Siem Reap- Cambodia

I was lucky enough to be rostered for a flight to Cambodia, visiting both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. Paul joined me in Siem Reap for the weekend. Cambodia as you know is one of the poorest countries in the world, but we found the people to be so friendly and welcoming. We stayed at a beautiful Hotel called Victoria Angkor Spa Resort, the hotel reminded us of home, it was a "colonial out of Africa" decorated hotel, so beautiful check out the following website: http://www.victoriahotels-asia.com/eng/hotel-in-cambodia/angkor-resort-spa/pictures

We spent the whole of Saturday with a fantastic guide who spoke excellent english, he took us to 3 famous tourist sights. The first was the Floating Village, here the population live off the lake, there is a floating hospital, school, police station and even a floating church. The people living in the floating village are a mixture of Cambodians and Vietnamese, for food they fish at night and during the day they try sell fruit and drinks to tourists.

We then headed to the famous Angkor Wat temples, they are part of a World Heritage sight and is one of the largest religious monuments in the world. The temples were built around the 11th centuary and took 37 years or so to be completed, now after surviving a war they are still standing but a lot of restoration is going on at present. We climbed up very steep steps to get to the top, a little scary but worth it for the beautiful view. Paul and I are not the temple or museum type but this place is definately worth a visit.

Many of the Budda's inside the temple have had their heads chopped off, thought to have happened during the war, most other statues have been preserved in various museums around the world.