"It's okay to walk away" - Siem Reap, Cambodia

Day 22

We wanted to try a different hotel for our last two days in Siem Reap. So we checked out of the Pavillon Indochine and into the Borei Angkor Resort and Spa. It also has a traditonal Cambodian look, clean, classy, and has a large infinity pool. It was nice to have indoor hallways this time. There's little chance of bugs and geckos getting into our room. It also looks like it's catered to Japanese tour groups.

So we dropped off our bags and headed out to the floating village, which was recommended by Pavilion Indochine as a place to viist. It was a nice 30 min ride by tuk tuk. When we arrived, a guy met us in the front and took us to the counter. He said, "You pay here." We asked how much. He said $17 each and the guy next to him laughed. A definite sign that they were trying to rip us off. We told them that our hotel said it costs $12 each. He said the hotel was wrong and that the price has gone up. By $5?? please. We could tell we were getting scammed and wanted no part of it. Plus I don't think we had enough US Dollars to cover it. So we walked away. We looked for our tuk tuk driver and he's already gone. The guys were kind of watching us to see what we would do. I think they expected us to turn back to them because we were stuck there. We refused and decided to just walk around by foot. Luckily, as we started to walk, we spotted our driver around the corner. At this point the scammer said "$25 for both of you". We thought about it for a second, then continued walking. We didn't want to give him the business and the floating village didn't seem all that interesting from our view. As we were leaving, we saw many other tourists heading towards the floating village. Hopefully they were smart enough to walk away as well. Thank goodness our tuk tuk was free, or else that would have been a waste of time and money.

We headed back into town and our driver suggested that we make a pit stop at the Artisans d' Angkor. He made a point to tell us it was free. He must think we're cheap. hahahahah. Here we took a tour and watched art students make Buddhas, Apsaras and animals out of silk, sandstone, soapstone, and wood (mohogany, teak or rubber). Everything had to be so precise and any defects were marked up in black. It was an interesting place. The group finds kids in outlying villages and recruits them to learn a trade. Those that painted silk screens were all deaf and mute and could only communicate by sign language. We were told that these items were not sold locally but sold to Europe, because they were very expensive. We went to the gift shop and ended up buying a few pieces. Now we have a big rock of an elephant we somehow need to figure out how to carry with us on the rest of the trip.

We decided to stay out in Old Market for the evening and had a late lunch at Angkor Palm, a restaurant we had wanted to try that was recommended by Lonely Planet. We had vegetable noodles and local pork rib with honey and a mango shake for Theresa.

We signed up for a cooking class at Le Tigre de Papier, where we had pizza a few nights ago. To pass the time, Theresa got a 30 minute massage and then at 5pm, we went to Le Tigre de Papier for our cooking class.

The chef, Channy, took us to the local market to show us the different spices, herbs, vegetables, fruits, meats and seafood that were available. Some looked tasty, others looked sketch. Afterwards, we went to the roof top of the restaurant where they have an open kitchen. Menu included spicy shrimp salad and amok fish for me and mango salad and loc lac beef for Theresa. Seems like key ingredients in Khmer cooking are chicken powder, pepper, kaffir leaves and kaffir limes, and nuoc moum (fish sauce). For dessert, we made sweet potato in coconut milk and tapioca. Channy was quick, and even taught us how to plate our food with tomato roses and banana leaf baskets. She was good, and the kitchen was clean. There was a lot of food for two people. It was tasty, but a lot of work to cook! We ended up giving the leftover dessert to our tuk tuk driver, Boran/Warren, who took us back to the hotel for the very last time. He was a great guy. We'll miss him and his great service.

When we returned to the hotel, we just beat a tour bus of Japanese tourists. I guess we know why it caters to Japanese people.

On a side note, speaking of Japanese tourists, we forgot to mention that one of the other nights we decided to go to this place called "Angkor Cookies". I had read on trip advisor that it was a good place to go. We went and everyone there started to speak to us in Japanese. We didn't know why. Also, the cookies were really expensive. About $20 a box. We sampled a few and were about to leave when all of a sudden a flood of Japanese tourists came in. I think it's one of the pit stops on a Japanese-led tour. Wow, those Japanese tourists bought up the shop. Each one had a basket and filled it with boxes of cookies and coffee. Hahah, I guess it's not too expensive for some people. I can see why Cambodia caters to Japanese. They know how to spend money!

For the pictures of the day, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/theresang1977/CambodiaSiemReap3?authkey=Gv1sRgCNqA-KzJmbPbYQ&feat=email#