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Published: November 16th 2005
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Sohm Swaakohm
Welcome to Siem Reap I open my eyes. The hot Singapore sun beats down upon my face. I realise that we should have been up already. With just over an hour before our plane leaves and realising I'm still in bed, I smack Rohan on the foot and say GET UP WE'RE LATE!!!" We leave the room in 30 seconds flat and head strait for Changi Airport. We make it with minutes to spare. Great start to the day.
An hour and a half later we arrive in Siem Reap. Being guided by the man that sits next to me on the plane, who seems very dissapointed to be here... AGAIN, we rush to get to the head of the line for customs. We cruise thru, get our visas and pick up our bag... We are in Cambodia. A short taxi ride takes to our soon to be hotel (We had nothing planned so we took a gamble) It paid off and got a very tidy room at the Red Piano.
Visiting the bank in Siem Reap turns out to be an interesting experience. Walking under dodgy looking bamboo scaffolding and jumping over live, uncovered wires wasnt what I pictured but we make
Angkor Beer
Hmmmmm... Beer! safely inside. $100 US dollars got me more notes in Cambodian Riel than I care to count. Trying to close my wallet, I can almost hear the cow that was used to make my wallet, scream from the pain of being forced to hold such a rediculous amount of notes.
It is only the inevitable thing that when in Siem Reap, one must visit the Temples of Angkor. Not doing so would be like visiting Cairo and missing the Pyramids. We took a Tuk Tuk to the site and parted with $40US for our passes. Our first stop, Angkor Wat. I don't know about Rohan, but it was the most impressive thing I have ever seen. The largest religious structure in the world might give you an idea but not really. You have to stand and gaze for your self. We also hit the Bayon in Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom is 12 square km of land fortified with a 6 m high and 8 m thick brick wall that goes the entire way around. Needles to say, it's impressive. Whats more impressive is that this was all made between the 9th and 13 century.
While on Angkor Wat,
I met a monk called Sey-Ha. He is a teacher at a school called the "Volunteer Development Poverty Children School" It was a free school run by volunteers to teach languages and other subjects to inpoverished children whos parents had mainly died of HIV. This was too perfect. Rohan had a kind donation from his work at the Catholic Education Office in Parramatta, of 400 pens. In Cambodia, pens are a highly prised commodity for learning children. We gave him the few pens we had on us at the time. He invited us to see his school, we accepted.
The following morning we met him at the Siem Reap Killing Fields. We jumped on our Tuk Tuk and we took us to his school. If we weren't following a monk, I would have been rather worried. This looked like the kind of scene you would see in a movie where stupid Aussie tourists get led down into a dirty slum area to be mugged or something. I had faith in this monk however and we soon arrived at his school.
Keep in mind, this isn't a school as we know it, it was a couple of small tin
sheds with extremely small lengths of wood for tables and chairs. We gave him the remainder of the pens. About 300 of them. Sey-Ha was very happy and you could tell he was genuinly moved by our charity. No children were learning at the time so he invited us back again to see the children and hand out the pens in person.
We did go back that afternoon as the children were arriving. Handing out pens to the kids was a special experience. You could see the joy and appreciation on thier faces. An unusual invitation was given to us which was a great oportunity for the kids. We were given books to read. It was just some text on how to speak english properly, even though it was mostly wrong. We read it anyway feeling the children would benefit from hearing it read from someone who speaks fluent english (officially, not technically) So imagine this, two Aussie idiots, who failed english at school, teaching english to kids in Cambodia. This was definatley not a sight on the regular tourist trail.
So we have booked a boat from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh for tomorrow which will take
about 6 hours. We are going to hit a few more temples this afternoon. I have to admitt, I can see why people get a bit templed out but I figure I should make the most of it since I can't see myself back here for at least, quite some time.
I have really enjoyed Cambodia so far. The people are extremely friendly and everything is, of course, very cheap. One of the local brews, Angkor, is rather nice.
I finally got some pictures up. I also put up some for Singapore aswell. The pictures may be off and on so keep checking back because I may have updated.
Anyways, every take care and dont be shy in sending some emails or writing some comments, I will endevour to reply asap.
PEACE, Camo
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gran& gunny
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good one cam
wish we were with you we may do this one of these days,hope the rest of your trip is as good ,love gran,