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Published: January 24th 2007
It's been over a week in Cambodia. And it has been all good, hot and tiring, but still good. The pace of Cambodia is slow as with most countries similar to Cambodia. Plans happen 30 minutes after they are scheduled, dinner takes on average 45-60 minutes once you order regardless of who else is in the resturaunt, conversations last and linger....all of it is good.
most of my days have followed a pattern of volunteering in the morning, napping in the sweltering afternoon, teaching english in the early evening with good conversation, many bike rides and great icecream squeezed inbetween. But now my official volunteering has ended, but the good converations and icecream continue.
On Sunday, our first official day off. jacinta, lorriane, annabelle (another volunteer we met) took our bikes for a ride to some off the road temples. It is actual the test run for the real angkor wat, built on a very small scale, but it was neat because there were no tourists, only the hum of the monks nearby. Earlier in the week, Annabelle had met a boy who lived with the monks and he offered to lead us on a trip to see the
street kids
we played with them during the day then bought them water and juice in the evening when they were out late selling books, trying to survive...they are tough!sunset on a nearby lake. So after quickly exlporing the temple, we headed off down the dustiest road i have ever been on and trecked off into the sunset so to speak, except that it was no where near sunset and the current sun was beating down on our backs. but with visions of icecream cones and amazing pictures bouncing in my head, we forged forward.
When we got halfway, we stopped at a sort of mountain type area, where another angkor style temple was suppossed to be, but the official at the bottom said we need a temple pass ($20) to get in...which we didn't have or we could wait until 5pm when it would be free. We decided to continue in hopes of see this lake, and return maybe intime to make it up the mini mountain before dark. We rode onwards for another 20 minutes or so, shouting "hullo" in every direction, but because it was the dry season, the lake seemed elusive, so we backtracked to the mini mountain, which now, at 5pm was free and headed up for some great sunset pictures.....
AFter taking in the sights, we followed our guide back down
Dinner with the girls
Jacinta, me and lorriane at "angkor what?" the local bar. the dirt path, but this time what we lack in sunlight we made up for in screams and laughs at all the potholes we were hiting because we couldn't see the rode. There were no street lights here. Without our fearless leader, who will soon become a monk like his housemates, we would have be stranded for sure.
After we succussfull made it back to siemreap, we took our dustyselves in for some icecream and then straight home for showers and bedtime.
On monday, jacinta and i were going to tackle some of the temples....the real ones....the ones that cost $40 and were covered with tourists....
here are some pictures. jacinta and i were one of the few brave soles that did the 27km loop around the temples on bike and are arses paided dearly for it, but it was an awesome time. Jacinta is off to thailand tomorrow, and i will be sad to see her go, i couldn't have asked for a better partner this week
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Mom
non-member comment
Ok, You can bring him home. We have enough room! You look like a teacher.