Finding someone who likes the things that you do is hard enough but finding someone to have a stress-free trip with is heaven-sent! We arrived in Siem Reap half dazed because I had spent the night before packing the pummkins-infamous-last-minute-items and found out later that I left my entourage behind! Not good, especially when I had travel the seas with them keeping me tucked and snug in bed….
Sokha, our driver cum guide, picked us up at the airport, detailing all the stuff we were going to do and stressing that the itinerary is flexible. We checked into a guesthouse but I would deem it as a boutique resort from the friendly and hospitable service rendered. The accommodation was great. We had two beds and ample space to put all our photographic equipment and power to supply to our laptops. Whats better is theres wifi broadband to stay connected!!! My first inclination was to look for food so we headed out to the Old Market for some walkabout to see what we can savour and in the process, take some pictures of the life in Siem Reap town.
We were picked up to go to the Artisans Angkor, a place of the revival of the art of Khmer almost lost in the Pol Pots Regime. An escapee of the genocide who fled to France in the 80s, had obtained artistic and technical background, enough to help rebuild the poverty and the lost art of Khmer when he returned to Cambodia in 1998. The art of sculpturing and wood carving was taught to the Khmer people and eventually, silk weaving. During his time in power, Pol Pot imposed an extreme version of agrarian communism where city dwellers were relocated to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labour projects. The combined effect of slave labour, malnutrition, poor medical care and EXECUTIONS is estimated to have killed around 2 million Cambodians, approximately a quarter of the population. His regime achieved special notoriety for singling out all intellectuals and other materialistic, middle class enemies for murder. In 1979, he fled into the jungles of North West Cambodia after an invasion by neighbouring Vietnam which led to the collapse of the Khmer Rouge government. Pol Pot was never brought to justice, although he was overthrown and imprisoned by other Khmer Rouge leaders, and succumbed to natural causes in 1998 while under house arrest.
They hire speech and hearing-impaired Khmers after teaching them the skills. A big step in rebuilding the lives of the former war-torn country.
Another artisan who is speech and hearing impaired.
We headed out to our first temple visit for the evening at 4:30pm where we would obtain our passes for the next three days. Entrance is free after 4:30pm when you make your purchase. It’s a bit steep at US$40 but in the ensuing days, it was all worth it.
The Banteay Kdei was the first of the succession of temples which we we would visit and I must say, it is quite ruined. The rustic feel was overwhelming me. It wasn’t so simple as to walk but because there are steps in the doorways, I always have to climb and duck to avoid hitting the top .
When we have done the entire loop of Banteay Kdei, we had a picnic courtesy of The villa and I enjoyed the Brie cheese, olives and wine much!!!
Trees were really ancient judging by these protruding root system that had grown over the temple.