On the road to Siem Reap

   Feb 8th at 7:30 am checked out of th Golden Gate Hotel in Phnom Penh and boarded our van for the long ride ot Siem Reap, gateway to Angkor Wat and many other temples in that area. Leaving the capitol we were quickly immersed in the quite poverty stricken rural area of Cambodia. Most of the homes, built on stilts persumably to avoid flooding during the rainy season were pretty mean structures. Still, in front of nearly every one there was at least a modest Buddhist shrine, many with some sort of offering. The atmosphere was filled with a dusty haze and along the road there were often small pools dank water with water lilies growing in them supporting beautiful lotus flowers. We passes several large school yards, with front yards that looked overrun with bicycles, presumably that's how the students get to school. In a separate area there was a collection of motor scooters, probably the teacher's parking lot.

  About two hours into the trip we stopped at a cross road town, Skun, famous for its fried spiders, a food choice impressed upon the local Cambodians during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, when food was so scarce that people were forced to eat pretty much anything that moved and could be captured,

just to get some form of protein. It seems the taste for fried spiders lingers on as the young ladies selling them have large piles of the crispy critters on tray atop their heads. And for those of you who must know, yes I tried one, here's the picture to prove it. It was spicy and crunchy, and probably the last spider I will eat!  Admittedly, I only ate some legs. The thought of eating the fat little body was too much, and I immediately bought a can of Coke to wash it
down. Then we spent some time photographing in the local market before continuing on our way. It's remarkable how everywhere we go the people are so friendly and seem pretty happy in spite of how little they have in the way of material possessions.

   We stopped for our real lunch at a nice restaurant on a small lake. We had chicken soup with pickled lemons in it, rice, fish and soybeans, chicken and ginger and an Angkor beer. Very nice and excellent service. The bill came to $14 US including the tip. Oh, and that was not per person, that was the total bill for all four of us!

  Finally arriving at our hotel, Casa Angkor, at around 3 pm we quickly checked in and then departed for the first of the area temples we would visit during out four night stay in Siem Reap, Ta Prohm. This temple is especially interesting because so little reconstruction has been done, so it is in kind of a ruined state.