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Raw chickens in market Cambodia
Hey Everyone! So after completing 5 out of our 11 total flights for the trip we finally made it to Cambodia and we hit the ground running. We checked into our beautiful hotel and hired a driver to take us around the town of Siem Reap for two days. The driver is absolutely wonderful and speaks enough English for us to understand one another.
Our first stop was the Floating Village. Here, over 4,000 families live literally on boats in the water. Their main source of income is fishing; however due to heavy rains that come and flood the city, they are only able to fish 6 months out of the year. They have a complete city out there on the water including a school for the kids. The water looks really dirty and our driver told us our skin could not handle it so we had to stay dry although several times we got splashed since the boat driver was only 12 years old and a little reckless. Even though the water was dirty there were kids playing in it and several people taking their baths...kind of defeats the purpose in my mind. We stopped
on one floating "building" where they sell various tourist trinkets and what not. On the boat they have many crocodiles lounging in a contained area that will later be used for their meat and skin. I felt like I was seeing a scene of the movie Water World, it was like nothing I could every imagine...their whole lives are out on the water and people from town come out to them to sell them daily needs.
After our water excursion we went to the downtown market which is several blocks just jammed full of various stalls selling everything from purses to shoes to pots and pans to food. Every stall we walked by, the women would say to us "lady lady, you buy you buy." At first it may have been flattering, but then it just got overwhelming. It was so stifling hot in the market and there was no A/C in sight...So guess who got sick...your's truly. I think it had something to do with the heat and walking through the food market where they had raw chickens being chopped up and fish that had been sitting out all day in the heat..smelly! We bought a couple of
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toilets here traditional Asian shirts with Chinese buttons, super touristy but cute.
After I recovered we went to a silver store where they molded the silver into different shapes. It was fascinating to watch the worker pound out various designs on a silver bowl. The finished product takes her about 10 days to complete but it well worth the wait. Then we went to a gem store where we saw a video on how they mined the gems just a few miles away from the town and taught us how to tell if a gem was real or not using a blow torch . Our last stop was Artisans D'Angkor which is a professional training school founded to help young Cambodians with disadvantages whether physically or financially. They complete a 9 month training program in various crafts such as silk screening or stone carving. All of the people that were a part of the silk screening program were deaf and mute and communicated only through sign language which was very interesting. It is a great program because people with those disabilities would have a very hard time finding a
job otherwise in Cambodia.
The town is very interesting, but it is very sad to see how poor many of the citizens are. A lot of them live in these straw/wood houses that have been thrown together and look like they could collapse any second. Many times, families of 6+ all live in one room and all sleep on the floor. I think we are here at a very slow tourist time for them because I haven't seen many other Americans, that being said we get hassled all the time for money.
Today we are going to see several temples including Angkor Wat. Our hotel is wonderful and has an excellent view over the city. This morning around 5:00am we went out on the balcony to watch the sunrise and we could hear the monks singing their morning prayer. This is a totally different world, but I'm glad I got to see and experience it.
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Susan Harrison
non-member comment
Cambodia
Hi Katy!!! thanks for the great pictures and info about Cambodia. sorry you got sick. how is your MOM handling the heat? i'm sure she loves it. I"m glad you are writing the blog for all of us in NC. You girls be safe and tell your mom hello. You both look very happy in the pics so far. I will be reading this every day.