Hey everybody -We got up early this morning to make our way to the Phnom Penh airport. Saying goodbye to Yoen was sad... but in the Khmer tradition we kept a stiff upper lip. He was a dear man. I recommend him if anyone is thinking of traveling to Cambodia. Our 9:50 flight was on a mid-size prop plane with Siem Reap Airways. We arrived a bit early, easily gathered our luggage and found our driver, Phirom. He is a younger man who is a tour guide and translator. He worked on the Tombraider movie when it was filmed here.
It was HOT & sunny today and we spent much of the day touring temples. It just seems wrong to come to Cambodia without visiting Angkor Wat, truly one of the wonders of the world. I'm sure Jim's photos will be awesome. He only took about 300 at the temples! It's most amazing to think that these were built without equipment back from the 9th to the 14th century. Very very steep stairs in parts that are crumbling. I suspect in just a few years you won't be allowed to wander where we wandered today. The kids didn't enjoy it. No beating around the bush. It was in the jungle, it was hot, and they were really missing their Aussie friends.
One of the other families, a mom and a daughter, had also traveled here and we hooked up for dinner. We went to the Khmer version of Dixie Stampede (just kidding) and went to a buffet Khmer dinner and Apsara dancer show. The dancing was good. The food was really weird and pretty yucky in my opinion. But oh well. S
iem Reap is amazing. I expected less than Phnom Penh but it really has a European feeling and some very nice hotels. We only paid about $60 US a night for our room here and it is truly a 4 star hotel. It is sort of freaky though.... there is some kind of Asian summit for energy officials from a number of nations going on at this hotel so there are TONS of police and we have to go through metal detectors every time we come and go. It's interesting to see that Cambodia can be so organized when it needs to be!
We've been puzzled the whole time we've been here about how babies "go poo" since most babies aren't wearing diapers just little pants. Well today, in the middle of the temples that are supposed to be holy, we see this woman drop her babies little pants, hold the baby up under the arms, and he poops on the floor of the temple. YUCK!!! She then scooped it up in a paper bag and threw it away. They claim this is a much better way to toilet train kids... but I'm not convinced.
Tomorrow we're going to tour a Vietnamese/ Cambodian fishing village in the morning. In the afternoon we may hit another temple and the market before going to the airport in the late afternoon. We fly back to Bangkok in the evening.I forgot to mention I think that Brennan & Kaley were given permanent visa status upon our arrival here so they got in to visit the temples for free. The rest of us had to pay $20. Don't ask me what they're doing with all of these tourism dollars because they're sure not using it for the roads, or the ruins themselves. And there are a lot of tourists. Last year 1 million people visit Angkor Wat.
Leaving Cambodia once and for all tomorrow will be bittersweet. Brennan and Kaley are already asking when we can come back. I told them that in a couple of years they'll be old enough to come on their own. That's hard to believe, isn't it?They're also talking about when we can go to Australia. Some of the kids in the group were cooking up the idea of having a reunion in Tazmania. Where the heck is Tazmania? I though that was something in a Warner Brothers cartoon?
Oh well... all is well here. We're healthy and happy if a bit tired. My neck is covered in bug bites for some reason but everyone else seems OK. I'm afraid I may have been attacked by some kind of bed bug on our last night in Sihanoukville. Yuck Yuck Yuck. But if that's the worst thing.... I'm happy.Thanks again for all of the support and prayers. This has truly been an amazing journey.
Hugs, Lisa & Crew
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