Humburg's in Shanghai: Cambodia

This past Christmas, Roger planned a trip to Cambodia and then to Malaysia. Cambodia was definetly our favorite part of this vacation. We spent 4 days in Siem Reap. We spent a lot of the time visiting different Wat's (or temples) in the area, but had the opportunity to do many other things as well.

We got to go for another elephant ride around one of the Wat's we visited the first morning.

We visited several different Wats in the area. The girls had a lot of fun exploring and running around. Unfortunally, it was really hot but it didn't seem to bother the girls too much.

The art on the stones was amazing. A lot of it had been destroyed over many wars that Cambodia has had over the years.

These outbuildings are prisons. Depending on what you are (pig, dog, etc.) is what prison you might have to stay in.

And this is one of the more famous, Ankor Wat.

It was under some contruction while we were there.

The "Library" at Ankor Wat.

And this is my best friend...

After the long day visiting temples, we went for a ride on one of the many tuk-tuk's downtown for dinner. The girls always love this mode of transportation.

We found the local Cambodian food very good at one of the local favorites.

After dinner, we walked around downtown to see the local market. We were amazed at all the different types of rice that was offered.

The next day, back visiting more wats. This one was built for a Queen...notice the "pick" stone used.

Not sure where the kids are...but I am sure they are safe!

And on to another wat...appartently there are 100's of these in the area. We only visited 5 or 6...

And EVERYWHERE we went, we were mobbed by children and adults selling things. These girls posed for the camera in the hopes that I would buy somthing from them. Unfortunately, many of these girls are very young. One little girl, perhaps not older than 3, was by herself, trying to sell us braclets. Very sad.

Our favorite wat was a very famous one. Some of these pictures you might reconize as Jolie's movie Tomb Rader was filmed here. It is one of the very few wats that has not been cleared or burned of the jungle. This particular one had 100+ year old trees going throughout the temple.

That night we went to a dinner and show.

Think she can eat all that food??? Nope...I think she deceided to stay with just the rice.

The next day we went to the floating village. This was very intersting. The large floating village moves 4-5 times per year witht he water level. They have everything they need at this village: stores, schools, even a church.

And even a snake and aligator farm on one of the boats. THe girls definetly do not share my feeling of snakes!

It was VERY hot (difficult to image it was Dec 22nd) out there on the water especially on the top level of this boat.

This was a school and church...

That afternoon we had a planned a 4 hour quad ride out in the country side of Siem Reap. This had to be the highlight of the trip. The girls even loved it...even though we got very dirty. Roger was expecting some old dirty no-name quads. However, when we got there, we were given brand new Polaris (straight from California) to drive.

And no...Abby did not drive herself, as much as she would have liked to.

Rice fields that we drove across...

Something we sing about many times in our children songs...but we got to see....WATER BUFFALO.

And these were some very skiny looking cows in the middle of the road.

We made our first stop at a local orphanage.

We were going on the quads most of the time and as I had one of the girls on the quad with me, I didn't get to take many pictures. Plus, Roger was behind me complaining that I was not driving fast enough!! However, I did snap a few of some of the local houses. You may notice that almost all have an open area under. This was very typical. During the very hot season, they moved down below to take advantage of air flow. However, we were there in the "winter" (90's, nice winter!) and so many of the animals were kept below the houses.