Friday was a busy day. Anushka and I ventured out on a bike ride, but it didn’t last very long because she fell asleep. Lori came back from her week in Australia, which made Caleb very happy. We packed quickly for our trip and then headed downtown to pick Kevin up from work. We got to check out his office and meet the very baby enthusiastic receptionist (she tried to take Anna into another room with her, but Anna wasn’t so keen on it), The drive to the airport was faster than anticipated, so we had lots of time to eat dinner there. We ate at a Singaporean restaurant. Lori ordered some greens that I can’t remember the name of, but were delicious – it was a cross between chard and bok choy. The flight was uneventful and short. The wait in customs was slow and tedious. The flight was so short Kevin didn’t have time to fill out all of the customs paperwork for all of us. Needless to say, the long wait at the airport made us all a bit cranky, but we made it through and the driver from our hotel was waiting for us. Lori booked us in at Palm Village Resort, which was fantastic. I have a bunch of pictures in the album. It is definitely not a 5 star hotel, which is fine by me. I really like the feel of it. It feels like we got a bit more Cambodian feel and it was comfortable. All of our cabins were around the pool, the employees were friendly and the included breakfast was tasty and filling (but you can’t go wrong with lots of fresh juice and baguettes). Our first day in Cambodia we decided to check out some of the further temples, since Kevin and Lori have been here before and I am planning to come back with Jeff. We hired a van to take us to Kabal Spean and Banteay Srei. A couple of Kevin’s friends were running as well, so there was a group of 6 adults and 4 children. The drive was about an hour, but I really enjoyed seeing the country. It was through rural areas that are definitely influenced by tourism. I saw lots of animals, rice fields, houses on stilts and roadside stalls. Kabal Spean itself is known for it’s carvings in the rocks in the river. The water where these carvings are found is the source for the temples like Angkor Wat. Water was obviously important to the rice growing cultures, so there were lingas, Shivas and many holy images. The hike up to see the carvings was a bit more than any of us anticipated. It wasn’t exceptionally challenging, but there were a few tricky parts with babies on our backs, but we made it the 1.5 km. The pictures I have don’t do the carvings justice, especially since the setting had so much to do with their beauty (there were tons of lush trees and plants). Once we hiked back to the car we decided to stop for lunch. I ordered a local curry dish called Amok (I have seen it spelled a few different ways). I was served inside of a coconut, which was cute. We then headed to Banteay Srei, which was on the ride home. This supposedly has the nicest and most intricate carvings of all of the temples in the area. It was spectacular, indeed, but unfortunately I was pretty tired from the heat and walking that I didn’t spend a huge amount of time looking at all of the detail. From inside I was hearing music, which was coming from near the exit. Apparently at most of the temples there is music played by victims of landmines. Anushka enjoyed listening to them play traditional Cambodian music. After the long hot morning and afternoon we went for a swim at the hotel when we got back and then decided to stay at the hotel for dinner, since the runners were looking to turn in early. The food was slow, and I was disappointed to find out that if I wanted to order and Khmer food, I needed to do it 2 hours previous. We settled for dishes that weren’t as time consuming, but it was a bit of a gong show with all of the kids because none had napped enough.
