Friday 3rd January 2009
As I mentioned before Siem Reap Town Centre is pretty well developed. They have a street nick named Pub Street which has some of the fanciest pubs & restaurants I've seen in Asia so far. If you venture 5 mins to the outskirts of town that all changes. Bamboo huts roofed with galvanised sheets, places no more the size of a large living room. The poverty outside the town is clear to see but if you just came to Siem Reap to view the Temples then you could easily pass through without noticing a thing. Its sad to see, as it doesn't give a real idea of what its like to live here.I get my first view of the Temples later that evening. They are some sight, the grand scale of them all is unimaginable when you consider when they were built. They say it takes about 3-days to see most of the temples but I cut that down to 2 (even finishing early...I'm not sure I took much in on the second day ;-()).
As I mentioned before Siem Reap Town Centre is pretty well developed. They have a street nick named Pub Street which has some of the fanciest pubs & restaurants I've seen in Asia so far. If you venture 5 mins to the outskirts of town that all changes. Bamboo huts roofed with galvanised sheets, places no more the size of a large living room. The poverty outside the town is clear to see but if you just came to Siem Reap to view the Temples then you could easily pass through without noticing a thing. Its sad to see, as it doesn't give a real idea of what its like to live here.I get my first view of the Temples later that evening. They are some sight, the grand scale of them all is unimaginable when you consider when they were built. They say it takes about 3-days to see most of the temples but I cut that down to 2 (even finishing early...I'm not sure I took much in on the second day ;-()).
At the end of it all I'm pretty shattered but my motor bike driver suggests we go to see the near by lake,Tonlé Sap, and see the bamboo village & flooded forest.On the way out of town traffic is mad and as we travel up the room we see what is causing it! A man has been hit and killed by a truck. His body is chalked out on the ground marking his location and there are pools of blood around him. Its a awful sight but no one seems overly shocked, people are standing around taking pictures of the dead man with their camera phone while the police man just stands next to the body...we infact drive right by his feet!?
We can only go so far on the bike before we have to take a river boat out to the Bamboo village. Its a small narrow boat with only myself & a few locals. Its a real narrow river stretch of river before we make it to the village. The village is built up on stilts with the majority of the houses built from Bamboo. During rainy season the water rises up to base floor of the houses but as this is dry season there is no water currently around the village. Its a great sight, houses built 15-20 feet above the ground level!
When I arrive at the village a lady approaches me and ask would I buy some stationary for the local school, I buy a few pens & paper and the lady asks me to personally drop them into the school. After a while my driver suggests to me I should probably hand them out to the local kids as the school itself has plenty of these things, so I agree and start to open the pack of pen's & paper...the kids spot this happening and before I know it there are about 20+ of them around me trying to get their hands on them! They are going nuts at this stage and I'm nearly falling on the ground. I hand out a couple and have to pass the rest over to my driver to hand out...I don't ever remember wanting a copy & pen that much when I was a kid!
After the village we hop back on the boat to go to the flooded forest which is just a few minutes away. From there we venture out onto the lake and me luck is in! Not a cloud in the sky and the sun is about to set...
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