March 5, 2017

Although we bought a three-day ticket, we only used it for two days. We decided that today we would relax and have a wander around the Town of Siem Reap.

Siem Reap is a transient town, people sleep here and eat here, after spending a day at the temples and that is just about all it has going for it. The pub street is a lively place in the evening and is blocked off to all traffic. During the day it is much quieter.

There is an historic walk that you can do, if you can find somewhere where you can get the map of the walking tour. We couldn’t find a tourist information office to get the map for the walking tour.

The river looks lovely, but in actuality it is disgustingly dirty.  This is the river that Ralf said if I fall in, I am on my own, unless there was a big bucket of disinfectant that he could use after rescuing me.

There is a market which is not as well organized as the Vietnamese markets we went through. Meat, fish, veges and fruit all mixed together. Then of course there is all the stuff for the tourists – “$1 dollar t.shirt, madam/sir, $2 dollar for skirts, please buy something from my stall, what you looking for?” this was the constant cry from the stall holders. Often it was said with such resignation that they couldn’t even be bothered anymore.

We did buy a fruit shake, coconut and passion fruit, for Ralf and passion fruit and lime for me.   When buying fruit shakes, you have to be careful about the ice. If it is one big block and they are hacking pieces off for the blender, don’t buy it, if it is in small “ice-cube size” it means it comes from a proper ice-maker that has used clean water (supposedly) the ice was clean!

 It was a nice relaxing wander around today.

Ralf went into a camera shop to see if he could buy a filter for his new camera. We had checked out the prices in Phnom Penh and were told it would be about $10.00. We asked the price here – $20.00, this was in a store. Ralf told the salesman that he could get it for $10.00 in Phnom Penh. He came down to $12.00. No we would wait to get it in Thailand! Boom $10.00. We thought because we were in a recognized store that we wouldn’t have to haggle, we were wrong. Haggle for everything and everywhere!

We got back to the guesthouse early and I managed to reduce the amount of photos I was going to use for the first day at Angkor Wat and post the blog. The guesthouse is very nice, but the walk to it is typically Cambodian, red, rutted laneways.

After relaxing for a couple of hours we headed back into Town for dinner and a foot massage. Yes we did the fishy thing! The first few minutes was horrendous, then I got used to it and it was quite nice.

Does anyone like Tilapia? Please check that your Tilapia does not come from Cambodia, because these were the wee fish that were enjoying nibbling on our feet!!

My main concern was that I would put my feet into the tank, and they would all float to the top of the tank.

Tomorrow we are back on the road heading for Thailand.