Day 3 - A day in the countryside

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This morning, after enjoying a really delicious breakfast at the hotel, we were met by Suwan who had organised to have the use of his uncles taxi (a nice Toyota Camry) to take us 50km out of Siem Reap to Kbal Spean - "The River of a Thousand Lingas", Banteay Srei, the Landmine museum and another temple, the name of which escapes me at present.

We left Siem Reap at 8.00am and after a fascinating journey through the Cambodian countryside on a surprisingly excellent road (apparently it was sealed by the Thai Govt only last year) we arrived at the entry to the track leading to Kbal Spean. I made a particular mental note of the Lonely Planet's warning of sticking to well trodden paths during our trek as there are known to be land mines still in the area! Great! The path was uphill all the way, with some quite tricky bits to negotiate at times, but the 1.5km hike was well worth it. There in the middle of the stream/river were all these fabulous carvings - again, how did they do it??? We wandered down the path until we were nearly under the waterfall trying to find more carvings (unfortunately we came without our guidebook) and made friends with some of the local young folk from Siem Reap who had come for a day outing with their mates.

Next stop, Banteay Srei - the petite, ornately carved temple said to have been built by a woman. The detail and design of this temple is again in contrast to all the rest - a lot of flowers and delicate decoration on practically every surface. There were a lot of children present at this temple and carpark - perhaps due to it being Sunday? Suwan said that the area was very, very poor.

Steve was keen to have a look around the Land Mine museum set up by this guy Aki Ra - a former Khmer Rouge soldier. This museum had hundreds if not thousands of pre-used landmines and morters, with truckloads of information on the use and removal thereof. I found it all a bit depressing, but Steve enjoyed reading all the information and thought it was well worth the stop.

On our way back to Siem Reap we spoke to Suwan at length about his life in Cambodia. Initially he didn't say much other that he was 8 years old when the Khmer Rouge took over and that his father was taken away and never returned. He and his sibblings and mother were all separated as was the case with all families and he lived mostly as a "cow boy" - taking the cows into the jungle to eat the grass, then bringing them back in the afternoon. He said he couldn't talk too much as it made him too sad and the tears would flow, so we didn't press him. He also said that even today, Cambodians watch what they say to whom in fear of what may happen to themselves or their families. It's just horrific and makes us feel so grateful we have lived the life we have in comparison.

Suwan stopped at another large temple on the way back into Siem Reap - I believe it was Bakong going from the description in LP. We were pretty much templed out by this point and it was so stinking hot that we really didn't do it justice. A quick trot up the steps and a nosey poke around was all it got.

Lastly we drove out to the Artisans d'Angkor Silk Factory which is way out on the other side of town from where were. We had previously visiting a silk factory in Chiang Mai, but this one was much, much better. These guys do everything the "hard" way. No 21st century technology here ma'am. It's no wonder the silk is expensive - OMG it must take forever to make one metre of fabric! We both found the tour of the factory really interesting and informative, but unfortunately the prices were a bit above our budget so we didn't end up bringing any home. It was around 3pm by now so directed Suwan to take us back to the hotel for our lovely refreshing swim.

That evening we wandered in to town and had a beer at the Dead Fish Tower (just to say we've been there and done that) and the most fabulous dinner at the Khmer Family Restaurant in Pub Street. We sat next to a couple of ladies from Singapore (one was an expat Brit) who were in Siem Reap teaching teachers how to teach. They told us endless tales about their experiences with the people of Cambodia, their poverty, their drive to become educated and the government corruption and we thoroughly enjoyed the evening. We ended up with icecream for desert from the famed Blue Pumpkin bakery - and why hadn't we tried this before now???

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