March 22

March 22nd 2002

Set off at 8am in minibus for our last temple tour day. This is the hottest day yet. We are heading for Banteay Srei Wat which is 35 kilometres from Siem Reap, but first we are going further away to visit a waterfall a 45 minute trek through the jungle. This is a special waterfall that is supposed to wash your sins away. The car drive takes about 2 hours, during the drive Fin tells us about where we are going. The walk quickly became a steep climb, I was lagging behind within first 10 minutes, back aching and mosquito bites on the back of my legs were really pulling. Still having stomach cramps too, time to wimp out, though maybe I need a bath in this waterfall?

I decided to walk back to base, there are cafes where the car is parked, after some persuasion that I would be fine Andrew and Wi carried on with the rest of the group. I descended at my own speed. Po Lee bless him came over to see if I was ok, lead me to a table and ordered a large coconut for me to drink. Later he had it cut in half so that I could eat it. We chatted about Cambodia�s history, he knows all that Pohn and Fin have told us � he is training to be a tour guide too. He has the knowledge and his people carrier already, speaks English very well, and some German but needs to learn more Japanese before he can apply to be a guide. I couldn�t believe that there is so much involved, he is funny and interesting and I really hope he gets there, he deserves to. The group reappeared to find me happily ensconced in a hammock. This part of the tour, they said was not as interesting as the other places we�d been, and the climb in the heat Andrew said was as much as he could have coped with. Andrew had taken photo�s of carvings in the river bed, but the waterfall was almost dry as the rainy season is due. We set off towards the temple, stopped for lunch at a little cafe opposite. Andrew spotted a stall selling Dunhill menthol so bought me some as I was running short of ciggies. The caf� has fantastic rough carved mahogany stools, really heavy and solid � I�d love to take some home, $20 each Wi tells us.

After lunch we walk to the temple - Banteay Srei Wat was designed by a woman, I am interested to see how different this one will be from the others. The first thing I noticed was how intricately carved and delicate this temple is. I remember Glenn making some prejudiced remark about female designers {Sorry Glenn!} I really like this temple � one of the smaller ones we�ve seen � again it has a wonderfully tranquil atmosphere and it�s location is stunning, views of the mountains in the background. I hope this will be one of the temples that they rebuild.

We arrive back at 3ish and say thank you and goodbye to Fin who has been brilliant and taught us a lot, not just of the history of Cambodia, but the general life style out here. We have chatted a lot on our way to the temples and we exchange e-mail addresses now. Fin gave us our Temple passes as souveniers. Po Lee will drive us to the border when we leave.

Time for relaxing, writing up the diary and reading in air con. room for a while, after the much needed hose down in t�shower. We meet at 7pm and go to The Soup Dragon for dinner again, this time I buy one of their T shirts with the Dragon embroidered on it. The money from the sale of these goes to the Children�s Hospital in Siem Reap. After a delicious dinner we went back to Angkor What? for another relaxing evening of chatting, fun and cocktails. The walls are decorated with graffiti, you can write anything you want, some have written on the ceiling as the walls are full. Last night I tried to persuade Jonathan {he�s the tallest } that he should write a message from us all, tonight I tried and failed again, but they are very high, even he would need a ladder.

Tomorrow is a free day as the Floating Village we are supposed to visit has dried up in the heat so we can�t get there by boat as planned. A shame as it sounded really interesting, this was one of the days I was really looking forward to, but it means we can have a lie in, necessary after the cocktail intake!