To: Friends & Family

12 April, 2005

Cambodia is so enchanting...

Today is Tuesday and our fifth day here...we arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia Friday evening. The flight in was quite dramatic...a very steep pitch for our descent so it was a little unsettling, though in the end fine. Our guesthouse (Mom's Guesthouse) arranged a driver to pick us up from the airport. His name is Li Chi, so we address him as Chi. Delightful fellow in his late thirties was in the military for four years and is now a driver -- excellent driver too -- for tourists. 

Dinner the first night was at the Bayon, which is next door to the guesthouse. They serve dinner and then at seven in the evening they start the nightly traditional Cambodian shadow puppet show -- complete with live music and song. The puppeting is done by small children, maybe five to eight years old and about five of them behind the scenes. It was great. Then we called it an evening in our air-conditioned room.

The next morning we had breakfast at the guesthouse. Afterward Chi showed up around eight and we were off to the temples of Angkor. Enchanting does no service to describing these sites. Angkor is a huge temple complex that spans over many square miles (or hectares as they say here). Angkor Wat is the most famous of them and has become synonymous when the temples of Angkor are referenced in the Western world. We picked up our three-day temple pass and toured sites for a few hours. It was lunchtime by then. Kelley had looked through one of the guidebooks the night before and found a place named the Cambodia Butterfly Garden -- an establishment run by an English gentleman who used to run a guesthouse in Siem Reap. There are nets over the garden space and he makes the floral garden home for around 700 butterflies (representing 40 species) and goldfish housed in a raised koi pond that has two windows for viewing them. The food was divine! Kelley and I both had the couscous and bean salad. Then we got a great overview of the local area and possible things to do as well as recommendations for traveling in Cambodia. Nothing quite like being in a tropical climate while butterflies flit by as you are sipping a cold drink over you noon-day meal.

We went back to the temples for the afternoon and then to a restaurant called Chivit Thai for dinner. Open air seating and the fans were on us (as they are really necessary in this part of the world) in Chivit. The food was good and the smoothies were great ( :-) No responses needed reprimanding me for ice consumption as we are being safe when we choose to consume it...there are ways to tell if it is made from purified water...or so we’ve been told.).

The second day Chi arrived to pick me up for sunrise at the temples. Kelley was not interested in going for sunrise so it was just me and Chi at five AM heading toward the horizon---the roads leading outside of town are quite open and flat. Spectacular experience though the sunrise did not produce a lot of diverse coloration. I then headed back with Chi around 8 to pick up Kelley for us to go to some of the farther out temples. When we arrived at the temple entrance, we headed on what turned into a hike through the Cambodia jungle to get to the top of a mountain. When there we saw carvings in the stones that are in the river...so not rocks that were moved into the water, but rocks that were already there and the artisans several hundred years ago made carvings in them.

On our way back down the mountain we heard soft scales from a flute. It sounded surreal---we were in the midst of a jungle and hearing a flute's beautiful notes floating on the breeze. As we rounded the area for the waterfall (which was actually just a trickle as we're in the peak of hot season now) we saw two people -- a young Cambodian flute player around twenty years and his teacher around...well ancient. The youngster played for us a traditional Cambodian song and Kelley was able to capture our private concert atop a sacred Cambodian mountain at the base of a waterfall on her digital camera’s video mode.

We had lunch (what looked like Ramen noodles, but they were clearly fresh) at the base of the mountain where Chi was waiting for us. We then went to two more temples. We dropped Kelley off after that and I went back to the temples...Angkor Wat for sunset. After sunset Chi and I met up with Kelley at the guesthouse and we went to a local hospital that has the head doctor playing his cello (a weekly occurrence each Saturday & Sunday night at 7pm in Siem Reap). After the concert we went to dinner (at a French restaurant where I was annoyed by mosquitoes...ah, well, the price to pay for being in exotic Cambodia and able to eat at open air restaurants.) via motodups---motorcycle taxis. Incidentally, days before we'd sworn we'd never ride a motodup. They're actually great if you are in for a thrill ride!

Next morning was another Angkor sunrise for me and I went to the Large Pool at Angkor per Chi's recommendation. Gorgeous sunrise and there were several Cambodian children who decided they wanted to watch me as I set up for picture taking. I had my tripod and cable release (plunger mechanism to take pictures without moving the camera). After a few shots one of the little girls giggled and went 'click-click'. I asked if she wanted to go 'click-click' so then I ended up with about fifteen children wanting to click-click. So each time I was ready for another shot, I let one of them take the picture for me--what a gift to receive!

Then I was off to do more "templeing" (as Kelley had decided the night before two days of temples were enough for her) -- two additional temples that day that I visited twice each. Once each before lunch and once each after lunch. And what a lunch we had! Kelley found this place called The Balcony...we had a dessert crepe of mandarin oranges....fresh mandarin oranges not canned! After lunch, we stopped by an Artisan training school (Artisans d'Angkor) where Cambodian youth are trained on how to carve exquisite wood and stone pieces.

Then Kelley walked around the Old Market while I was back to Angkor for sunset. The sunset was beautiful and I stayed at the temple a bit past sunset to see some night temple silhouettes...my last photo from Angkor was of one of the temple lions silhouetted with a crescent moon overhead against a midnight blue sky.

Then it was back to the guesthouse to pick up Kelley who'd had a great day out at the Old Market looking for treasures. From there we walked down the street to a Russian restaurant for dinner...potato pancakes! Yum!
 
This morning we were off to our first day of events after days of "templing". Breakfast at the Balcony since it had such a fabulous lunch the day before. Then we started off with a tour of a Cambodian silk producing school (like the one with the artisans for carving we saw the day before). Then to a miniature version of Angkor...made by a Cambodian engineer who spent three years drawing the details of the temples and then in his back yard created the model in concrete. Then we went to tour a photo gallery and now we're checking e-mail...

...til I check in again love and peace to you all!

namaste, jace