Siem Reap

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January 25

We arrived in Siem Reap in the afternoon and are looking forward to visits to the various ancient temples and sites of Angkor.

After check in at the very beautiful and centrally located Sohka Angkor Hotel we spent the afternoon exploring the local market and walking through the downtown part of Siem Reap. This city is very busy with local river and lake fishermen, farmers, and now the very busy tourist business that is a major part of the economy. We enjoyed an evening dinner show with local dancers and musicians. This was a great opportunity to try some of the local flavors with the large buffet style meal.

The next few days were spent, with a very good local guide, visiting the local temple sites and other ancient historical places of Angkor. WOW !!
This is something that has to be seen as it is impossible to explain the extent and size of the work that was done in creating this temples and monuments. We visited Angkor Wat, Preah Kahn, Wat Phnom, Angkor Thom and many other sites.

Our local guide was very knowledgeable and we enjoyed our few days with him as he was very passionate about the history in the local sites. He was also very good at explaining the transformation from Indian religion to Buddhism that is evident in the various places we visited. This is a place everyone should see at least once in there lives.

Our last day in Siem Reap we took a short drive to the local lake that is the home to many of the local peasant people and many who have moved here from Vietnam. ( Not too popular with the locals ) This is a place with a lot of very poor people in very bad living conditions as most live in very small boats on the lake with no proper facilities. An interesting but very sad thing to see whole families and communities in this condition.

This was a very interesting few days and I'm sure will be one of the highlights of our whole trip.

Our next stop is a short stop in Ho Chi Minh City on our way to Da Nang

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