Siem Reap, Cambodia

Well....you are right Joe Mullen, Noel certainly does land on his feet:):) Thankfully when we arrived yesterday here, we walked out of baggage claim to the outside heat....so no accomodation desk or anything....which we thought could happen! Decided for 5 US dollars to take a taxi into the city, only 10 km away. The Cambodian currency is Riel ( 1 USD = 4,067.00 Riel) So to make it easier for every country represented here, everything is listed in USD....alot easier to do quick math that way:):)

We were so lucky as we sat into the taxi and were greeted by the kindest Cambodian, Muy Kim Soung who had fabulous english. So after experiencing some of the taxi drivers in Bangkok we were a little skeptical. But as we drove along he started giving lots of interesting information including suggestions of hotels....how much each of them cost per night in USD, even stopped at a few as we went to check on availablity. We had known from a little research that the best way to get to Angkor Wat and see the various temples surrounding Siem Reap was to do so with a driver. So we asked Kim Soung if he would mind taking us around during our stay.

He was overjoyed with the request, he told us many tourists like a bigger, newer car to be taken around in and not his 88 Toyota Camry! Noel quickly told him that I drive a 99 Peugeot with 180,000 miles on it ( he always feels the need to tell people that I drive alot of miles in Ireland!!)

Anyways.....he dropped us at hotel and a really nice one at that for 80USD per night. Picked us back up a few hours later to go watch the sunset from one of the temples. Really beautiful spot....accept the clouds came up right before but we'll have a couple nights to see it again.

He then drove us back into Siem Reap, made many more suggestions for us...they dropped me off for an hour massage (10 USD!!!!) and it was pure heaven...as the two of them went for a drink.

So to my mom...who was a little worried about us here in Cambodia, we have seen no sacred monkeys, snakes or cockroaches yet....in fact...its been one of the best days since we arrived, we thought the THai people were kind but the Cambodians couldnt be more helpful.

In saying that...we do have to be careful as Kim Soung did tell us that his family farm is only 10Km from here and last week a cobra bit one of the few calves they have and killed it.

So we'll just have to stay out of the jungle and watch out for snakes.

But we are looking very forward to the next couple of days.

Hope I'm not rambling on here...and thanks for keeping in touch.

maureen and noel