by Today is Pat’s birthday and we are not visiting any temples.
We are headed south out of Siem Reap to Tonle Sap Lake for a private boat ride. This is the largest fresh-water lake in Southeast Asia and officially designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
Because we are visiting in the dry season, the village (on stilts over the water) is not reachable, so we are going out to a floating village near Chong Kneas. The people in these villages depend on fishing for their living and are very poor and lead a hard life.
After returning to the dock, we then drove back to Siem Reap to visit the Artisan’s d’Angkor, “…established in 1922 to support Cambodian arts and craft and to help young people find work in their local villages by continuing the practice of traditional arts.” Many of the worker were deaf and might not be able to find other work. Their crafts were beautiful.
We then returned to our hotel for the rest of the afternoon. This being the last day in Cambodia, before our flight back to Singapore in the morning, we decided to take a tuk-tuk into town to look around some more, get another geocache and have dinner. We were successful in all three endeavors.Back to the hotel to pack and get ready to head to the airport in the morning.It’s been a great trip. It is the first time we ever had a personal guide and driver. It was so successful, we’ll do it again. The guides and drivers were friendly, well-informed and generally very personable.
