The Temples around Angkor Wat

SO... what a day!  Up at 5 am for the tuk-tuk drive in the dark to see the sunrise.  We walked into Angkor Wat in the dark (again with thousands of other tourists) and sat down on a small stone temple to wait for the sun to come up.  It actually got light long before we spotted the giant red sun rising over the temple and then everyone starts clicking away!  (It was a little cloudy so it wasn't terribly impressive but it was definitely an event even though it is everyday!!!! we can say we saw it!)  

just a few people waiting to see the sunrise!

"here comes the sun..... da da da da!"

We dashed off to have breakfast at one of the stalls (pancake and honey) then found our tuk-tuk driver again (called Hab) who took us to Ta Prohm - yes, that's the famous temple in Tomb Raiders and also Lara Croft!  It was beautiful to see it as the sun shone through the leaves and the jungle awoke - birds singing, cicadas and crickets making a lot of typically tropical noises.

Ta Prohm

She gave us incense sticks and a bracelet for good health

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

The temple area is vast - about 18km x 13km so the tuk-tuk drive sometimes took 15 mins between some of the temples.  Next stop was the Chao Say Teroda, then Thommanon then the Angkor Thom South Gate and next the Bayon Temple - of course, the infamous Bayon temple was a 'must' but it was extremely crowded with Japanese and Chinese visitors, so we didn't stay very long - but it is absolutely stunning with all of the 37 faces that are still standing.  By now, it was really hot, about 36°C and it was only about 10.30am! 

Bayon Temple

Bayon Temple

Bayon Temple

Then on to the Angkor Thom city - there are about 12 temples in this area and we decided to visit Baphuon Temple, the Terrace of the Elephants, Phimeanakas and the Leper King Terrace with a stop for a coconut juice (a straw stuck directly into the coconut) somewhere in the middle! Unfortunately everyone is hassled all the time by people trying to sell scarves, trousers, books and little kids trying to sell bracelets and postcards.  

"where you from?"  

"France" 

"I know capital France Paris!  You give money me I go school - my school charity - you give money charity - I go school speak English....." and on and on......

Without even haggling the price, we had one young girl start with 10$ for 1 silk scarf and she gradually dropped to finish at 5$ for 2 scarves - we hadn't said one word!

Baphuon - Now where do these bits go?

Leper King Terrace

Two final temples before we headed off home - the Preah Khan and a quick look at Neak Poan - but we were so tired we got back to the Guesthouse by about 3.30pm.  I think they call it "templed out!"

Preah Khan - Hall of Dancers

Peace

I will definitely go back to see more temples - Banteay Srei was supposedly made by women as the details are so intricate so I would love to see that one but it is 45km out of Siem Reap (1 hour drive) so I'll plan that for another weekend.

en français:  je suis vraiment désolée mais je n'ai pas fais de traduction cette fois... j'ai pris 6 jours pour correctement mettre ces photos car j'ai eu pas mal de problèmes! Mais je pense que les photos parlent pour eux mˆemes.

Tourist for the weekend.

en français ci-dessous!

Saturday - so no teaching for me!  Nice morning at the market, (I must confess to having a cinnamon roll and expresso coffee - as I really miss a good French coffee) mid morning and I bought some cheap trousers (of course they've got elephants on them) and some black, below-the-knee shorts.  I had my first ever pedicure (thought of you Jen Belony!!) and then I had a lovely chat with a handicapped man in a wheelchair who was selling his drawings (was it a scam? - will never know) and ended up buying 2 of his pencil drawings.  He promised me they were his.... but over here there are so many scams that you never really know what is true - but anyway I'm happy with my purchase!

so proud of his drawings... but were they really his?

Sophie and I then went to a nearby hotel with a pool and had lunch there (free pool if you eat lunch) and it was like a little oasis of pure pleasure.

Little oasis!

Next was the SUNSET trip to Angkor Wat (along with thousands of other tourists) and we hurried about trying to see as much as we could before it shut for the night.  You get the ticket from 5pm one night to the sunset the following night.

No - he wasn't posing for the photo, just walking through!

The monks see the sunset everyday but they still take pictures of it!

Twice a month there is a handicraft market with stalls from local producers/hand-made stuff, so we stopped off there on our way home and watched some street kids from the Green Gecko project (check out their website: http://www.greengeckoproject.org) put on a little show, drank some rice wine and then back to the Guest house where a party was going on!

Green Gecko project

 The 20$ Temples ticket also let us in on Sunday so then we got a tuk-tuk to pick us up at 5.30am and we did the SUNRISE at Angkor Wat!  (next post... I have to sort my photos out first!)


en français:
Samedi - donc pas de cours pour moi!  Matinée sympas car je suis allée au marché et j'ai acheté un pantalon par cher (bien sur avec des éléphants!!) et un pantacourt noir.  J'avoue que je suis allée dans un café français pour boire un vrai expresso et pour manger un bon pain aux raisins avec cannelle!!  J'ai eu ma première pedicure et puis j'ai parlé longtemps avec un homme handicappé qui vendait ses dessins aux crayon noir (est-ce que c'était un arnaque - je ne saurais jamais) mais j'ai aimé les dessins donc j'en ai achetés deux.  Il m'a promis que c'est lui qui dessinait... mais il y a tellement d'arnaque ici qu'on ne sais pas si c'est vrai ou pas.... mais ce n'est pas grave car je suis contente avec mon achat!

Sophie et moi sommes allées à un hotel avec piscine ou on pouvait utiliser la piscine si on mangait le déjeuner pour 6$ - c'était super, un vrai oasis de plaisir!

Après nous sommes parties pour le tour du coucher du soleil à Angkor Wat (avec milles d'autres tourists) et nous sommes précipitées de voir autant que possible avant la nuit.  On peut acheter le billet à 17h le soir jusqu'au soir prochain.

Deux fois par mois il y a un marché nocturne (pour les touristes) avec beaucoup d'objets fait à la main.... donc on s'est arretées là en rentrant et nous avons regardé un petit spectacle des enfants de la rue de l'association Green Gecko project (voir site web: http://www.greengeckoproject.org) nous avons bu du vin de riz et puis à la 'guesthouse' il y avait une fête pour un anniversaire.

Dimanche matin - le billet de 20$ nous laissait entrer le dimanche, donc rendez-vous pour le tuk-tuk à 05.30h et nous avons vu le lever du soleil à Angkor Wat!  (je dois trier mes photos avant de les mettre!)

Teacher Libby or "TeeCHA! TeeCHA!"

En Français plus loin.....

So the training is over and I'm in the class!  Well actually I unofficially started on Monday as the girl I was taking over from - and should have been 'shadowing' was ill so I was asked to take the class!!!  No preparation time whatsoever - here are my notes - just go for it!!  Quite an exhausting day!  Anyway, on Tuesday we had another day training and then I've been officially their teacher since Wednesday 26/2/14!

Sweeping the class before 9 o'clock - you can see how small it is!

my class is the second one with the big wheel outside

There is a younger class under the porch and another under the parasols!

The well to clean hands and water the floor to limit the dust.

In the morning I have 16 students and in the afternoon 8 students.  They are in classes according to ability but you could have fooled me!  They are from 9 to 14 years old and very different abilities which makes correcting their work complicated, and the hardest thing to cope with is the NOISE!  There are about 100 kids morning and afternoon in about 20m x 20m and none of the classrooms have walls only bamboos!  Alot of the volunteers who come for a day or two, sing a lot of songs with them and play noisy games so it is really hard for our classes to concentrate on learning their words and hear what I'm actually saying!  Having said that, most of them are really keen to learn, can pick vocabulary up quickly and we do a lot of variations around one theme so they normally learn it in the end!  The fun I have trying to explain games when I don't speak any Khmer is quite funny - a lot of gestures and leaping about!  I'm having terrible trouble remembering their names as they are completely unpronouncable for us - example: a girl called Sotharoth is pronounced something like Tarurois with a French accent!!

Sophie and I ride our bikes to the school and have started wearing the 'sanitary towel' look-alikes on our faces as we both have sore throats - a lot of dust, traffic fumes, burning waste and general bad odeurs, so hopefully we'll feel better soon.  I have (of course) had a very funny tummy for the past 3 days but everyone says it's normal - even though I've only drunk bottled water and never eaten food from the street sellers.... hopefully that'll get better soon too!

Sophie and I in our "sanitary towel" masks!

Riding home with the students.

Un peu de français pour mes amis - ceux qui ne parlent pas anglais - je vous aime comme meme!
J'ai du donner mes premières cours lundi car la fille que je remplacais était malade donc sans preparation j'ai survécu la journée!  J'ai 16 élèves le matin et 8 l'après-midi agés de 10 à 14 ans.  Normalement, ils sont par niveau mais leur capacités sont très diffèrents.  La plus difficile c'est le bruit!  Il y a d'environ 100 élèves le matin et l'après-midi dans un endroit 20m x 20m, et il n'y a pas de murs entre les classes, seulement du bamboo!  Les volontaires qui viennent pour quelques jours seulement chantent beaucoup de chansons et jouent avec les enfants  et c'est vraiment difficile pour mes élèves d'apprendre le vocabulaire  et même de m'entendre!  Malgré ces problèmes, les enfants sont motivés d'apprendre et ils arrivent à capter pas mal!  Je dois faire beaucoup de  gestes et d'imitation pour les expliquer les régles des jeux - assez rigolo!  Par contre j'ai vraiment du mal à apprendre leurs noms car ils sont impossible à prononcer.  exemple: Sotharoth est prononcé comme "Tarurois" avec l'accent français.

Sophie et moi - nous avons commencé à porter le sexy "serviette hygiénique" sur le nez et la bouche car tous les deux, nous avons mal à la gorge.  Beaucoup de poussière, gaz d'echappement, de fumée et d'odeurs desagréable.  Bien sur, j'ai aussi la tourista, malgré  le fait que je ne bois que l'eau en bouteille et je ne mange pas chez les "street sellers" mais apparament c'est normale!!  J'espère me sentir mieux bientôt!

Siem Reap, Cambodia

YES!  Photos now here!

Not an easy start in Siem Reap as my internet hotel booking hadn't worked and I didn't have a reservation - so went to the hotel down the road. To cut a long story short - the owner of the first hotel (Nini) came to look for me as he always looks after the volunteers and said I could stay at his Sweet Dreams Guesthouse from the next day.  (A great backpacker hotel where the rooms are 12$ with hot water and air-con!)

Wat Bo Road that I cycle down twice a day!

Sweetdreams Guesthouse is down this track

River in town with Tuk tuk driver in hammock

Siem Reap is a fast growing town due to the millions of tourists who visit each year. The Old Market is jam packed with stalls selling beautiful silks and clothes, silver jewellery and semi-precious stones, sculptures, clothes and so many different handicrafts. Perhaps I'll have to buy another suitcase to bring some things home with me!

We visited a Khmer school to see an English lesson given by one of AboutAsiaSchools trained Cambodian teachers, which was a really great experience. Yesterday we exchanged information with the outgoing teachers and I found out that Sophie and I will have Grade 2 kids (ages 8 to 16) so we'll be able to share ideas. We'll both have about 16 every morning and 8 every afternoon so we are very happy to know that. This evening was amazing as we went for drinks on a boat around the Angkor Thom moat to see the sunset and then went to town to see a parade of giant puppets made by children.

Moat around Angkor Thom (though we didn't see Angkor Thom!)

my new camera has a good "sunset" setting!

Giant puppets made by various children's schools

small temple near the Buddhist blessing house

Typical street with street sellers

We were invited to visit a pagoda and had a water blessing by a Buddhist monk but didn't take photos as it was disrespectful!  Apart from the stalls selling goods to the tourists there are restaurants, pubs and massage parlours so I had a foot massage for 30 mins for 3$ which was done by a blind man - I did clean my feet first :)  I am having so many FIRST experiences.... next weekend after my first week of teaching I plan to visit the Angkor Wat temples (at sunrise) and spend some time wandering around there.  When we did the boat trip, we only just drove past the entrance and it was so frustrating.
HOWEVER, I am not tempted to try the "happy pizzas" or "cake special" as one girl finished up in hospital due to it's potent content!  I was very naive and didn't realise what "happy pizza" meant!!!  Must be too old!

Ho Chi Minh City - crazy place!

After a long wait at the Visa desk (over 200 people waiting in the end) I was successfully picked up by my taxi and driven to my little hotel.... The heat and humidity, the lust green vegetation and the MILLIONS of scooters and mopeds and motorbikes!!

They drive without hesitation, without looking in their mirrors, sometimes on the wrong side of the road and they rarely take any notice of the traffic lights or the pedestrians!  I now understand why so many wear face masks - the traffic pollution and the smoke from roadside vendors cooking creates quite a nauseous mixture!  I took a tour of the city on the back of a scooter with Khanh from XO Tours (all female drivers!) and it was a really great trip and I wasn't even scared!  She also took me to the market to taste some really good yoghurt but I said "no thank you" to the frog - it was to be skinned alive so I didn't want to watch that!

live frogs ready to be skinned

This man is about 84 and has worked at the Post Office since he was 17, translating to French and English, we had a lovely little chat!

My hotel "Madame Cuc 127" in a "quiet" street!

Madame Cuc 127 Hotel

To get out of the city noise, a day trip to the Mekong Delta!  Only problem was that it took 3 hours to get there, with the driver hooting his horn the whole way!  The floating market wasn't very visible but the trip in a rowing boat up one of the small rivers was fun as there wasn't enough water but everyone had a good time!

Leaving tomorrow!

In about 24 hours I'll be on the plane from Paris to Ho Chi Minh city where I will spend 3 days sightseeing before going to Siem Reap in Cambodia - SO excited!!!!
I'm really, REALLY pleased to announce that I have collected 4122€ over the last couple of months and I am very grateful for your generous donations!  In fact, I'm very grateful that I know so many great people!
I'm leaving Dave knowing that Carly will be here for a short while to keep him company. (Unfortunately the washing machine broke down 2 days ago, so I'm leaving them to deal with that!).
I'll keep in touch via this blog as regularly as I can!  Thank you for your support.

En moins de 24 heures je serai dans l'avion en route pour Ho Chi Minh Ville pour 3 jours avant de reprendre l'avion pour Siem Reap au Cambodge - j'ai hâte d'y être!
Je suis super contente de vous annoncer que j'ai récolté 4122€ durant ces derniers deux mois et je remercie tout le monde pour leur donations généreuses.  Je suis très reconnaissant que je connais autant de gens géniaux.
Je quitte Dave en connaissant que Carly sera là pour un moment pour lui garder compagnie.
(Malheureusement la machine à laver a rendu l'âme il y a 2 jours, donc je dois les laisser se débrouiller!)  Je resterai en contact via ce blog (quand je peux)!  Merci pour votre soutien.

Nearly (presque) 2000€!

With just 2 more weeks before I leave, I have now collected almost 2000€ - which will be donated to ABOUTASIA SCHOOLS to help the education of some Cambodian children around the Siem Reap area.  I am completely amazed at the response from my friends and family and thank you SO much for your contribution.  You can see some of AAS achievements on their facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/#!/ABOUTAsiaSchools1?fref=ts or check out their website on : http://www.aboutasiaschools.org/

Un ENORME merci à toute ma famille et à tous mes amis pour leur générosité!!  Encore 2 semaines.... mais j'ai presque 2000€ pour l'association ABOUTASIA SCHOOLS.  Vous pouvez voir les projets sur facebook : https://www.facebook.com/#!/ABOUTAsiaSchools1?fref=ts ou visiter leur site web : http://www.aboutasiaschools.org/