Profile+Pic.jpg

Hi.

Welcome to my blog.

Day 14 -- Siem Reap

Day 14 -- Siem Reap

Once again, we headed for the airport feeling sad about going. But if we hadn’t gone, we wouldn’t have met Samart and our lives would have been poorer. Samart -- our wonderful, melancholy, kind, painfully endearing guide -- met us at the airport along with our driver, Samut (another strong, silent type). 


A QUICK NOTE ON GUIDES AND DRIVERS. We worked with several local  guides on this trip (plus Tu for our food tour, but that was an experience unto itself). All of them were helpful -- they made sure we saw the important stuff, kept the logistics straightforward, answered questions, and adjusted plans to suit our changing desires. Our drivers made sure we had water, provided moist towelettes (a surprisingly welcome nicety), got us where we needed to go with minimal fuss, and were generally a friendly if silent presence. 


Jackson, our first guide, was only with us for one day. He was workmanlike but not terribly engaged and we were fine not having more time with him. Tuan was wonderful -- a huge part of why Hoi An and Hue were so much fun. Linh was a bit awkward (Tuan had warned us our North Vietnamese guide might seem provincial, and that was spot on), but we warmed up to him and he loosened up as well. Fanh was a character -- gregarious and interesting, but with an occasional tendency to spin up a rant (about, for example, how much he hated the Vietnamese, or how many times people had tried to con him). 


Samart was the youngest of our guides, and the least experienced, but he had a sweet formality that disarmed us almost immediately. His personal history of war violence and near starvation sounded horrifying but was was probably an entirely too common background among Cambodians. Despite this, he was the furthest thing from embittered. He was incredibly warm, and wore his emotions on his sleeve in a way that made it impossible not to like him. And even though by any measure we were the fortunate ones, Samart seemed genuinely concerned about us -- he fussed on our behalf behind the scenes, he mothered us with advice and little gifts, he carefully joked with us about politics, he shared stories of volleyball glory (and defeat). He’s a remarkable person -- getting to know him was one of the best things about the trip.


Our home base in Siem Reap was the now famous Viroth’s Hotel -- Trip Advisor’s #1 hotel in the world for 2017. We were instantly charmed. Cool towels infused with a minty tingle (Cambodia was finally fulfilling our expectation of hot weather), a cup of welcoming tea, and the absolutely gorgeous lounge/pool area made for a very happy welcome. We had a mix up regarding one room that resulted in Holly being relegated to a sofa bed -- this was not the fault of Viroth's, but we were disappointed that they took a fairly fatalistic attitude to the problem. Despite that, all five of us just loved this hotel. 


After getting settled, we met for a relatively early dinner at the hotel (more delicious soups, stir fried vegetables, pork and eggplant casserole and interesting salads) before being picked up for our evening’s entertainment -- the Phare Circus. (The hotel offered a quick spritz of very pleasant insect repellent as we left.)


This was another evening billed as ”cultural” and talked up by all the guidebooks. The Phare organization is part art school, part social services nonprofit, and part circus troupe. The performers are all street kids who’ve been more or less rescued by the nonprofit. Like Cirque du Soleil, the circus shows have a theme -- we saw “Influence,” described as a portrayal of the “corrupting influences of power and the healing influences of community.” And it was performed in an unairconditioned tent. As we waited to go in to our special VIP seats, I was starting to have a heavy sense of impending dutiful cultural sensitivity likely to make the water puppets pale in comparison.


Well, it was AWESOME! Not to throw shade on the water puppets, but the Phare acrobats put on about the most riveting, entertaining, moving, purely fun show I’ve seen in a long time. It’s probably not even a tiny bit culturally sensitive that Mary, Holly and I all wanted to pack up a couple of the compact, exuberant, extremely sweaty and adorable acrobats and take them home with us.


We headed right back to the hotel after the show to get a bit of sleep -- Samart was picking us up at 4:30 the next morning to witness the sunrise over Angkor Wat.


Day 15 -- Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom

Day 15 -- Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom

Day 13 -- Luang Prabang

Day 13 -- Luang Prabang