Cambodia: Day Four

Welcome to Day Four of the week long excursion
through Cambodia. After a spiritually uplifting Sunday
in Battambang it was time to take off for our next
destination--Siem Reap. This leg of the trip would
be the only true "tourist" portion of the trip as
Marc had never served in the area. Our purpose
was to see Angkor Wat and some of the other
ancient temples in the area.

So bright and early Monday morning we got up, checked
out of the "ant" hotel, had some breakfast, and headed to
the bus station. Don't we look so excited for our next
bus ride?

Though not quite as long as the bus on Saturday

and a better driver in as far as he did not constantly use his

horn, it would be a bumpy and dusty ride as half of the length

of the trip would be on unfinished/unpaved road. Several
people had told his it would have been a better idea to rent
a car and drive up ourselves, but we had already purchased
tickets so we braved the bus ride which again didn't turn out
as bad as we had been told. Our suitcases, however, did get
really dusty riding underneath the bus.

Waiting for the bus...

And we're off...here are some pictures on
our way to Siem Reap.

This is one of the statues in Battambang.

One of the towns we passed through.
This point is where we ran out of pavement.

Before proceeding on the unpaved portion of the
trip, the bus stopped for a food break. We got out
to have a look around, while Marc did end up buying
a little treat for himself. Most of that food did not
look very appetizing.

Marc opening up his bamboo treat filled with
some sort of rice goodness.

See what I mean...don't even ask me
what those fried bird looking things are.
The second half of the trip, as mentioned,
was on dirt road. They are currently working
on getting the road paved, but meanwhile
all along the way there were these "detours"
around the bridges. So it was a lot of ups and downs
and going around.
Finally after about 4-5 hours, we arrived in Siem Reap.
As we drove in you could tell that the town was the hot
tourist destination of the country. There were tons of
really nice hotels and resorts such as the one below.

Yes, and still plenty of wats (temples).

The hotel we stayed in was much nicer than
the one in Battambang.
(or the one we would stay in while in Kampong Cham)

We would spend the afternoon and the next morning
in Siem Reap, and since it is best to visit the temples
in the morning, we would do some other site seeing before.

We decided, with the help of our wonderful driver, that
we would go see the floating village and then maybe see
a museum or something afterward. Below is the museum
we would be visiting later that day.

It was about a 15-20 minute drive to the floating village,
so along the way I took pictures of the area.

Oh, but first...lunch! At Viva! Who
knew that we Arizonians would go all
the way to Cambodia to eat Mexican food.
And the food was actually pretty good.

Mom and dad waiting for our food.

Ok, back on our way to the floating village.

Now what is a floating village you may ask?
Well, apparently there is a large population of mostly
Vietnamese fisherman who live out Sap Lake, a very large
lake in the middle of the country. There are some homes
that are built on slits near the shoreline (well for part of
the year), but most of the homes float on the water. Apparently
the lake gets very high by the end of October (the end of monsoon
season), but then for the next several months the water starts to
go out and the tide goes down...way down. This means that the
floating village is never really in the same place as it follows the tide.

As it was the beginning of December, the water had not retreated
too much yet, but it was still very impressive to see.

Anyway, we arrived to a docking area where we rented out a boat
and a driver who took us out to see the village.

This is just on our way out. Mostly
homes built on stilts.

Another group of tourists.

Note: Apparently the trees in these pictures
were covered by the water not even a month prior.
That's how extreme the change is!

Here is our driver.

After going out a little ways, we got to the village.
And it really was a village. There was a school,
stores, even a floating basketball court. It's as if
you were driving around anywhere else in the country,
you just have to take a little boat to get around.

This is the school house.

This is assistant to the driver. He helped
when we docked and such.

Yep, this is a lake. You can't even see to the
other side! Apparently you can hire a boat
to take you down to Phnom Pehn.

Mom and I looking so beautiful.

Before heading back, we stopped at this
store to look at souvenirs and such.
You know what they say...
never smile at a crocodile.

View of the village from the top deck of the store.

After the floating village we visited the Angkor museum.
Sadly there are no pictures as cameras and such were not
allowed, so bags had to be checked at the front. We did
however learn alot about Hinduism, Buddhism, and
lots of talk about the churning of the ocean of milk
(which sounds really dirty, I know).

After the museum, we went to a dinner and a show.
Honestly the food was terrible. It was buffet style food that just
didn't taste good at all. The entertainment, however,
was interesting enough with traditional
Khmer dancing and costumes.

Marc getting his picture taken with the dancers.

Then it was off to the hotel to catch some Z's,
as we would be visiting the temple complex the
following morning. And that my friends, was day four.