Busy bees

Hello boys and girls

sorry that we have been MIA for the past few days, I know some of you actually check our blog every day ... believe it or not, but we have actually been really busy.

Here are the highlights of the last few days:
hearing tales of how the deputy general director of water at Apsara was able to fill the Northern Baray (an ancient, Angkorian water reservoir) with water for the first time in 500 years, against all odds and after teams from India and Australia had failed to do the same ... guess who was a happy bunny!
looking at “general interest” pictures on a laptop and telling a teacher about space rockets and the moon landing ... he looked at me as if I was insane
going for dinner with two deputy general directors of Apsara and being given the low down on office politics ... a career in tabloid journalism clearly beckons for both G and I
seeing a rainbow connecting the only two clouds in an otherwise baby-blue sky (Faye, I think I have found where the care bears live!!!!!!)
hearing about the disastrous impact of ill conceived “restoration work” being undertaken by well meaning teams ... removing lichen from bas-reliefs with acid and leveling century old dikes for no real reason whatsoever are just two examples
being given mangos by the kids I teach how to use a computer ... may not sound like much but a) they are delicious and b) its a pretty big thing to give for them
visiting the “hospital temple” (actually called Neak Pean) with an Apsara archaeologist who gave us far more information about the temple than any guide book could ever do; he even pointed out some ancient drainage systems and how they used to work as well as background on how the temple's religion was changed from Buddhism to Hinduism – carvings of Buddha just had their arms and head chopped off and were remodeled into lingas (male symbols of fertility)
revisiting Preah Khan (a former Buddhist monastry temple) and being taken down an Alice rabbit hole, clambering over stones Tomb-Raider-style to see two totally hidden bas-reliefs of Jayavarman VII's two wives ... Lonely Planet made no mention of this!
.... and these are just a few things and my favourites, G has a whole load more

As you can see we are trying to cram in as much as we can since we have decided to leave Siem Reap a little earlier – today is a public holiday (Buddha's birthday) and most of next week is also off because its the King's b'day, which means all our projects will be closed and so it makes sense to move on. We plan to take a boat to Battambang, which is supposed to be an utterly amazing boat journey through swampland. Battambang itself is the provincial capital of Battambang province and it is supposed to have loads of great colonial architecture. So I look forward to seeing that. We will just spend a day there before heading down to Shinoukville, billed as “Cambodia's answer to Thailand's beaches” .... we will be meeting up with some people who we got to know here in Siem Reap for a birthday party and generally chilling on the beach. There is also a great coral reef for snorkeling; wind for G to get some windsurfing done; some tiny uninhabited islands to visit as well as cocktails to drink and seafood to eat on the beach ....
But before we do that, we have a hard core sightseeing day ahead of us tomorrow so watch this space :)
Take care and as they say in Cambodia, good luck to you!
Cxxx