Bangkok to Siem Reap.

Up at 5:00 in the am to leave Bangkok, our safe place. Odd to think that that 6 million strong, cheek to cheek frenetic dance is the place that feels safe, but I guess it's what you know. 4 1/2 hours to the border, 2 hours to get across, 2 hours to Siem Reap. After all the nightmare stories we read in Lonely Planet and on line, the folks who handled the paper work that got us into Cambodia, though they probably took us for an extra $50.00, it was $50.00 well spent. What could have been a stressful, confusing experience was dead smooth.

The drive from the border to Siem Reap was fabulous (all right, I know, when you start saying, "what a nice drive....", those who love you should start looking for homes). Unlike Thailand where the land outside the city is un-defined - you get a sense that there may be some kind of farming but you can't really perceive, but for the occasional cane fields, what exactly it might be - this land leaves no doubt. Rice as far as you can see. Rotating, rice newly planted, verdant in it pre-flower growth, ready for harvest and dried, brown, spent, the straw being cut for thatch. Huge plots of high ground covered in blue plastic tarp, again covered 4 inches deep in new rice, farmers waddling across, using their feet to row the rice for sun-drying.

Siem Reap, where you sleep and eat (yes, some may drink) before Angkor, is a sleepy, dirt road town with a crystal britght strip. So far the Cambodians we have met have been friendly, helpful, strait forward. It is my shame that, after Thailand, I have met them with the assumption that I will be played, but the honesty they have offered has made me the fool. 

Tomorrow we leave REALLY early to watch the dawn through the gates of Angkor Wat. I/we will tell you about it.

Pictures below.