Time to go home...

We've all had a really interesting time here in Siem Reap, despite the heat and humidity, the 'organised chaos', and the occasional (or frequent, for some!) tummy problems.  The food was lovely, although with tummy problems we were not terribly adventurous this time.  We really enjoyed our Cambodian BBQ, even though a table of young people next to us were having a great laugh when we tried to eat the big slabs of fat (with chopsticks, too!) that were actually meant for putting on top of the BBQ to cook with!

Tonle Sap, Cambodia

Still submerged after recent flooding

We organised a trip through Beyond Unique Escapes to Tonle Sap, an enormous lake in the middle of Cambodia which is larger than the island of Singapore!  This lake is home to many floating villages, where families live on homes built on bamboo rafts, or stilt homes or boats.  The lake increases in depth by 9m or so every wet season, and the villages just 'go with the flow'.  About a month before we arrived in Siem reap all the outlying areas were over a metre under water from flooding, and many of these homes (on 9m stilts) were totally covered.  We could see all the water still covering the area when we flew into Siem Reap.  This flood has devastated the recent crops of rice, and affected the livelihood of many Cambodians.

Enjoying?? a fish spa

 

This is uploaded in Quicktime, so you may need to download it if you don't already have it. Check out the look on Trev's face!

Every Cambodian has a story....

During our 10 days here we've heard some interesting (and sad)stories from some of the people we've met.

One of our guides, Kim, took us to Tonle Sap, the huge lake in Cambodia that is larger than the island of Singapore.  On the way he told us of the first time he actually saw white people in 2003.  He was 20 years old at the time, and said he didn't understand what these 'strange white things with long noses' were!  He said:  "I asked myself what these things were - were they human, were they the same as me?'  We were absolutely astounded - until he explained that when he was young, there was no TV, no radio, as the Khmer Rouge had cut off access to the outside world. 

Temples, Tuk-Tuks and ... more temples!

Our driver, Pang, picked us up next morning in an air-conditioned van to take us to Angkor Wat.  We bought a 3-day Temple Pass for $40, which could be used within 7 days.  We first visited Angkor Thom, built in late 12th century, covering an area of 9 sq km.  Very impressive.  

We were, of course, assaulted by young street vendors offering books, silk scarves, bags and other assorted items. We managed to battle our way through unscathed, then moved on to the Terrace of the Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King.  This was a huge area and was very interesting, except that there were were too many bloody tourists (jumping in front of my camera when I wanted to take a person-free photo) and it was soooo hot and humid.  And we did, of course, get caught by the next lot of vendors and I ended up buying 4 bags and 5 scarves!  Lorraine also bought several bags, and Trev bought a book.  How does this happen, I ask myself every time?

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Our next adventure is again in Asia - our first time in Cambodia, accompanied by our friends Lorraine and Bill who have also travelled to Thailand and Vietnam with us.  We left Canberra on 5 November flying Malaysian Airlines and arrived in Kuala Lumpur for a 7-hour layover at 3.00am next morning.  KL airport has an airside hotel, so we booked in to have a decent sleep, shower and breakfast before the 2-hour flight to Siem Reap.  It cost around $48 but was well worth it for the few hours of sleep after a long flight.

We arrived in Siem Reap and were transferred to the Frangipani Hotel ... we'd booked deluxe poolview rooms, but didn't know that we'd be on the 3rd floor, with no lift!  That's 64 stairs at least 3 times a day up and down for 10 days - do the maths, that's a lot of stairs.  We all should be super-skinny by the time we get home.