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On yer bike
With two days left on our pass we had decided to have our eggs and baguette early (4.30am) and cycle to the temples for sunrise (we would look around the temples saving Angkor Wat for the last day). There were several other people up with the same plan - a Canadian with his girlfriend and an English girl whose friend was in bed sick so we decided to stick together to get there on our rickety bikes (again no street lighting!). This, however made for a adventurous ride as we cycled the 8km as fast as we could and frequently having to stop with chains coming off. At one point the Canadian (who had patiently swapped bikes with the English girl when her seat came completely off) lost all control of gears. Needless to say when we reached the hill top temple it was light and we'd missed sunrise (although so had every one else due to too much cloud) but at least the early hour (only 6.00am at this point) meant that it was cool enough to comfortably cycle around the temples. It is a really lovely ride with most other tourists safely tucked inside coaches or tuk tuks we passed locals slowly cycling along cigar in mouth or more school children. The temples we saw on this smaller route were really varied and our favourites. The Bayon (with the enormous faces) was really spectacular and the 'tomb-raider' temple was enormous with tree roots having grown over walls like enormous feet. The hotel owner had tipped us to follow a small path to a temple in ruins with moss and plants having grown everywhere - this was probably the best one with no one else there and surrounded by trees it was like something out of Indiana Jones. We also met another exceptionally cute 5 year old at the top of a very steep temple - I have no idea how she got up there as she wasn't keen on the steep descent - I can only presume an adult takes her there and leaves her there to sell postcards. By lunchtime we were exhausted and it was getting too hot so we cycled home for some rest (we had been up for 9 hours after all!).
A rest however wasn't going to happen for us and an orphanage we had emailed the day before about visiting had emailed back to say we could visit that afternoon - so off we went! The orphanage caters for 64 children between 3 and 19 - many not orphans but from single parents or very large families that are mostly rural and very poor (about 30% Cambodians live below the poverty line). We looked around the small classrooms used for teaching English when the children return from normal school and lots of tiny children impressed us with their alphabets and counting. Classes were finished for the day so the children were playing marbles in the dust or a snap game whilst others practised their dancing - we would be staying for the daily evening show. The children focus on learning traditional dance and song for enjoyment and perform each evening on a small stage (they seem to love this and it attracts tourists to visit and donate or support in some way). Incidentally this stage is also where they all sleep at the moment. After the adorable performance of Rama and Sita (there are Hindu influences here as well as Buddhist) and a fishing story we wished we could do more than make a small donation - I especially wished we had applied before hand to volunteer and teach English. Alas providing pens for a year was as all we could do right now - maybe we'll come back another time.
Liz
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