Heritage Suites Hotel Siem Reap

Just east of Neak Pean, we enter another kind of temple. This is where we get our first taste of how it looks when nature completely reclaims man-made structures. A sacred fig has claimed a stone doorway as it's throne. These figs are considered sacred because it was believed that Siddhārtha Gautama, a spiritual teacher who founded Buddhism, was sitting under this tree when he became elightened. Today, this is known as the good luck tree.

... brilliant!)! the tuc tuc left us back at the shack, where we decided to go for a midday nap, but it ended up being more of a long sleep (3hrs)! When we got up we hung around the sitting room for awhile, chatting, playing pool etc! meself & Stefan were chatting away when we spotted a big rat! The guys running the bar spotted it aswell & ran straight for a catapult & a torch! It was priceless, they were round after it all evening! After all the commotion we headed ...

... new born baby under her nose and asking for baby formula; meanwhile I had attracted the glances of an older mother carrying a newborn and asking for the same thing. Again, we obliged buying them both baby formula, and to my shock I was kicked and hit by the girl I bought baby formula for because I wouldn’t buy her any double mint chewing gum. At this point more and more kids crawled out of the woodwork along with more newborn babies. We were ...

... impact on me. Regardless it will be a major undertaking to tell you all that I saw, felt and heard on this trip.

First some quick background: Angkor is derived from Sanskrit meaning "city". Angkor is a region in Cambodia that served as the seat of the Khmer empire and it held power from about the ninth century until the 13th century. The Khmer hindu monarch that was most well known was Jayavarman II and he declared himself the god-king or ...

... sleep outside, whilst the girls sleep in a covered area. The small classroom was built on site by a Singaporean team of volunteers.

Each child is given 3 meals a day and a safe place to stay - the main purpose of PACDOC. Otherwise many of them end up as street kids.

They get very little publicity as they are further out of town, so less visitors means less food and the consequences can be obvious. Step up the ...

We are watching the next Typhoon with concern. It does appear to be turning away from us and will hopefully give us the chance to start recovery. Siem Reap is now totally under water, and I am writing this just 200 yards from what is now the river, which was half a mile away last week. We have had to abandon the Orphanage as power has been cut, and living with that level of dirty water lapping at your feet is not healthy. The children have been ...

... it sort of goes against the grain to support a middle aged Australians probable and most likely with drug addiction when there are far better causes to support in Cambodia. Especially when it’s a quarter of your daily budget.
But that aside we had a wonderful first few days in Cambodia. Headed to Siam Reap in the north for our first few days in the country and found a lovely guest house - recommendation of an English guy we met on the bus from Bangkok who was returning ...

... blame on Malarone. Pretty soon a bad day or a cross look from a stranger will be the result of this medication.

Heat and horrid medications aside, we are truly loving our time here and have already concocted a plan to stay. People in Vietnam and Cambodia love volleyball. In fact, our guide yesterday told us how much money volleyball players made and that would easily keep us living in luxury and afford us at least one massage a day. Andrea is ...

... unfinished statue of the horse, Balaha - one of the incarnations of Bodhisattva Lokesvara, in the main pond. It was not the most interesting temple, but one of
the most unique.

On the way back to the main road I purchased a mango to eat. It was so good and so fresh and sweet. Much better than ants in my salad! We took a picture of the lady who sold me the mango
carving a pineapple.

Som took us to Ta Som next. This temple was built by ...

Beth Arrives...

So Beth flew in to Bangkok and arrived at the hostel on the morning of the 14th. She had had a blast in India, but was sooo glad to be back in 'civilization'. Apparently cows commonly block traffic, there are disabled homeless people everywhere, and 10 out of 12 people in her tour group got violently ill (including her) in India. Needless to say, she was happy to be in Bangkok.

We took a little while to get ...