How do you know you are in a different part of the world? In Saudi it is driving down the highway and seeing camel wandering through the desert. Here in a big bustling city like Phnom Penh what would you expect to see walking down the street? Dog? Cat? I might even buy a horse or donkey. How about a huge and I mean big elephant. Just walking down the street. I was up early, showered and left the hotel in search of junk food for the boat ride today. I am getting a little tired of Vietnamese junk food. Banana wrapped in sweet sticky rice, sweet dumpling stuffed with pork stuff, and what we call a Vietnamese hoagie. I needed stuff that was more chemical than food. So off I went. I could not find anything. Not even Pringles which are huge over here. A whole lot of dried fish but that was not going to cut it. On the way back to the hotel just as the sun was rising over the river here comes this elephant walking down the main drag along the river. It was one of those moments where I saw it, watched it go by and said to myself "there is something you don't see everyday."
Today's boat is different from yesterday's boat in that it is enclosed. More like an airliner. It is a beautiful day so I opt to sit up on the roof as we fly deep into Cambodia. Sarah and Jack eventually join me. It was too cool.
The ride was 6 hours long and the scenery was spectacular. I wish I could show you all of our pictures here but I can't. We are uploading all of our pictures to Picasa so if you want to see them click on the "Our Pictures" link to the left. Here are some of my favorites. BTW - I bought a new camera just for this trip. A Sony Cybershot DSC-H50. I love it and it took some great shots. Here are a couple.
We arrived in Siem Reap just after 1 in the afternoon. The place where they dock the boat (can't call it a dock as they just pull up to the rocks on the side of the river and you jump to shore) was crowded with tuk-tuk drivers looking to take those from the boat into town. There is a small village that has popped up here presumably to make money off the consant flow of tourists coming off the boats. It is poor. I thought the kids would be freaked out by the poverty. It is the most impoverished place I have ever seen. Then I thought maybe it would be good for them to see it. They would appriciate what they have more. In the end they were completely unfazed. They did not even notice it. Innocence is bliss. As we hopped in a tuk-tuk and started into town I was thinking "what have I got us into". If what I was seeing was any indication of what was to come this could be a long three days. BTW - a tuk-tuk is a carriage attached to the seat of a motorcycle. The link shows you every imaginable version of this Asian taxi. They are popular in Thailand and all decked out. Here they are more ghetto but they get the job done. This is a picture of a tuk-tuk in front of our hotel in Phnom Penh with our lugage.
About fifteen minutes later we rolled into Siem Reap. The Angkor Wat temple complex is on the outskirts of this town. The entire country has put it's stock into Angkor and the money it will generate. Therefore the town was nothing like what I was expecting. First of all the people here are for the most part all employed. Not much poverty in town. There are tourist police that keep the beggers and those hawking all sorts of goods away from the restaurants and other tourists places. The town reminded me of Nassau Bahama's by day and Key West's Duval Street or Memphis' Beale Street by night. It was built for western tourism and it was the most western place we had been to on this trip since Singapore. Most people would come here looking to escape from the ways of the west. After spending a week in Vietnam and parts of Cambodia I had just the oposite view. The prospect of a good bar with beer and a "American" food along with a foot rub sounded like heaven. Here is a pic of Pub Street in Siem Reap at night.
We are staying at a hotel called the Bopha Angkor. I was a little nervous as this was the first part of the journey that was on me. Marie's parents had taken care of all the details up to this point. I has arrianged the details for the Siem Reap leg of our trip. If the hotel sucked it was on me. It didn't. In fact it was great. Nice gardens. Great restaurant. Good pool and comfortable rooms. All for a good price. We are all going to sleep in tomorrow as it has been a long couple of days of travel. We will spend most of the day touring the temples. I should also note here that through all the planes, trains, sit lows, tuk-tuks, boats and cabs our kids have been amazing. They have gotten up early without a fight. They are truely becoming seasoned travelers. Here are some pics from our first day in Siem Reap Cambodia. This is Anna posing like the statue in our hotel's garden.
This is the creek that ran in front of our hotel. You had to cross the bridge to get to the central market where the ladies could do what they do best.....
SHOP!!
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