Siam Reap

We had an afternoon to kill so we visited the silkworm farm / factory.

Claire is not so good with bugs and this silkworm seems to touch a nerve.

Jason talked a lot of rubbish on the way to the silkworm place about how he knew everything about silk, and that he thought silk was silkworm turds.

It turns out that silk is spun from the discarded silkworm pupae casings.

The mine museum was a bit of wake-up call.

There were diffused ordinance all over the place and the owner Aki fought in Cambodian wars. He had previously laid mines and now diffuses them all over Cambodia.

His place is full of old mines and bomb casings.

Siam Reap is just north of the Tonle Sap lake which supports a large proportion of Cambodia's population with its abundant fish stocks. The fishing village of Chong Kneas moves with the seasons.

You can see from the picture that the locals can't wait for the rain so they can move further up the banks and the magic dustbin of a lake can remove their rubbish.

Claire pulling her "what are we doing in this hole" face as she traverses the gang planks between the shore and the school and the boat dock.

These kids chased us as we were leaving in our little tuk tuk which Jason had to push a fair portion of the 15kms back into town when it got stuck in the sand.

We had an evening of traditional Cambodian dance with the Apsara dancers topping the bill.

It was not too hard to imagine the kings of Cambodia, with their harems of wives and thousands of concubines, watching the Apsara dancers to get "primed-up" for the arduous task of keeping their most loyal subjects "up-the-duff".

... but the mosquitoes were less than beautiful.

An extra bonus is the presence of Dengue fever to keep us on our toes and covered in mozzy repellent.