our shoes off and put them on a rack in the lobby!

Then we kick back in the spacious room and browse the internet for things to do. Suddenly the room is shaking. Sure enough, we are feeling an earthquake that, turns out, is centered in Mandalay, Myanmar. It’s a 7.7 magnitude. The people in the hotel are scared. Being from SoCal, we just ride it out. Everything is swaying, the entire room is swaying. Ceiling lamps and fans are going crazy. I’m sitting on the bed feeling like I’m on a ship in 30 foot seas! And yes, I know what that feels like! However, having experienced dozens of earthquakes in Southern California over the decades, I never think about trying to take any photos!

We settle on finding a dinner cruise on a river after dark that includes free beer! It’s only $30 each. So our plan is to get a ride to the start area a couple hours before and check out the area. The ride arrives 1.5 hours before we need to be there and it’s a 50 minute ride. But traffic is snarled because of the earthquake. Trains are shut down and everyone is on the roads. Add to that it’s Friday night. The time comes for our Dinner Cruise to start and my GPS tells me we’re still over an hour away! So we tell the driver to turn around and take us back. We will tip him handsomely!

We cannot get a refund on our dinner cruise but we knew that in advance. So we hope to get a meal at a Marriott hotel near the airport. Our driver brings us to the Marriott and I tip him the maximum allowed. Then I have him wait and I go to an ATM and get him an additional 500 Baht cash.

We eat at the buffet at the Marriott and I am not impressed, even though it is rated 38th out of 4000 restaurants in Bangkok. But hey, it’s better than sitting in the back of a cab going nowhere! We come across some random Lotus Blossoms in the dinner restaurant. Some of the most complex and beautiful flowers in the world!

It’s time to go back to our Resort. We turn in for the night.

Reflections on the earthquake:

On March 28, 2025, a 7.7 Earthquake struck Myanmar (Burma) at approximately 1:00 PM Bangkok time.  The quake was felt strongly over 650 miles away in Bangkok.  You ask me how I know this?  Aside from reading the news, I was in Bangkok at the time.  In retrospect, I would call what I felt as a 5.5 to 6.0 Magnitude quake in Bangkok.  And I was (luckily) in a single story AirBnB.  The quake rolled and rolled for almost a full minute.  Followed 5 or 6 minutes later by an aftershock.  We had travel friends that were on a 10^th floor in the city and ran down stairs to the street where they waited over 3 hours before they got the all clear to re-enter their hotel!

Now to put a little more perspective to what I felt.  Note that I was over 650 miles from the 7.7 Epicenter.  And I felt quite the strong earthquake.  I feel the need to mention that I live in Los Angeles County and earthquakes are no stranger to me.  Over the 45 years I have lived in LA, I have lived through countless earthquakes, including the Northridge, Whittier, La Habra and other quakes that I forget the names or never knew them.  The strongest quake I recall was a 7.2 and I was within 10 miles of the epicenter.

I live about 350 miles from San Francisco.  Never have I recalled feeling an earthquake centered in or near San Fran.  I know people who live in San Francisco.  None of them, to my knowledge, have felt an earthquake occurring in the LA area.  This is where this gets interesting.  Note the first paragraph where I point out that I was over 650 miles from the epicenter of the Myanmar quake.  Almost twice as far away as San Fran is from me.  And I rocked and rolled for almost a full minute.  There has not been a substantial earthquake in that region for over 30 years.

The people were in full panic mode in Thailand.  I just rolled with it.  Does that make me weird?  I never even thought to turn the camera on my phone on.  And my phone was in my hand as I was searching for activities to participate in for the rest of my day.  I settled for a River Dinner Cruise and my wife and I hired a driver (Bolt) to take us there with over 2 hours to spare.  Does this sound like foreshadowing to you?  It should.  After being in the cab for 2 plus hours, it was clear that we were still an hour plus from the boat docks.

It turns out that we underestimated the power of the aftermath of the earthquake.  Rail lines were shut down.  The Sky Rail was shut down.  Everybody was forced into the streets.  Add to that it was Friday Night!  Friday Night is not much different anywhere in the world.  Everybody is trying to end their week and start a party!

So the bottom line is that I live in Los Angeles (Earthquake Country) and I traveled to Thailand to experience an Earthquake!  LOL!  And I was twice as far from the epicenter as I have ever felt an earthquake!  Even more! My friends back home told me that it was California missing me!

Goodnight all!