Down a pint

The last two days we spent visiting the temples surrounding Siem Reap. They're quite beautiful! They've all been restored to varying degrees - some are pretty cleared of jungle and one has a ton of overgrowth. That's the one that was used for the Tomb Raider movie. It's really neat to see trees on top of the walls - I'll share those photos when I return.
Yesterday afternoon we visited Tonal Sap lake to see the floating villages. They're more like houses on stilts over the lake - but pretty cool none the less. The size of the lake changes considerably from rainy to dry season. Since rainy season just finished, it is a bit bigger. On the 1/2 hr boat ride to the village, I sat on the front of the small boat with our guide and chatted. He taught me many words in Khmer, the local language. It was lots of fun because the sounds they use are a bit different than what we use in English. We laughed a lot and luckily my guide, Dom, was pretty patient and didn't mind my butchering of the words until I said it good enough. Dom comes from a village that's far from Siem Reap and has been living here for several years because there's more opportunities in the city. So he lives with the monks. The monks, because they're more important, sleep on beds higher than the villagers who stay with them, like Dom. Pretty interesting!

Today we had a free morning so we went to visit the Children's Hospital that gives free heath care to the children. There's a large need for blood - so I did my part and gave a pint (don't worry - it's perfectly safe - needles used once, rubber gloves, the whole bit). My guide gives every 4 months and hung out with me while I was getting leaked. After the hospital we visited an orphanage. The children are so cute!! They're well cared for and have a better future because they're educated until they're at least 18 - not the norm in Cambodia. Two of the children who've left the orphanage are studying medicine and the law with the support of the orphanage, but no longer live there. The place is run off private donations - what a worthy cause!
No time to upload photos - so that's it for now!