Cambodia!

Hi all,

We arrived in Cambodia a few days ago, and wow, what a beautiful country! just from looking around, I would say it's about 30% jungle, 30% rice paddies, 20% ancient temples (or "wats" as they are called here), 10% lake (largest in E. Asia), and 10% filled with people trying to scam tourists.

The airport in Siem Reap is particularly beautiful, albeit tiny. And on our way from the airport to the hotel, we passed by rice paddies, which are the greenest green you can imagine, and jungle (also green, but in a different way of course). seeing rice paddies up close, and seeing how labor intensive it is to grow rice, makes me feel almost guilty about how cheap it is, and how much of it we can eat in just one sitting. Actually, i was pretty horrified to learn that there are about 8000 grains of rice in just one cup! especially when each rice plant only yields a few grains of rice each. it would seem to me, that someone's whole crop (on one of the small patches of land that are sectioned off to each farmer) would produce just about that cup of rice! Although, in reality, it must be more (I hope!).

there are 14 million cambodians living here in cambodia (and about 6 million land mines left from the war 30 years ago). Cambodians generally make about $300 per year, so its a pretty poor, simple country. Although, their tourist industry is growing at about 30% a year, so hopefully, that will help!

Anyway, we arrived at our hotel called Borann, which is owned by a french do-gooder. he gives all the profits of the hotel to orphanages, and land mine victims. it is a typical khmer hotel, with a lot of foliage, lots of outdoor sitting areas, and little villas for everyone to stay in. We even have a typical cambodian shower (along with a western one) which is just a large urn filled with water and a bowl.

After we got settled in, we wasted no time in going out to see our first wat, the biggest religious site/monument ever created, Angkor wat. As magnificent and amazing as all the guidebooks and pictures made it sound, the real thing was even more impressive. We walked around there for a few hours, and then went on to go to dinner and a shadow puppet and dance performance put on by the children at the orphanage. we sat at our table, and ended up sitting with a brazilian woman as well, which turned out to be great fun! We all chatted, ate traditional cambodian food (well, erica ate pasta, but it was close...), and watched the children at work. the shadow puppets are really elaborate and told a few traditional stories. Then the kids came out and did some traditional dances for us that looked very similar to classical indian dance (thanks to keya, i know what that looks like). And there was this one little girl dancing who was not only perfect in her movements and completely beautiful, but also serene as could be. She didnt crack a smile until the end of the performance and was just pretty impressive and captivating. Everyone seemed to be talking about her at the end of the show!

We finished dinner, said farewell to dominique, or brazilian friend, and headed back for an early night (since we were waking up at 4am to see Ankor wat at sunrise!). we had met a really nice british family that night as well, and planned to go with the father, Rick, to the temples in the morning. unfortunately, our 'wake up call' which was really just a knock on the door, came an hour late! so we just missed sunrise, but were able to see his pictures, and still got there just as the sun was coming up in a colorful sky, so it was still worth waking up at literally (again) the crack of dawn. then rick took us to his favorite wat, Ta Prohm, which quickly became my favorite as well.

When the french discovered all these temples in the jungle, overrun with trees and foliage, they decided to work on their restoration, but they left Ta Prohm alone (mostly) so that people could see what happens after you abandon something like that for 500 years. There are monstrous trees growing all over the temples, through the windows, and roofs. Most of the trees they left are now actually holding the temples together, rather than ruining them (i think they took the other trees that jeapordized the structure of the temples, away).

At this point, its about 630am, so Erica and i headed back to our hotel for breakfast, adn then met up with our english speaking guide, Ra. he took us to a bunch of wats for the rest of the morning, until i must admit, both erica and i were completely "wated" out. So we hung out by the pool for a while and relaxed before meeting up with the british family again and we all took a trip to the floating village.

The floating village is on that very large lake in the middle of cambodia. There are people who live on boats and houses on boats in the lake, and move from one end to the other, depending on the season. This lake, so our guide told us, provides cambodia with 30% of their food, due to the fish that are caught there, and the water used to farm. it was amazing to see that people really did live on that lake in tiny tiny little homes (well, some bigger than others). There was even a flaoting school, and a floating missionary, not to mention huge fish, and a few crocodiles (said to be best to eat when they are 6 months old, because they are less chewy).

After the lake, we went to a market and browsed for a bit, and then went back out to eat a traditional Cambodian dinner (this time both of us did!). And Erica said that she might change her 'favorite food' from italian to Asian food... but only asian food in asia...

This morning, we decided to go for one last wat before we relaxed and hung out by the pool all day. Before we left, we visited the local bakery, and bought some of our favorite sugar bread for ourselves (along with all the other yummy/strange looking things) and for our favorite british family to say farewell, as they were leaving for thailand this morning. We left for our last wat, which was pretty far away, so we got to drive through the country-side, next to people on motorbikes filled with wood, or overflowing with coconuts. The last wat, Banteay Srei, was well worth the trip. While small, it was so intricate, that it could have taken someone ages just to look at each separate carving. it was also just exceptionally pretty.

And now, back at our hotel, we are hanging by the pool until our flight this evening to Hanoi.

Lauren Weitzman
"All I want is to be Googleable!"