My friend, Dung, and her family

I am lucky to visit my new friend at her house. I meet her husband and their two children. The 4 year old girl sings me a song in Vietnamese. I sing "Track Track to Boston" with her.

Do you like my hat?

This is our dear friend, Muriel, who just happened to be staying at the same hotel as we in Phom Phen and Siem Reap!

Muriel takes a photo of her friend, Ken. Do you like his hat?

This very nice guy treated four women to lunch by the pool.....

Here are four very nice women - one American with three Canadians.

Some people call this a 'tuk tuk", some a "motorized rickshaw", but it is a "romork" - got that?

Do you like our hats?

Yes, Yes, I do like that hat! and the other hat, too!

Do you like the elephant tooth pick holder?

This is what happens when you treat four nice women to lunch by the pool!

Thank you!

Mechery Floating Village

Young paddlers in the village

A crocodile farm

families live in house boats

Children attend school - floating classrooms

Kids paddle home from school wearing school uniforms

Daily work is done the way its been done for 200 years

Fishing is the main occupation in the floating village. With the new road, they can fetch higher prices for their catch.

This ditch is only two years old - what a project! And, in the rainy season, it is filled to the brim- the only dry land is the Buddhist temple.

What a pretty place. Postcard perfect!

We board this boat for the three hour tour......

Sunrise to sunset in Cambodia

Sunrise over Angkor Wat Dawn at Angkor Wat

Sunset at Mechery floating village

Guide at ACCB wildlife conserve

Banteay Srei Temple

Lunch with coconut milk!

Waterbuffalo have fun!

They are eating morning glory which we eat for lunch!

Sunrise to Sunset in Cambodia
I wake at 5 am so excited to get to the Angkor Wat temple at sunrise, but have to try to go back to sleep because our group meets Vantha at 6 am. Luckily I arrange a wake up call ahead of time. I am the first one in the lobby at 6! Our purple bus takes us through the check point where the park official comes on board to check our temple passes.
Walking up the steps and along the stone causeway over the moat in darkness with hundreds of other people feels like a night of trick or treating. We are dressed in long sleeves and long pants decorated with bug repellent ambling in the dark hoping to get a treat. The door we are knocking on is the door to the day – the sun! Will it be a good sunrise with lots of color or a cloudy one?
Quietly we sit and wait. Like days of old we meditate at the temple. From the steps of one of the “library temples” looking to the east, three tower silhouettes emerge slowly from the blackness. I see three large pinecones pointing upward, how did they think of this North American design? As the sky leisurely takes on hues of pink, purple, orange, impatient fingers itch to photograph our sunrise at Angkor Wat.
Vhanta asks us to move to the corner of the small lake to see all five towers, 5 pinecones. Like a peacock opening a colorful tail, the sky opens a dazzling display of early morning pastel silks streaked with streams of white cotton clouds. We wait and watch in great anticipation for something that happens every day. Here is Cambodia celebrating the sun in a 1000 year old temple, we are mystified. A white horse is tied to a nearby tree. Finally, like the grand finale at a fireworks display, the golden sun peeks its circumference on our stage, lifting, then splashing brilliance into our world near and far. Once the golden orb dominates, the colors disappear opening the curtain for a blue sky day!
We follow streams of people back across the causeway to find our purple bus, Breakfast is waiting at Casa Angkor. I crave a nice cup of coffee, but this hotel cannot deliver that. The vegetarian menu at breakfast is not that good either. Corn flakes and white toast with tea is okay. The fresh pineapple and papaya are delicious.
Casa Angkor is an old two star hotel. While being in a great location near the downtown of Siem Reap, I miss having free wifi and good coffee ( I think I already said that). I appreciate them here more than the swimming pool or massage spa. I write all this, but visiting the floating village of Mechrey later in the afternoon I understand my happiness does not depend on these 21rst century details. Life is deeper and wider. Life is an adventure!
Our "magic" bus takes us on an hour long ride through farm country. We see rice fields with water buffalo, fields with cows, and villages offering firewood to people from city. In one area, the villagers hoist effigies in front of their homes with scary faces and weapons. Vhanta, our guide, explains that these people believe scarecrows will protect them and their families from evil spirits. Evil spirits are thought to be causing ‘yankee fever’ in northern Cambodia. They do not want sickness invading their lives. They keep themselves safe by praying and warding off the spirits with the protective cloth statues.
We visit the Wildlife Conservation and Environmental Education Center a the ACCB – Angkor Centre for Conservation of Biodiversity. Here we see many types of eagle: crested serpent eagle, grey headed fish eagle, Indian spotted eagle. We see Branery Kytes, green peacocks, storks, heron, egrets and leopard cats, monkeys, sloths. Turtles amaze us though we never see them – hiding under the water! Same story for panglins.
We understand that visiting the temples of Angkor is the spiritual heart of Cambodia, but protecting wildlife and the natural heritage is just as interesting and important.
Vantha asks us if we want to eat before we tour the next temple. “Eat!” I voice my vote. My group agrees. We wander under the grass roofed restaurant to find our seats at a long table covered with green and gold elephant designed table cloths. Coconut milk is served to me. I sip with a straw. Stir fry morning glory is my lunch with steamed white rice. No brown rice is available in Cambodia because the machinery to clean the rice only strips it down to the white kernel. The choice for the more nutritious brown rice is not offered any more to these people since the industrial changes. Vantha explains that in the old days, the farmers cleaned the chaff off the rice by hand with mortar and pestle then shaking it in a large flat circular basket. With modernization their food is becoming less nutritious and I long for more flavorful brown rice Jim makes at home.
TO BE CONTINUED…gotta go now…
Stay connected to read about Banteay Srei Temple, and a tour of Mechery floating village.

Siem Reap - Angkor Wat and other temples from every angle

Sunset at 10th century PreRup Temple

Ta Prohm - "overgrown temple"
Smiling face of Vantha, our guide

Angkor Thom, Bayon Temple - "happy faces"

Happy faces make us happy

Angkor Wat - wow!

Intrepid Travel group photo - so many nice people share this Classic Cambodia Tour.

Casa Angkor Hotel, Siem Reap

I have a balconey!

My first glimpse of Angkor Wat from the purple bus

G'day mates - Happy Australia Day
on Pub Street in Siem Reap

Siem Reap is another Cambodian city – smaller than Phom Penh, but still a city with its hustle and bustle. From the airport we drive by farms, people with daily colorful duties, oxen, and cows. I am not snapping photos like I did previously. Am I getting used to these scenes?

Arriving on Wednesday afternoon, we take a walking tour of the city. As we walk down “Pub St”, we realize it is Australia Day! I find some Aussie mates to pose with me for a photo with the flag boasting the Southern Cross. The old French architecture is quaint, but I long for open spaces and a quiet place. Our hotel is a modified older one, and nice, I have a balcony. I imagine days of the past when this was the grand place to stay. No free wifi makes me feel so far away from home.

I skype with Jim this morning, he tells me he found a National Geographic from 1982 telling all about Cambodian history and the Killing Fields. He reads about Ankgor Wat in the NGS magazine, too. This makes me think of Jim’s great grandparents, Elsie and Gilbert Grosvenor, who traveled around the world at the turn of the last century. I wonder what Angkor Wat looked like to them? Apparently this monument site is on the scale of the Aztec pyramids and other great wonders of the world. I have no idea the magnitude of what I am about to see.

This morning – Thursday, I am thinking about being home. Last night was rough. My bed feels like I must be sleeping on Bald Rocks. Something I never want to do! Having been bitten - actually attacked - by bugs on my legs, I wake with nightmares of malaria and worse. I count 80 bites – not sure where I got them. Street noise from my corner room keeps disturbing me as I try to sleep. By 6 am I quit trying. After a shower, surprisingly I feel okay. Attitude is everything. Bolstered by a video skype call with Jim, Fraser and Brody I am ready to see some ancient ruins.
Now I go explore Ankgor Wat.

Wow! I am back at the hotel from 2:30-3:30pm for a needed rest, too much wonder for one morning! I only took 235 photos. Angkor Wat is a massive square temple with the huge open spaces I need to see. Bass relief circling the outside wall of the inner building tells the story of the Hindu teachings. I imagine the subjects of the king hauling stone, engineering structures, and carving designs in the 12 -13th centuries. Did it only take them 30 years to build this monstrosity, I mean, temple. No one lived in the temple – only for worship. Look at my Picassa album for more pictures.

Bayon Temple of happy faces expresses joy and fun! Still a large temple of worship, but it did not have a king. People of the village built it and lived around in the jungle. I enjoyed the magical maze – wonderful feeling seeing all the smiling faces of rock.

Our guide is Sekchanvatha Eng, and we call him Vantha. What a happy face he has. He takes us to a local restaurant for lunch. I enjoy a vegetable amok in the coconut shell. I love the soda water, too. Vantha tells us how when he was a boy he used to fish for the Siamese fish in the moat around the temple – fighting fish – when you put each in a separate glass and hold the glasses up next to each other, the fish get angry and change color! Vantha shares many stories from his childhood before the tourist started to come in the early 1990s. Tourism is good and he is all for us visiting his town, but he harkens back to the days when he lived in the small village around the temple. I see the dirt paths leading off from the main road. I imagine what is around the corner and down the way deeper into the jungle. Vantha tells me the paths go on forever.

After our midday rest, we head to TaProhm temple, the overgrown temple. 80,000 people lived here in the 12th century! Now nature is claiming the territory. One statue was removed and taken by the French back to France. I must find the correct spelling of ‘pranhabahameta’ and where the statue is – the Gueme Museum? When I go to Paris, I will take a photo and send it to Vantha! Every corner we turned makes us oooh and ahhhh as the sight of tree roots grabbing the stone amazes us.

Prerup Temple from the 10th century is where we go for sunset. Steep steps take us up high to be in the sky to see a bright sun set.

And, it is not over yet. Vhanta wants us to meet in the lobby at 7:30pm. We will ride in the ‘romorks’ to a nice restaurant for dinner. I am happy with my thoughts of Angkor Wat and all the other temples. I like to listen to my fellow travelers at dinner – as we share our views from such a wonderful day. Days like this do not happen very often

Phomh Penh Tuesday Tour

I focus on what beauty I can find at the Genocide Museum. With respect for the 17,000 innocent victims and 20,000 children not accounted for, I force myself to view this torture and death center. Why did they kill the children? “Take the wheat out by the roots.” We learn that Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge was a puppet of MaotseTung. As we face the destruction Pol Pot authorized, ironically, we realize today is his birthday.

Read more about this horrific time 1975-1979 in books by Loung Ung; Lucky Child and First They Killed My Father. This child warrior who lived through the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge – not that long ago – tells the story of how her indomitable spirit triumphs over the tyranny she and many other people like us faced. In her author’s note she says:
“From 1975-1979 – through execution starvation, disease, and forced labor – the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated 2 million Cambodians, almost ¼ of the country’s population….though these events constitute my experience, my story mirrors that of millions of Cambodians. If you had been living in Cambodia during this period, this would be your story, too.”

Feeling a gentle breeze and sun on my shoulders, I listen to birds chirp as our guide who was born in 1975 describes this recent history. I see one survivor who comes to the museum every day to tell the school children his story. I witness the chambers of horror were so many people suffered. Of the 7 prisoners and 5 children who survived, two are artists. The paintings they painted hang demonstrating as only paintings can, what really happened here. Tears well up in my eyes. I do not allow the tears to fall. Somehow I feel the strength of the innocent. I must focus on the life beyond the killing here and also later when we go to the Killing Fields.

We drive by bus about 30 minutes along busy roads out beyond rice fields, farm fields, and small shops. We arrive at the spot where those who were not murdered at the converted school came to be executed and deposited into mass graves. A huge tower full of skulls is a monument to their courage. With my deep sadness I pause to feel the flutter of the butterflies who love this commemorated place. This is all I can write now. My heavy heart aches for what my fellow human beings endured – people just like me.

On the bus ride back our guide lightens out spirit by teaching us to speak Cambodian – every word seems to have my name in it! We eat lunch on a balcony overlooking the river. A tour of the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda give delightful distraction. Judy and I also tour the national museum identifying many Buddhas and statues of mystical mythical magical realms form the 6th century and beyond – both ways!

Judy and I find out ‘romork ‘ driver ( motorized rickshaw). We fly through the crowded streets to enjoy another go at the central market. Ha ha - we are helping the Cambodian economy is a small way! Judy joins a line dance yelling at me to join her – but , hey! I am holding on to all the bags in this haven for pick-pocket - ers. (Is that a word?)

Our guide, Vantha, tells us Phomh Penh is a city of “heaven and hell”. That is what our day was like.