Dragon Royal Hotel Siem Reap

... to get money to eat. The richer families accumulate the land, and pay the former land owners very tiny wages to plant and harvest the fields. It is not a living wage - not even close to enough money to feed the family, and they now have no land to plant a crop.

So the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

After planting rice we joined the family to learn how to cook a "King's Meal." More on this in my next blog entry...

... at restaurants waving money at him in return from the performance. Maybe he didn't want our dirty money but I would have thought that final skill to be the most important to a street performer!

Anyway things are going good thus far, off to the capital tomorrow after an 8 hour coach drive leaving at 7:30 so need to get some sleep! I'll upload the photos I have soon!


Oh yeah and I also played some "áir fiddle" in the Temple nightclub at about 2 am...

... for mental overload. What was most disturbing and sad, however, was his reflections on the recent history and how desensitized he has become to the horrors the Khmer Rouge inflicted on this region.

The significance of sunrise at Angkor Wat is the unique fact that it is oriented towards the West (the direction towards death). Rather ironic to see sunrise at a monument to death. A bit deep to ponder before the sun is up on ...

... I've been here!" photo.

It was maybe only 11 by this point but I was all templed out. I can only walk around and see so much in a day and I had reached my limit. Before we went back though Keo stopped at a small temple called Banteay Kdei, where I walked around for a few minutes, and then went across the road to a large lake called Sras Srang. It was actually quite a beautiful place and would probably be a nice place to see the sunrise from...Maybe next time.

... of arms as their hands were blown off my landmines and are in real poverty. On the whole Siem Reap is more westernised than Poipet purely due to its location to Angkor for tourists. Parts of Cambodia has developed, but too quickly and there is a sense of gang culture, one of the biggest gangs being the government. At one of the temples our tuk tuk driver ...

... where we checked out of Thailand and entered Cambodia. We then went to "Quarantine" where this random man placed a gun-like object to my eye which presumably measured my external body temperature. It was shocking at first but not as bad as Alex and Amanda's where they had some random (unsterilised probably) probe stuffed in their ear canals to measure their temperature. Swine flu quarantine guidelines clearly not following international standards ...

... you might better stay home. " ~James Michener


Wish we could say we are deep thinking people and spent a lot time looking for these quotes - in typical Urick style they were actually in our Reader's Digest quote section we read on the way over.

Onward - Kevin and Karen

... a crocodile farm. They were only fed once a month so we went to the market bought some fish and started throwing them in. This might have been a good idea or bad because they started fighting among themselves for all the fish. In the end they did get to have a little snack.

Our next move was back to the North of Thailand, we did it all in a one day trip which took about 24 hours...

until next message I hope is well with everyone!

... built over it. My favourite temple was Banteay Samre as it was so beautifully restored and complete with green grass. It was a lovely spot. Further temples were the elephant and dragon lion encrusted Eastern Mebon, Ta Som and the ancient swimming pools of Preah Neak Pean. Our temple viewing was almost at an end, but we had to have one last look at Angkor Wat just to make sure we remembered which one it was! Camille learns to bargain Shaun sent me out alone to shop ...

... is where the turrets are, from there to the Bayon. This I really liked and from there to Ta Phrem – this is the ‘’tomb raider’’ place. It was really good – very atmospheric, it’s amazing how the trees grow and claim the land back. After exploring there for a while we went to Ka Toa. Ka Toa is where we met dollar girl... everything she sold was one dorrar. She had the most annoying whiney voice ever - i recokn people gave her ...