We are spending 3 nights in Siem Reap, Cambodia as our post-DRAGON adventure. The Hotel de la Paix is outstanding with very comfortable accommodations and great food (thanks, Eugene, for the recommendation!).

We're touring safari-style: out for a half-day tour at 6 am, back for a leisurely brunch and rest break during the hottest time of the day, and out for touring again in the late afternoon. This has worked very well in avoiding the hottest weather and the biggest crowds, and we've enjoyed some relaxation at this lovely hotel after our port-intensive time on DRAGON.

The weather has been pretty good except for rain today. However luck was on our side as we had only sprinkles during our morning touring, with heavier showers as soon as we returned. It's clearing up now so hopefully we'll get a good afternoon of touring in.

We toured Angkor Thom the first afternoon. Here are some of Grant's photos:


Siem Reap city streets


Monkey on the road to Angkor Thom


Bayon temple


Faces on the towers




Temple guard at Bayon


Elephant Terrace

Angkor Wat photos:

Really nice, Grant. Glad you both are having a good time.

Dena and Grant,

I'm really glad that you are enjoying Siem Reap and the Hotel de la Paix. We thought it was terrific. I think we ended up staying at least 4 nights, deciding not to make the trek into Bangkok on the way home. I liked the music on the iPod in the room so much I wrote down the names and downloaded some of them when I returned home.

You are smart to take a rest in the middle of the day. We did, too, but I don't think we got such an early start. I think the best meal we had was at the Foreign Correspondent's Club, which I probably mentioned before.

Enjoying the pictures, too. I really need to ask again about your method for posting. Unlike others that are blocked at work (because of security, I guess), yours show up beautifully.

-------------

Eugene

Ta Prohm - the "jungle temple"










Not Ta Prohm but another temple we passed on the way

Banteay Srei - known for its beauty, it is unique for its pink sandstone


Rice plant


Lotus flower








Our guide took us to visit a few families in a rural village. Preparing the palm and weaving a mat like this is incredibly labor intensive.

We went to the massive Tonle Sap lake which is about 12,000 square km now (end of rainy season) - it shrinks to about 3.000 square km by the end of dry season. Our boat ride took us through floating villages and we observed how the residents live and work, and we stopped for a visit at a fish farm.


Car battery recharging service - the batteries are used mainly to run electricity (and especially TVs) on the houseboats).


Floating shop




Floating produce stand


This girl was in a boat that pulled up alongside us to sell bananas, which we bought


Grant got to drive our boat, and we didn't hit anything!


Garden on floating houseboat


Crocodiles at the fish farm stop - commercially raised for leather

Siem Reap scenes:


A national Water Festival was going on during our visit. We passed this young girl celebrating the holiday with sparklers.


Delicious satay at Sugar Palm restaurant - Cambodian food is similar to Thai, but they don't use hot chiles


Grant had to try a "fish massage"


His feet are now free of callouses and dry skin :)

We are leaving Cambodia today and really enjoyed our visit. The sights are world-class and our accommodations and the food we enjoyed were great. However Cambodia is a very poor country as it is still recovering from wars and conflict. Our guide, Ponheary Ly, devotes much of her time and resources to helping schools in the rural villages to make sure that as many children as possible get a good education. This also includes feeding the children who often don't get enough to eat in the rural villages.

Some of Ponheary's past customers established a charitable foundation in the US to help support her efforts. The foundation funds basic school supplies, uniforms, food, bicycles, and supplements for teachers' earning. Much more information is available at the foundation's website.

The Ponheary Ly Foundation


I just wanted to mention this in case anyone who has visited Cambodia was touched by the local people and wanted to help in some way.

Dena

Thanks for the info Dena. Living your post trip through your report. Pix are great as usual. We really loved Bangkok and want to return and now will add Cambodia. It's important to learn about other countries in this way and to find out about their economic issues. I think this just may be our other trip in 2011 in addition to ROAR.

LOL. Doug and I did the fish massage too. Really enjoyed it so much we did it twice and we are looking to start up a NY franchise. I want to import those fish for the house.

Andi, I think you have a great business concept there - open the first NYC spa offering fish and elephant massages :) It would be a hit!

Dena

We had a great day in Java yesterday. It was a two hour bus ride to Borobaddur, but we had a police escort the entire way so we could go right by the traffic. Borbaddur is an ancient Buddhist area, similar but differnt from Angkor Wat. It was built in the eighth century A.D. and rediscovered in the late 1700s. It's quite spectacular (sorry, I can't post pictures like Grant--besides my pictures wouldn't be nearly as good as his are). We also had a great Indonesian lunch at a hotel there and a lovely concert and show by part of the National orchestra. Today we're sailing to Bali where we'll arrive later tonight. There's a BBQ on deck during the sail in, but we'll probably opt for Compass Rose. Tomorrow we'll spend the day at a Bali Resort.

The elephant might be a challenge to import....BUT, there are fish massage franchises being offered. Those of you in the VA area have one already, but the rest of the market is open. Now, we can quit our dull jobs.

Peggy, you make me jealous. I have to write a report due Monday and you are at a Bali Resort!

Eugene:

It's just like anything new you need to learn a few things but after that it's really fast to upload and post pics. You will need an ISP like
1and1 or host gator (many others), just get the basic package and pickout a URL/Domain you would like (it has to be available) then you can use an FTP client such as
Filezilla or Wise ftp (so many) and upoad to your site and then place the image tags in the
message on lct (also you will need to make the files only a few hundred KB so they will load faster on lct too)

[
IMG]http://www.YOURURL.com/artwork/footer_logotype.gif[/IMG

Peggy your day in Java must have been fascinating. "Off-the-beaten-path" ports are my favorite. If you're skipping the sail-in Bali barbecue on deck, my guess is that it's really hot and humid. Have fun at your resort day on Bali, one of my favorite places in the world. Can't wait to hear more about the rest of your cruise.

Andi - I have read about the "fish pedicure" and found it hard to believe it could really work, but apparently it does. It must feel weird. I know there are places here in the DC area but not specifically.

Lovely pictures. Thank you

As usual fantastic shots from Grant the KING OF PHOTO SHOTS on LCT.

Peggy so GREAT to hear from you we miss you all. At some point you should show Meredith and Polly the LCT thread they have great pictures here.

The offer still stands, just take me a long to post various news and pictures. But really Ken is better at the picture stuff than me....

Not true Grant, you are BOTH great. You are a superb photographer and you are THE fastest at posting pictures.

After a relaxing day in beautiful Bali we now have three glorious sea days! We've reacquainted with quite a few Discovery cruisers which makes the loss of the LCTers a little easier (but we still miss them all). The weather has been really good--it's actually cooled down a little from Java. Bali was really pleasant with a nice offshore breeze. The food continues to be great--I expected repeated menus, but that hasn't really been the case. Tonight is Italian in La Veranda--we missed it last time because they had a French menu when we went up there :( . It's changed back now so we'll try it. Ngaire and the other Dragoneers-- Bo, George, Polly and Meredith all say hi.

Figures they switched back. LOL. Please say hi back to the gang still on board. Glad you're enjoying the post Dragon group.

Ok, I think Australia is showing off. We saw lots of whales along the coast as we made our way to Freemantle/Perth which is where we are today. It's a spectacular day here, sunny with temps around 80-85 degrees. We had a great tour of the two cities ending with a boat trip down the Swan River. We saw some Black Swans and a parrot--but no kangaroos yet. We had Margarita Pizza for lunch on the ship in honor of Grant. The pizza was great--just out of the oven! We'll be wine tasting tomorrow in Albany. Ngaire, Sandra told me to tell you hi.

yeah the pizza on the ship was really good, and fresh out of the oven made it so much better....

Peggy, continuing to live vicariously through your posts....Have lots of fun for us. Say hi to Bo, Meredith, Polly and George from us.

Kangaroo sighting!!! We saw a large mob of kangaroos yesterday on our way to a winery outside of Albany, Australia. Our guide stopped the bus so we could watch them for a while. The wine at Wignalls Winery was good too. Last night we joined a group of new friends for a special order Indonesian dinner that was delicious. Today we ate meat pies and kangaroo sausage at the Aussie BBQ on the deck. Life is good.

Good to hear from you, Peggy. We enjoyed Albany when Voyager stopped there in 2006. Very picturesque, however we didn't get to see a mob of kangaroos. Keep having fun.