Navutu dreams Siem Reap

So I thought I was done with Cambodia, but I just have to talk about our hotel again. Oh my goodness. It was so good. The three pools, the food - delicious and very reasonably priced. It was so good we ate there every night I think.

It was a small hotel, probably only 20 or so rooms and it was a bit out of town, but that was really good for us, so quiet and peaceful. We went past so very many hotels that were great high rises on main roads. Not this one! Our neighbours were rice paddies. Though apparently the dirt road out here isn't too flash after rain.

Finally the drinks, at $5 a cocktail, it was easy to try a few out. The first one below, passionfruit caprioska was particularly good. So good I bought the ingredients for both as my spirits allowance on the way back into Sydney.

Cambodia - Last temple continued

So as you can see this one was a bit more "crumbly" than some of the others, though this is the way I like it. Less people, less restoration. My least favourite was Angor wat, fully restored, loads of people.

Columns on Toby's unplanned turn left tour, would have been a bridge into temple from the side originally.

Toby was in really fine spirits at this one, running ahead to see what was ahead.

Fueling up with a lemonade below with what is one of two libraries in the top right corner of the same picture.

Family picture at an outside corner.

The local restaurant just outside the gates. I love this style of restaurant which is everywhere in Cambodia. Perhaps it's the plastic. Just like my solving of the too rapidly breaking, too hard to fit in the dishwasher bowl dilemma we recently had at home. My solution, a pile of colourful plastic bowls which stack perfectly next to each other. Now three times as many bowls fit in and we haven't had a breakage in months.

Next morning we flew out to Malaysia.

Cambodia temple guided by Toby

The temple we nearly didn't see, Beng Mealea. We had seen quite a few temples by this stage after all. Although none for a day and a half and we had come so far, so why not. (it meant we never did get to wander around the centre of town but we drove through it on the way to the airport, I'm confident time at a temple was the better option - there were plenty of shops in the centre of town, nothing wrong with it, just not as good as another temple..)


After a rest on the drive over, Toby was full of beans and ready to lead the way. This temple is one of the less busy ones, for one it is over an hour of driving from Siem Reap. There were barely any hawkers and it was less restored than some of the temples. Some say this was the one Angor Wat was based on.  Like all the temples, there is a long straight walk down into it (with some local kids playing)

The main entrance was a bit crumbly but Tobes was keen to go through. He RAN towards it and started scrambling up. In fact he led the way the whole way around the temple, when we got to the end our guide said we should go right and Toby said "No, Toby says we go left" and the guide said sure, so we got to see the temple Toby Style.

It was quite high up in the end, and we got into the gateway a local kid told us it was too hard and that we needed to go around. He was right.

So in around the sides and this is what we got to climb over to get through (or you could go the easy board walk way around).

Yep we even went through the below.

Inside was pretty cool and the afternoon light was good.

Countryside adventure

The views from the oxcart are above. Actually the chickens are from the walk after the ox cart ride. Toby LOVED all the chickens and chicks roaming around and used his new $20 camera (thankyou Big W) to take loads of pictures of chics.

Post ox cart road, it was time to jump on a boat across the enormous Western Baray ( an enormous man made square lake which used to feed canals through the temples complex. The temples being all build down the hill from the quarry where they got all the sandstones - they floated them for many kilometres down rivers. The reserve was also handy as a water supply when the temples were towns with people in them.

Next stop a family compound - as in a few generations of families living in a cluster of houses and make a sweet rice and coconut cake on the fire. Grind up the stuff by hand, cook on the fire.

The school kids arrived home while we were there, there are two shifts a day of school so that more kids can go to school. The area had quite a lot of wells donated by charity and the school had some funding from charities too.

It seemed that the wealthiest of the villages (those with bigger houses, made of better materials) were the shop keepers - like that above.

Last stop was the AboutAsia private villa, where we had lunch. what a fantastic view, complete with the same sweet potato crisps (aka cold - like potato chips) we'd had on the first night, all manner of alcohol, including a lychee spirit and the usual range of juices. Great end to a very busy morning.

Toby of course loved getting back into the car after long walks like today (although this photo actually earlier in the week).

Speaking of Toby's favourite things, here is the decoration in the entrance gates to Angor wat that Toby took a big liking to.

In the evening after our countryside tour, we went to see the Cambodian circus, Phare,  a acrobatic theatre of young adults who were originally street kids. they were impressive and Toby LOVED it. Laughed out loud and I mean LOUD throughout. He definitely won the laughed the loudest and most from the night. Photos from treetopasia and the Phare website. It was very impressive.

Cambodia - Ox cart ride

This trip's description says something along the lines of "Beyond the temples lies a rural landscape which has changed little since the days of Jayavarman VII (about 900 years ago)." This looked to be true in some aspects - a distinct lack of power tools or cooking appliances or anything requiring electricity in making this sticky rice dish.

Check out the bed under the hut below. nice airconditioning.

We had a different guide today because ours had to do a shift at the hospital (he's a nurse full time plus a guide on the side) when the village training tour guide training course was on.

After checking out rice cooking, time for an ox cart road. Toby wanted to go with Nana, then changed his mind and rode with me (yep we got two oxcarts, we travel in style).

The highlight though was when the oxcard driver took a mobile phone call. Guess some things have changed a little. Ox cart riding is a pretty relaxing way to go though. slow and steady with plenty of time to look at the scenery. Great for old and young.

Cambodia - The monks

When I was planning our Cambodian trip, a couple of the tours I was interested in had a day in the countryside with a day free of temples.

About Asia, the tour company we went with, were really great in helping plan our itinery before hand. They were good at taking into account that we were travelling with a 5 year old kid and cut down the amount of walking. Our guide was also very adaptable, a couple of times he short cutted walks on the program so that Toby didn't have to walk as far. One of the walks was to the temple where we didn't see anyone else. It definitely would have been cool to walk for 1.5km into a deserted temple but driving in from the other end was still a great experience. Full points to About Asia and their planning for kid friendly schedules. They would have been good with lots of kids too as our mini van had loads of seats and we were always the only one in our boat/van/vehicle.


Anyway, before I left, I wasn't quite sure about the day in the countryside, having travelled so far, I was thinking we would be better off spending time checking out the maximum number of temples. I'm glad we listed to their advice though. The day in the countryside was really amazing.

We started at a monastery with a blessing from a monk and a wander around.

Toby was happy to watch but didn't want his own blessing.

Outside were the family grave plots

And a cheeky little Toby running around the main temple.

Cambodia Day 3 arvo - Angor Thom

In the morning walking around Angor Wat, I thought we might have to cancel the afternoon session as I didn't think we'd get Toby back out but luckily he had a sleep in the middle of the day and was ready for more action in the afternoon.

Luckily we did go out, it turned out to be our favourite temple, Angor Thom, the one with all the heads. It was way cool. There is  a bridge, with a line of fellas leading into the entrance.

Looking from the outside, it doesn't really look that spectacular. It's not till you get up close that it gets good.

Toby off and running.

Check out all those cool faces.

Also lots of doorways and corridors for little boys to explore.

Down one little corridor, Toby found a man doing blessings, he came running out and wanted me to come back in to help give him the courage to get a wrist band.

Angor Thom had very well restored carvings and plenty more stories.

Happy smiling faces

and windows to peer out of.

So many places to explore.