Well here we are, Flashback Friday - where did the week go? I know I spent alot of it outside, on the deck, writing. I'm working on a women's fiction/romance right now. But I was aching to go on a trip. And with Saskatchewan COVID numbers going up, well - it wasn't going to happen before, or later. So we're still doing a virtual trip. This trip takes me back to internet glitches - internet cafes and a whole lot of sun and fun. We're going back on a virtual journey to one of my favourite places - Cambodia...
This is my second trip to Siem Reap. It's just a brief jaunt, an interlude in the midst of our trip as we juggle arrival times into Myanmar. At Angkor Wat there are changes, long awaited restoration has begun on major portions of the structure leaving portions off limits. There are signs now that map out a logical viewing strategy with the usual arrows and signs. Somehow I'm disappointed. The mystery is disappearing with each new sign and regulation. The temple in the inner courtyard where the treacherous three story high, ancient, uneven, worn staircase - terrifying for us height challenged individuals - is now off limits. Apparently it was as dangerous as my overactive imagination had anticipated. Still, despite the changes, when I stand in the centre of Angkor Wat beside a Buddhist shrine with incense wafting around me and a man begins a chant that echoes through the ancient chamber I'm transported back in time when this place was alive with another people. People who built something fabulous not just for the Gods they worshipped but for themselves and for the people that served them. It is all rather overwhelming.
In this picture to the right a little boy is climbing an ancient relic like it was his own set of monkey bars.
At Tonle Sap lake just a little further away - it's that unusual time of the year when during the rainy season the lake floods a major portion of Cambodia as the Mekong river overflows into it. The villages that lie near the lake are on stilts and during the floods they resemble floating villages as the water rises right up to road level. Children, dogs and livestock all roam the roads and make it nerve wracking to negotiate the narrow dirt strip that separates one row of roughly built stilt houses from another.
And then....
Tomorrow we are heading to Myanmar - a repeat of three countries one day - news flash - we're doing it again. January 4 - Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar. I don't know what internet access will be like. I'm assuming for sure no more pictures. I may be going under for the next week but if I can I'll post to the blog. In the meantime should I have to abdicate my role as trip journalist for a week or so standby - at some point I'll be back.
Ryshia
...a world you never imagined!
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| The Dead Sea, a tourist and a whole other story! |
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