These are our holiday days. CHO staff work Sunday to Thursday and so there is no programme on Friday and Saturday . We have taken the chance to come to Siem Reap, the centre of the Cambodia tourist trade, to visit the ancient temples of Angkor Wat. There are 13 temples in all, but we only visited 3: Angkor Wat itself, in the pictures; Bayon with it's massive faces, and Ta Prom where you can pretend to be Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, but more seriously see the temples being taken over by the roots of the spong tree.
Angkor Wat now has a code of Conduct in which visitors are asked to respect the place; it is a holy place for Buddhists. This covers the way that you behave and dress. It is a fascinating and fantastic place to visit and deserves the respect that people claim for it. It was very busy today, so there was not so much time to pause and take in the atmosphere, but you can't avoid beige impressed by the history and quality of the place. We might post more pictures tomorrow.
It was very hot this morning, so we did all the temples in the morning, then went for lunch, relaxing in the hammocks before and after eating. We then retreated indoors to cool down, hit the Old Market for some shopping and had dinner in a restaurant which gave us a show of Cambodian dancing; at one point it was very like the Scottish Highland sword dance, except that the other dancers kept moving the swords!
We go back to Poipet tomorrow. Jim has 2 sermons to prepare for Sunday, but for the others there is some time off before we join in again on Sunday. Hope you are enjoying reading this and the Facebook page. Speak to you again soon.
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