Angkor Wat Guest House Siem Reap

... crocodiles in a tank near the tower and dead fish in places. We had a fairly OK lunch there, but nothing to write home about (so I won't).

We got back to our hotel and gave the kids another nap before heading out to Angkor Wat for the sunset. This was our first experience of the place and it is AMAZING. Seriously. It's probably the oldest place I have ever seen. Many years ago, the Khmers ruled ...

... they’ve been preserved! There are three levels to Angkor Wat… Unfortunately, we couldn’t go to the top level as it was sectioned off. There are also lots of apsaras which are heavenly nymphs (many of which were cleaned by the Indians in the 1980’s with chemicals which actually damaged them! D’oh!).

We then moved on to Angkor Thom which is a walled city containing loads of temples, including Bayon which is another massive ...

... humour to ward them off; we've had to say "No thank you" more times in a week than we have in our entire lives
- There are too many tuk tuks and not enough customers, which means you get harassed for a tuk tuk ride at every 10 meters. At least, they are polite and don't keep on insisting.

The need-to-improve-badly:
- We've not experienced it first hand but based on our books and according to locals to whom we've talked, there is a LOT of corruption ...

... drinks were defintely needed after that day) we went on a mission to get our money back. It wasn't much - about $20, but that is worth a bit over here and it was more the principle...we actually booked with the best bus company because it was going to be a 10 hour day of travelling! Imagine the worst bus!

Siem Reap is a funny town. The main streets of bars and restaurants are totally ...

... sure there were some great feasts that afternoon (our guidebook says the three most important things in Cambodia are "family, food, and festivals"). Then we visited a few other more traditional temples. They mostly were mountain shaped with lots of steps and detailed carvings. The temples were built around the 12th century so it is all very impressive just based on sheer scale and the effort it must have taken to hand carve everything ...

... streets of Cambodia. The lack of education and the memories of genocide drive people to desperate measures to sustain their physical selves. This isn't to say that Cambodians aren't pleasant to be around. They are actually quite kind and have a striking beauty which is hard to match in any other part of the world. Which only makes this place quite an anomaly for me.

The night before we left we became aware of how lucky we really were on this trip. Not ...

... we usually associate with silk and that makes pure or fine silk. The cacoons are boiled and the silk is litterally unwound and collected. It is then spun into threads of varying thickness. These threads are dyed and then woven into fabric. Tie dying techniques are used on the thread to generate intricate designs. The workshop employs locals and produces some of the nicer silks we saw.

... is that you drive on the right side of the road in Cambodia but really you drive wherever the hell you feel like it. That seemed to be his rule and for the next two and a half hours we zigged and zagged all over the road; passing motobike with entire families on them, bicylists with loads of veggies, overburdened trucks with 10 people sitting in the back, and just anyone who wasn't going 90 kph.

He was a strange cat. Couldn't really speak English but he loved his ...

... br>


The Challengers on the stage. Our presentation will be done here tomorrow ...

... but not before having our skeletons thoroughly worked over by a couple of athletic girls in a massage parlour.


As the train trundled south to Bangkok again one evening the entire sky was filled with smoke. I had read about this. Large fires were burning in the border regions. Farmers were setting these fires, which were now out of control given that it was the peak of the dry season, and fire fighters were unable or unwilling to get to the blazes because of a ...