Siem Reap

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We spend three days in Siem Reap. The first day is just recovering after the bike ride and we relax by the pool and enjoy a nice air conditioned room, it really is amazingly hot here well over 40 degrees, one of the hotel workers told us it was 47 degrees on the first day we were cycling, no wonder we found it so hard.....

Day two starts with a massage, we take a Tuk Tuk to the place and have a lovely but more tourist orientated massage, the ones we had in Phnom Phen were nothing like this place but were still good, even the one where Shenton almost got a happy ending while I was having a massage right next to him. All I could hear him say was “she’s my wife”.

In the afternoon we go on a boat trip to see the floating village and markets. This starts out ok as our guide entertains us with his attempts at singing Michael Jackson songs, then as there has not been too much rain and the water level is so low, we quickly get stuck along with all the other boats in the water. It takes forever to get the boats all moving and there are police in the water, kids trying to pull the boats from the water and people walking onto each other boats to try and help. After about 45 minutes we are moving again and the village that has been created by people using bamboo to float on is amazing. The people are very poor, there is a church, a basketball court and schools all floating on the water. We are taken to the local floating corner shop, which proves not to be so local, as it seems it is more set up to sell tourists pencils and books for the children. We are aked to buy books and pencils for the school, so we think ok but we are told the small bundle of books and pencils costs $20 (we could buy the same amount in the UK for about £2) We feel this is a tourist scam and the books probably find their way back to the shop as all the tourists are taken here and there are piles and piles of books and pencils for sale.

We are taken to the school and see the kids who all live on the floating village and instead of buying the books we give a donation, but still we feel that the children, the people who live in these desperate conditions and the tourists are being a bit exploited here and the trip takes on a sour taste, overall I would not recommend this trip to other tourists.

We were meant to go for an elephant ride at sunset but as we were stuck on the boat in the mud we have missed this and instead we go to an Aspara dance show which is the traditional dance of Khmer people. The dances we see have only been created in the last 150 years, but they take inspiration from the sculptures and carvings found at the temples which date back to the 12th century. This is a lovely evening and we manage to get seats right at the front of the room so we have a great view.

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