Traveling Thoughts

We must apologize for the lack of photos. We brought along an IPad and haven't figured how to load pictures yet.  It has been nice to have an Internet connection here in Siem Reap though slow and unreliable at times. It has allowed me to catch up a bit on the blog. Siem Reap has been a surprise.  It is a major international destination because of its proximity to Angkor Wat. We saw few Americans in the rest of Cambodia.  Here they are in abundance as well as 4 and 5 star hotels with rooms starting at three to six hundred dollars a night. Thankfully there are plenty of low cost guest houses as well.  We are staying at the Thunborey which has beautiful rooms with lots of stained wood and AC at $28.00 a night. it would easily be $80.00-100.00 a night in the US.  It is the most expensive place we have stayed in Cambodia. The food here is also very international. We had Indian cuisine upon arrival and two wonderful Korean dinners.  On the road our meals at roadside very humble open air places were $3.00-4.00 for often satisfying and tasty meals of fried rice, pork and fish soup. Here the meals are more expensive though still reasonable by US standards. The kids have especially enjoyed the 'night market'. The streets are bathed with colorful lights, street food and lots of live music.  Of course their major interest was hunting souvenirs. Our tour of Angkor Wat was the experience of a lifetime.  Imagine a vast and beautiful lost city of temples from 1000 years ago that was built with the unlimited wealth and captured slaves of a great military power. Surrounded by a huge moat that is 4-5 meters deep and at least 100 meters wide, it is indeed one of the ancient wonders of the world.  As usual, the kids were far more interested in the abundance of monkeys than the elaborate sandstone carvings that grace almost every inch of these well preserved and carefully restored memories from the past of the Angkor Empire.  After Angkor Wat, we visited several other temple sites including one that is being reclaimed from the jungle and was filmed in one of the Indiana Jones films.  The temple sites reveal the wars that raged betweem the Hindus and Buddists for many years.  Thankfully the relationships are much more peaceful and friendly in our times. Today we will visit a floating village and a folk village. We were pretty tired and sore yesterday, but a good night's sleep is wonderfully refreshing.