Sitting down in the middle of ancient ruins playing a game of bridge is a pretty surreal feeling. Today was a pretty relaxed day (which explains why I am blogging so early at 7pm) as we had only a few remaining ruins to visit and hence we had plenty of time for each temple we are visiting today at the Angkor Wat Archaeological Park. We decided to occupy ourselves with games of bridge in the various temples we visited today.
The most memorable games of bridge we had were those played at the top of Phnom Bakheng. The temple stood at the top of a hill and hence it took quite a climb and walk for us to reach the top of the temple. The view at the top was panoramic as we were able to see Angkor Wat from our position at the top. Since we were there too early for sunset, we had to kill the time. We chanced upon an arrangement of rocks which happened to form an ideal table and four benches for bridge. I was pretty sure the rocks were taken from the parts of the temple which fell off through years of erosion.
It felt funny to be sitting on ancient rocks playing a card game while hordes of other tourists point and laugh at you. Some of them took photos of us. Sadly, we played for an hour before one of the temple guards told us to stop. His timing was good also: the sun was setting then and it was time for us to experience sunset.
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Siem Reap has been good to us. The people are nice and the town has not lost its charm despite its unavoidable development into a tourist town.
The town remains quaint and easy to navigate. It is yet to lose its small town feel and I hope it does not lose it anytime in the future. The eateries here are affordable despite being restaurants, and there are few unique ones that stand out. The wet market still remains and local grub is easily available for embarrassingly cheap prices. The market folks are especially friendly and helpful.
The people are nicer than those in the city (not that the city dwellers are not nice in the first place) and we are yet to have an unpleasant experience here. Perhaps the only complaint I can think of is the large amounts of touts plying all the ruins in the Angkor Wat Park. However I think it is important to understand that the various kids that aggressively beg or sell their wares are probably taught to do so by their parents, who themselves are probably struggling to make money themselves. I feel guilty everything I had to reject with a smiling face a kid trying his best to sell me whatever he has to sell.
I made it a point to share the bread and other food I bought with some of the kids.The Lonely Planet guidebook also suggested that one should give food instead of money to the kids, because their parents will confiscate their money from them.
Today I passed half a loaf of my wheat bread to this little girl who was begging along the dirt route leading up to Phnom Bakheng. She had a long face and was squatting down alone with her hands clasped together begging. It felt good to be able to do a little something to someone to brighten up his or her day.
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Today is the last time I will ever buy something from the Blue Pumpkin. It goes without saying that my heavy heart bled as I carefully selected the breads I wanted for tomorrow’s breakfast and made my way with my heavy feet to the counter to pay. The smile of the cashier was never sweeter and the price was never better.
Being the last time ever (sob) I decided to get more bread than before. I bought a French brioche, a Danish ginger bread with banana, an apple turnover, a carrot and walnut muffin and a whole loaf of cereal bread, for the pauper’s price of 2 USD (about 2.6 SGD). I shall try the brioche and ginger bread today and leave the rest for tomorrow’s breakfast before the boat trip to Battambang. Naturally, I will savour the breads and keep their tastes in my memory long enough for me to render them in electronic immortality by blogging tomorrow about them. Heh.
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We will be setting off for Battambang first thing tomorrow morning. Hopefully the waters of the Tonle Sap will be high tomorrow and our speedboat does not get stuck in the riverbed. Battambang promises to be a new experience and I hope that it is even nicer than Siem Reap. Time to go back to the hotel for a good night’s rest.
