Wow, what a week it's been. Cera and Derek came into town on Sunday and since then it's been Go, Go, Go. It's been a whirlwind of showing them around the town I've lived in for the past 3 months; decided which are the most important/worthwhile/interesting places for them to see and deciding which of the many places that I frequent to take them to eat. Our schedule has seriously revolved around where we're going to eat. ;) I've finally gotten to do the touristy things around Siem Reap! On Monday we went to see Beng Mealea, a temple ~2hrs outside town, via tuk-tuk, and almost completely overtaken by the jungle and which Laos described as, “old buildings, some fall down.”. A few walkways have been added to help you get around but other than than it's been left undisturbed (unless you count bombing by the Americans and deconstruction by the Khmer Rouge 45 years ago). We had a great time clambering over fallen rocks and exploring the ruins. After an exhaustive morning we rewarded ourselves with some pool time. Everyone deserves some pool time after spending 5hrs in the sun! :) On Tuesday I took them on a bike ride through the countryside, similar to the one I did 10 weeks ago, but not nearly as long; we were out to enjoy ourselves, not see how far we could bike in 7 hours. :P We went up Phnom Kourm, met a lovely Indian chap who didn't believe Cera lived in India until she spoke a few words of Hindi and stopped for iced coffee with milk at the coffee shop across from Grace House. Tasty tasty! We made our way back into town and after a refreshing lunch we called up Laos, our tuk-tuk driver, and went to visit the silk farm. I'd been there before, but it's quite an amazing place; they show you the whole process of making silk, from the mulberry trees they grow to feed the worms to the room of looms where they weave the cloth to make the pretty things. The people who work at the silk farm have to go through 6 months of training, where they learn to do each step of the process, then thy choose a speciality and spend a further 6 months learning that speciality. The average wage is $130USD a month. The women weaving women earn more than the spinning women and amongst the wavers, the ladies who weave patterns earn more than the ladies who weave one colour. After the silk farm we tried to make it to the temples to watch the sun set, but to no avail, which was sort of alright, it'd been a long day already, and we were set to start at 5am the next morning, to watch the sun rise. And so, bright and early Wednesday morning, off we set for sunrise and temples. It's almost cool at 5 in the morning, if only it was that temperature more often! As we made our way up the road to the ticket booth we were joined by many other tuk-tuks and their charges, all making their way to the temples, eager to get there before the choice spots to watch the sun rise were taken. It was quite an amusing sight. Sunrise over Angkor Wat was spectacular, as was watching the other camera toting tourists click away, trying to capture the most perfect shot, the three of us included. We ate breakfast while sitting on the steps of Angkor Wat, looking out at the surrounding grounds. It was stinking hot, and only 8am. :P After Angkor we went to Bayon, in Angkor Thom, and then Ta Prom, famous because some of “Tomb Raider,” with Angelina Jolie, was filmed there. It's meant to be the 'jungle temple,'all overgrown and mysterious. Compared to the other temples we'd seen that day, it was, but compared to Beng Mealea, it was a manicured garden. The old trees growing out and around and over the temple were cool though. After 8 hours of temples and sun we decided we'd had enough, even though we'd seen barely a quarter of the temples/ruins included in our temple pass. I can totally see why people get 3-ay or 1 week passes; there are SO many temples. On the other hand, by the end of the day, they were all running together in my head, each was a pile of stone in some state of disrepair and they all had a similar architectural feel to them. We spent the rest of the afternoon recuperating by the pool. :) While there we got to watch a coconut tree get harvested! A wiry guy shimmed up the tree, with a machete and a length of rope, hacked out a bundle of coconuts, tied them to the rope and lowered them down. Someone on the ground would untie them while the guy in the tree tied the other end around another bundle of coconuts. It was fascinating to watch. Wednesday night was my last night in Siem Reap; very bittersweet. As per tradition, we went to Tapas night at Soria Moria and then headed over to Crazy Bamboo Bar for a drink. It wasn't quite the same without all the other volunteers, but at least I had Derek and Cera. :) Thursday morning we went out to Grace House, so I could show them where I'd been working for the past 3 months. It was nice to see the place one last time and properly say good-bye to the Khmer teachers. Sophea (the Khmer teacher I worked with) had our students say 'Thank You Teacher!' and they all mobbed me with hugs. It was the best farewell I could've asked for. We spent the rest of Thursday on a bus to Phnom Penh. Four and a half hours of barrelling down the 'highway,' avoiding collisions with cows, motobikes, bicycles, other mini-buses and HUGE trucks. I was thankful we arrived in one piece. :P We arrived at our guesthouse without any mishap. It's luxury compared to our accommodation in SR; we've got A/C and a fridge and a huge bathroom....swanky. PP is a metropolis compared to SR. 2 million residents to a mere 120,000. So much more traffic and people on the streets (who aren't foreigners), bright lights and wide avenues, a Ministry of such and such or an embassy on every other corner and even a few tall buildings. It's like I've been in the country for the past 3 months. I can only imagine how Delhi is going to blow my mind.
Pictures will be added when I have a faster internet connection. :P
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