Day 5 - Siem Reap 9/14

This is a LONG post with LOTS and LOTS of pictures...you know, just to brace yourself :)

We woke up and got ready to meet our driver at 5 AM to ride up to the temples again to see the sunrise. We went to this great place called Sras Srang (in the Angkor Archaeological Park) that was much more secluded than some of the other areas people go to watch the sunrise, and it was very pretty because it was over a lake. But, just our luck, there wasn’t really anything to see as the sun came up. But, we got a head start on going through some of the temples which was very nice because they weren’t busy.

If you are a photographer, you have got to come here...as you will see from some of my pictures (and I am NOT a photographer and I am lucky if I get good pictures). Seriously...AMAZING. These first pictures are from Banteay Kdei

These things are everywhere...so people can bring things to Buddha or something...I am not sure.

Ta Prohm (the place where Tomb Raider was filmed)...it was SO cool...and no one was there since it was so early in the morning...which was nice.

This just made me laugh...but makes sense since there are so many "squatty potties" in this culture :) :)

These next pictures are from Angkor Thom (which included Bayon and other cool gates and walls and such).

I just thought this was a cool tree


Rainy season...that's all I have to say :)


This frog was SO tiny...like between a dime and a nickle. So cute.


This thing was HUGE and nasty...glad I don't see them like this around by me. I hate creepy crawly bugs...




Steep, tiny steps seems to be the theme around here :)




There were monks from Vietnam at this one :)








So much detail in the stone...


One of the gates in the area

We finished up at Angkor Wat, the main temple (and largest) that is remaining. Thankfully that was the first sign of rain, and it was really light, so we were still able to see everything, and I got a lot of really neat pictures.

This is how they cut grass everywhere in Cambodia...seriously.

I know this is really disgusting, but I just have to say that this is SWEAT not water from the rain...so the ponchos are nice, but super warm in an already sticky climate :)

Then we went back into town around 10:30, had a light snack at The Blue Pumpkin again, and then a while later went to a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch – which was of course very good. After trying to decide what to do, we took a tuk-tuk to a ceramics place just outside town. They had a lot of really neat pieces, and you could even make your own pottery if you wanted – tempting, but we were leaving the next morning, so they wouldn’t have had time to fire our pieces and get them to us.

This is funny on multiple levels...first, Cambodia doesn't even HAVE a Disney theme park. Second, it is not the Disney castle that is in the picture. Finally, it say WAT Disney instead of WALT Disney (but "Wat" is "temple" so maybe that was what they were going for?).


This makes me hungry just looking at it :)

As we were getting back in our tuk-tuk, our driver asked us if we had ever been to the silk farms, which he said were free. We were skeptical, but decided it sounded fun. It was a good half hour drive away, but definitely worth it! Not just because it really was free (personal tour and everything), but because it was so incredibly interesting to learn about the process – like for example, they get the silk from the cocoons, not from the worms. And raw silk is one process, but then they basically do the process all over again to get the refined silk. And some of the patterns are created by a “tie dye” process (which they grow all the plants for the dyes) of cutting and binding plastic on to the threads (which has to be incredibly exact to get the pattern to work). And I got stung by some sort of bug that felt like a bee, but I never got a bump that started itching, and within 15 minutes I couldn’t even tell I had been stung...my type of bee sting :) After that we browsed their very expensive store of amazing things that they made right there on the farm, and then headed back into town.

cooking the cocoons for the raw silk


Spinning the refined silk


The cut and tie design for the "tie dye" designs.


One of the intricate patterns - this one she had to hand line up every string!

So this was on our way back to town...this is where we got fuel :) :) Anyone else see this as a hazard?!? But they are all over the place. They have gas stations too, but I think I saw more of these stops...

We stopped on the way at a soap/candle/bath store where they made the products that they sell in stores…and that was free too – and they even gave us free tea while we toured! It was neat to see everything because they grow all their supplies like the silk farm – for all their bath/body scents and herbs for spices and tea, etc. They also MAKE their own packaging, label everything themselves…I mean they do EVERYTHING for these things from start to finish. It was amazing – it was like they had their own little factory.

I just thought this was pretty...frangipani flowers :)

We went back into town to buy our boat ticket to get us back to Phnom Penh the next morning…which we were very much looking forward to since it is a beautiful time of the year, the water was up because of rainy season, and the boat tour would take us past the floating villages, saving us the expense of going out there separately.

This was our driver Tom, who we used while we were there - he was super nice and almost always smiling - so strange that he looks so serious here :)

Then we ate dinner at our wonderful $1 restaurant, then headed up for dessert and free traditional Khmer (kuh-MY) dancing at a different restaurant nearby.

Banana in sticky rice (like *real* sweet, sticky rice - yum!)

Their dancing is pretty precise, and normally slow, but not all of the styles were that way. My favorite was the coconut dance. It was just a lot of fun.

More pictures on the Khmer dancing when I get my sister's pictures!

It was fun, but after very little sleep over the last few days and being up very early that morning, I was ready to go back and go to bed. But when we walked back to our hostel, we found out that there was no boat going the next morning, and we had to walk back into town to meet the travel agent...who didn’t have our money since he wasn’t the owner, so we planned to meet him the next morning at 7:30 AM, since we now had to catch the 7:30 or 8 AM bus.