Our first stop in Cambodia was the capital, Phnom Penh. The drive from the airport introduced us to the crazy crazy traffic! There are millions of motorbikes zooming around, some of which serving as the cheapest form of 'taxi', should you be brave enough to hop on the back of one! That's when they are not being used to transport every family member all at once of course! The most we saw was four people on the back of a bike but came across this photo on the
web that manages to top that! (Photo courtesy of parishwithoutborders blog) Then there are the tuk tuks, the next cheapest form of transport and relatively safe as long as you shut your eyes when they squeeze through a particularly narrow gap in a busy intersection! Cambodians drive on the right (most of the time!) although we did spend some time on both sides of the road on several occasions! There are few tra
ffic lights and most intersections are just a mad scramble with traffic from all directions beeping horns and trying to get across or make turns. Nobody waits for a clear gap - everyone just moves forward at once and hopes for the best! We were amazed by the large items carried on the backs of motorbikes over here!
Or dragged behind on trailers! From huge gas canisters to large sacks of food, ladders, mattresses, boxes piled high and (our favourite!) large pigs fresh from the market! This was a common sight in Siem Reap where we spent the second half of our week in Cambodia. Passed several of them on our coach journey from Phnom Penh, along with baby piglets altogether in a basket on the back of a motorbike! Due to the speed of our coach and the speed of the motorbike my photos were rather blurry(!) so again this one is off the web (courtesy of worldhum.com) We spent three days in Phnom Penh and visited the Royal Pal
ace. It was very busy but we learnt afte
rwards that it was the Queen's birthday that day! We seem to be doing a bit of a royal tour here in Asia as we arrived in Kuala Lumpur on the King's birthday too! Siem Reap was full of temples of all kinds! We did a half day touring the main ones, in particular the famous Angkor Wat temple complex which was huge. After looking round
at least half a dozen different sites we were "all templed out!" so the next day we went on a very different kind of a trip to Kampong Khleang - the largest floating village in Cambodia. We hired a tuk tuk driver for the day and the drive to get there which took over an hour was a treat in itself (if a little dusty!) Seeing the village was certainly the highlight of our visit to Cambodia. This particular village doesn't see a lot of
tourists so there were no tacky souvenirs or anything and we got to see the village and the people as they went about their daily activities. As you can see the houses are all on stilts as alt
hough it's only the start of the wet season at the moment, in a few months when the lake rises up the only way the villagers can get about is by boat! Some people actually lived right on
top of the lake in floating houseboats. We felt almost like royalty ourselves as our tuk tuk made its way through the village as all the children came running out to wave and say Hello! We walked through the village and popped our heads in at the local
school, but decided against trying the popular local delicacy of fried crickets! Yuk! We saw them everywhere - huge piles of them! Apparantly they also eat fried spiders too but I am glad to report we didn't come across any
of those! We went for a bit of a boat trip to view the houses on stilts and also witness the daily fish market! Our driver as you can see was considering purchasing a rather large fish! He eventually came away with a big bag of water snakes to cook up for his dinner! Mmmm! Now doesn't that sound delicious eh?! We finished off our stay in Siem Reap with a visit to the Angkor Night Market where I decided to try a Dr Fish Foot Massage! You sit on the edge of this big pool and tons of these hungry little fish come up and fee
d off the dead skin on your feet! It really tickles at first til you get used to it but then it does actually feel like your feet are being massaged by all those tiny little mouths! Can't exactly say that my feet were as smooth as a baby's feet afterwards but it was an interesting experience! CK was going to join me but decided instead to wait for the luxury foot massage experience she knows she can get in Bangkok! One that lasts at least an hour and often has a free head and shoulder massage thrown in for good measure!
Our first stop in Cambodia was the capital, Phnom Penh. The drive from the airport introduced us to the crazy crazy traffic! There are millions of motorbikes zooming around, some of which serving as the cheapest form of 'taxi', should you be brave enough to hop on the back of one! That's when they are not being used to transport every family member all at once of course! The most we saw was four people on the back of a bike but came across this photo on the
web that manages to top that! (Photo courtesy of parishwithoutborders blog) Then there are the tuk tuks, the next cheapest form of transport and relatively safe as long as you shut your eyes when they squeeze through a particularly narrow gap in a busy intersection! Cambodians drive on the right (most of the time!) although we did spend some time on both sides of the road on several occasions! There are few tra
ffic lights and most intersections are just a mad scramble with traffic from all directions beeping horns and trying to get across or make turns. Nobody waits for a clear gap - everyone just moves forward at once and hopes for the best! We were amazed by the large items carried on the backs of motorbikes over here!
Or dragged behind on trailers! From huge gas canisters to large sacks of food, ladders, mattresses, boxes piled high and (our favourite!) large pigs fresh from the market! This was a common sight in Siem Reap where we spent the second half of our week in Cambodia. Passed several of them on our coach journey from Phnom Penh, along with baby piglets altogether in a basket on the back of a motorbike! Due to the speed of our coach and the speed of the motorbike my photos were rather blurry(!) so again this one is off the web (courtesy of worldhum.com) We spent three days in Phnom Penh and visited the Royal Pal
ace. It was very busy but we learnt afte
rwards that it was the Queen's birthday that day! We seem to be doing a bit of a royal tour here in Asia as we arrived in Kuala Lumpur on the King's birthday too! Siem Reap was full of temples of all kinds! We did a half day touring the main ones, in particular the famous Angkor Wat temple complex which was huge. After looking round
at least half a dozen different sites we were "all templed out!" so the next day we went on a very different kind of a trip to Kampong Khleang - the largest floating village in Cambodia. We hired a tuk tuk driver for the day and the drive to get there which took over an hour was a treat in itself (if a little dusty!) Seeing the village was certainly the highlight of our visit to Cambodia. This particular village doesn't see a lot of 
tourists so there were no tacky souvenirs or anything and we got to see the village and the people as they went about their daily activities. As you can see the houses are all on stilts as alt
hough it's only the start of the wet season at the moment, in a few months when the lake rises up the only way the villagers can get about is by boat! Some people actually lived right on 
top of the lake in floating houseboats. We felt almost like royalty ourselves as our tuk tuk made its way through the village as all the children came running out to wave and say Hello! We walked through the village and popped our heads in at the local
school, but decided against trying the popular local delicacy of fried crickets! Yuk! We saw them everywhere - huge piles of them! Apparantly they also eat fried spiders too but I am glad to report we didn't come across any
of those! We went for a bit of a boat trip to view the houses on stilts and also witness the daily fish market! Our driver as you can see was considering purchasing a rather large fish! He eventually came away with a big bag of water snakes to cook up for his dinner! Mmmm! Now doesn't that sound delicious eh?! We finished off our stay in Siem Reap with a visit to the Angkor Night Market where I decided to try a Dr Fish Foot Massage! You sit on the edge of this big pool and tons of these hungry little fish come up and fee
d off the dead skin on your feet! It really tickles at first til you get used to it but then it does actually feel like your feet are being massaged by all those tiny little mouths! Can't exactly say that my feet were as smooth as a baby's feet afterwards but it was an interesting experience! CK was going to join me but decided instead to wait for the luxury foot massage experience she knows she can get in Bangkok! One that lasts at least an hour and often has a free head and shoulder massage thrown in for good measure!
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