First Full Day in Cambodia

The Whittakers arrived this morning, in time to have coffee with us on the terrace.  Then, while they took a rest and re-grouped, we wandered down the street and found a tuk-tuk driver who would take us around the city for a couple of hours.  That turned out well; we saw a lot of the city, stopped at a gallery, a temple, and a monument to fallen soldiers.  

We caught up with the Whittakers as we had planned, around 4 p.m.  John had said that he was interested in seeing the floating villages on Lake Tonle Sap, something he had seen on The Amazing Race.  It sounded good to us, too, and we already had a tuk-tuk driver that we liked who said he would take us and help us rent a boat.  This was one of those travel events that you are glad you did in hindsight, as long as you survive it.  We had no idea that it would take us an hour and a quarter just to get there, on twisty, bumpy, dusty roads (if you could even call them roads).  We were all wondering where in the world we were actually going.  We finally got there, to find out that we were getting onto a wooden craft that would never pass any inspection in the US.  It looked like it could fall apart at any moment.  The engine was so loud that you couldn’t hear yourself think and spewed black smoke.  Barb said that it looked like it had been put together from whatever spare parts they could find.  The driver took us down a kind of canal and then out into this huge lake.  Along the way, we saw structure after structure that looked thrown together from whatever was at hand.  We ended up at a floating kind of bar, to watch the sunset, and look at alligators, which freaked me out.  By the time we returned to dry land, it was completely dark and then we still had an hour and a quarter to go back.  At one point the tuk-tuk driver stopped and told us two of us would have to get out and wait for him to go up an incline, or the machine would not make it.  Barb and John got out, wondering whether they were going to be left behind!  We were way out in the middle of nowhere in pitch black, with no idea where we were.  Getting into town, we were happy to be on paved roads, but that was just the start of a terrifying ride through Siem Reap in this little tuk-tuk that only went about 15 miles an hour, being passed by cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles.  Obviously, we survived,  We washed off the road dirt, and John found us a lovely restaurant, so all’s well that ends well.