Today's stops included a visit to the local school in the village where our guide Sam is from, an artisans' workshop and a weaving studio. Let me start by telling you about Kmar Primary School.

The school was really fascinating, especially because it's so important to Sam. He's been pretty instrumental in helping to secure funding for improvements to the school and must be the school's biggest cheerleader. It's gone from a school without walls and 250 children sitting on the ground for their lessons to a school of nearly 700 in three large buildings with about a dozen classrooms and a library.

Today was party day for the school because tomorrow everyone starts a three week vacation for the Cambodian New Year. The students had helped drag all the desks out of their classrooms and set them up under a beautiful shade tree and they were all eating and dancing the morning away.

Everything about the school was bare bones. The students buy their own text books and bring them back and forth to school. The classrooms were pretty empty of anything but a chalkboard and the teacher's desk. There can be upwards of 40 students or more in each classroom.

Many of the rooms have plaques indicating who had given money to pay for the construction of the classroom building.

Sam's name was on the outdoor sink area where the children can wash up after playing outside.

The students come to school for four hours per day, half of them in the morning and half in the afternoon. They switch which part of the day the kids attend every month. This school has students in grades K-6. Some students, including Sam's daughters (and his son, when he's old enough) go to the international school in Siem Reap for the other half of the day to further their education.

A couple of things that really struck both me and Lee were, first, how grubby the school was. There's no effort to throw trash into trash cans. Sam said it really bothers him as well and he's pushing to have receptacles placed around the grounds and start training the children to throw their trash away. Imagine having to teach that. I just take it for granted that you clean up after yourself but both here and in Vietnam it's disconcerting to see how many people don't agree.

The second thing that struck us was how happy, healthy, well-behaved and polite the children were. They were having a great time, laughing, playing, being like children the whole world over. It was delightful to spend the morning with them.

Yesterday we drove a little over an hour out of Siem Reap to see a smaller, less preserved temple, Beng Mealea. There's only one paved road out there and it was finished just a few years ago. We took a shortcut on an unpaved section that the buses can't go on that shaved off about 20 minutes of the trip. My rib didn't particularly like all that jostling but that's okay. Seeing the Cambodian countryside was really interesting and Sam gave us a good overview of what life is like for the people living around here.

Beng Mealea is one of the earlier temples that was discovered buried in the jungle but besides cutting back some of the  vegetation it's been largely left unrestored. In contrast, Angkor Wat was continually used and maintained by the locals so it's in pretty good shape.

It's hard to imagine coming across all those fallen blocks and figuring out how they might possibly fit together.

The second stop of the day was about a half hour back towards the city at a temple called Banteay Srei, which means "women's temple." It's so called because it's relatively small, beautiful and ornately carved. The rock is shaded a lovely pink and is unique to this temple. The carvings are particularly deep and incredibly well preserved, especially when you consider it's been sitting out in the jungle for over a thousand years.

We're done with temples and go see some artisans today. I'm really looking forward to the cocoon to scarf weaving studio. 

Day 3 of the temple tours and I'm too pooped to tell you about it. That will have to wait until (my) tomorrow morning. It's not that the tour was more tiring than the previous two days, it's just that we spent the evening on Pub Street and the mojito went straight to my head.

But I do want to wish my lovely niece Maya a fabulously wonderful 16th (!!) birthday and safe journey on her school trip to Europe. I can't wait to hear all about it.

Day 2 - Angkor Wat

Yesterday's tour was to some smaller temples that are still undergoing extensive restoration. Today we went to the biggest, most well known temple, Angkor Wat.

According to the Unesco World Heritage group this is the largest temple complex in the world. Built in the 12th century it's incredible how much of it is so well preserved.

Lee and our guide Sam take a close look at some of the stone carvings.

Everywhere you look there's incredible beauty. It's awe inspiring. Here's a sampling of the photos I took.

We also drove through Siem Reap to Tonle Sap Lake and took a boat ride out to the floating village. There is an entire town with over a thousand residents who spend their entire lives living on houseboats miles from any town. We visited one boat that was both a catfish and crocodile farm.

Although most of the boats are clustered together in the village some homes are more free-floating.

We even passed by a Catholic school.

By the time we headed back to the hotel around 1:30 the temperature had climbed to 99 degrees. Time for some relaxing at the pool.

Day 1 of visiting the Angkor temples. We have a great guide, Sam, who came recommended by some friends, and a driver. It takes some getting used to, having someone open the car door for me every time I get in or out of the car. Anyway, they're both great.

To beat the crowds and the heat we were up early for breakfast at 6 and pick-up at 7:30. Then we spent four hours wandering through the most amazing ruins from as long ago as the 9th century to the 14th century. The pictures won't do it justice, but here they are anyway.

The way the trees grow in and around the ruins is really incredible.

Because we got an early start it was pretty quiet, although the crowds grew as the day wore on. Apparently there are about 4 million people who visit every year.

Restoration began about 100 years ago but is on-going. This is what some of the areas look like before restoration.

Close-ups of some of the stone carvings. It's amazing to think about how long ago these were carved.

We even saw elephants. According to Sam in the past ten years or so they have been much better taken care of and look much healthier than in the past. All the same, we didn't go for a ride.

After a quick, bumpy flight from Saigon we arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Stepping off the airplane and walking across the tarmac was like walking through an oven. We'll be up and out early to see the sights for the next few days and back at the hotel poolside for the afternoons.

Today was a settle-in day with time at the pool (although the broken arm and rib are a bit of a drag) and a couple of walks through town. Tomorrow we start the temple touring.

Last night's dinner included a death-defying crossing of the street, a delicious vegetarian hot-pot and seaweed salad meal and a running commentary from the owner of the restaurant. His English was very good. He went to France to study cooking after the war so his accent had a lovely Vietnamese/French lilt to it.

We tried to order the pho - we're in Vietnam and that's what I figured was the required, signature dish of the country - but our host really wanted us to order his signature dishes and they didn't disappoint.

Speaking of death-defying, check out the electric lines that run along the streets: