realized today to my horror that I never entered anything about Cambodia - although we were there for only 2 days they were each unforgettable.
first - we stayed at the B&B run by Journeys Within, the tour company we used for the tour of both Cambodia and Vietnam - if you're in Siem Reap, this is the place to stay! our room was breathtakingly beautiful and the bathroom like something you see in a $400/night hotel in San Francisco - free laundry, delicious food on the patio, really really nice people - and you can also see the squatters' village behind the fence to get an idea of the life of some of the poorest Cambodians (and then safely escape back to Oz through the gate back into the lovely gardens and pool belonging to JW)
Angkor Wat is of course incredible - and we had a GREAT guide named Sina who has a wonderful sense of humor, adores his son and daughter, and is generally the hippest, most handsome and smartest guide in town
it's a LOT to absorb and very very hot but if anyone gets a chance, it's something to see - and then realizing it was lost in the jungles until fairly recently is mind-boggling - 1 of the complexes (not Angkor) was used for an Indiana Jones film (where the huge tree roots have grown into and around the buildings) and there is a sense of unreality being there (although sweating like crazy and trying to prevent sunstroke tends to keep us all earthbound)
1 bad thing - the food we had (besides at JW) was pretty bad - our first night we went to a dinner and dance show - the dancing was great and introduced us to characters we'd be seeing in stone in the temples - the food was feh
another cool thing about staying at JW is that we were asked to help a class of 16-25-year olds learning English - a Cambodian student was working off his scholarship obligations by teaching the class and his method was certainly good, but it's really good for the 'kids' to hear native English speakers (albeit with slight NYC accents) - Beth and I read a script that the director Andrew had prepared twice and then the students had to answer questions on what we'd said - it was fun and we hope it helped them with a very useful skill
