Siem Reap and Ze Temples

Once installed in siem reap, We had booked for a walk in a village a little bit outside of town, and hoped to have a good insight on how cambodian live, on a child-adapted level. We booked with an association Beyond Unique Escapes so that half of your fee goes back to the community you visit, and walked around for two hours. We still are champions in leaving just in the middle of the heat, so that didn't help. Also, as Pierre and I are blessed with some previous travel, and me having experienced from up close life in poor communities (microfinance project outside of Buenos Aires, street children around Tegucigalpa) it wasn't really an eye opener, as it might maybe be to less traveled people (not aiming in particular to certain countries at all....) We got greeted by a dozen of smiles, tried to explain / translate to the kids what they saw, and prevented Bill to steal the very one piece of toy we had seen in the entire village. I guess after two months our kids miss toys a bit. Confrontation with luxury problems amidst pure poverty. Poverty just a ten minutes tuktuk ride away from thousands of visitors. probably filling the pockets of just some happy few businesspeople. Pushing up prices of goods and land. Let's say there is room for some sustainable tourism development, eco and people centered!

Another excursion we had booked with the same people, was to a floating and a fisherman village. That was a better shot. Having heard of it being more and more touristic we opted for this one. Hoping to avoid the half real half fake made up floating village on Tonle Sap. It was nice.

First we stopped along the road to taste some sticky rice in bambu , then in a crossroad market for some more 'pluah?' Pluah? from cambodian side, and "oh look here, that fish is still moving! Or 'look, snakes!'  and a lot of " c'est quoi CA?' Followed by the inevitable "why?" Questions from our kids side.

Then to the fishermen village of Kampong Khleang. In this dry season, you see the houses perched some 4 to 5metres above the ground, during wet season or even monsoon months, water comes up till their doors, fields and bushes disappear and all is done by boat.

A 20min trip down the stream brings us to the lake  where we take in some nice views of the Viet floating village and Cambodia's biggest lake. The houses are build on bambu or boats and move up to 8 times a year depending on water levels. There is the mechanical shop, the meeting point for buying fish, .... Intruiging... Beautiful sights.

Then came our big d-day! Visiting the temples! Seen our special gift of leaving when it s hot, we where lucky that it was a cloudy day, cause we where going to bike it all! The people from Grashopper Adventures prepared our bikes and the 35km tour.

We had a great guide named Lot (multitasking guide, as he was towing Amélie, giving Bill a hand on stairs, putting Mat in and out of the baby carrier, taking (really good!) Family pictures and providing us information about the three temples we where visiting that day, all in one man! All with a smile! Obviously, we couldnt have done it without a third man!

Our trip to new Zealand freshly in mind and Williams castle hé is still talking about, we decided to appropriate each temple to a kid, which works greatly to keep them interested!

So the first one "with all the trees on its roof" also called Ta Prohm was Williams. The one with all the enigmatic smiling faces, Prasat Bayon, Matthias's and of course the biggest, most wellknown, Angkor Wat being for Amélie. Three kiss, three temples. Perfect Match.

On the last afternoon of our 4 days stay, we went back with a tuktuk to see just some more places we liked to see, like the Neak Pean in the middle of water, the elephant terrace we hadn't stopped at and going back by sunset to Angkor Wat (as we would not wake up at 4:30 for a sunrise, as is the popular thing to do )

the moon and clear skies treated us on a nice spectacle, before the night took over the sky. We  headed back into town, to listen to Santa Claus singing under the lighted palmtrees and beside a giant Iced Christmas tree. Oh! Oh! Oh! It is Christmas (eve) at FCC!

Amélie decided (alright, maybe I had told her already ages ago) that our gifts this Christmas would be the 'grand voyage' , I couldn't agree more. So did Matthias with his collection of tickets (he s the one who started collecting coins prior to the trip. He is now the one carefully keeping all sorts of tickets, putting them in the hotel safe whenever one available - in new Zealand's campervan, he used the microwave for this- remembering us that it is not a free trip ;-)

Anyhow, le grand voyage, Les grands temples, une grande famille et de grandioses souvenirs, en havaianas autour d'un cocktail! Santa Claus has been good for us! We hope he'll be generous in 2016 for everyone, and above all that people will be generous with each other!