By mid-week, we were beginning to get a bit more antsy about taking full advantage of our great surroundings, so I fell into a cliché that you do things that you would never do otherwise: early on Wednesday morning together with other participants I went on a hot-air balloon ride to watch sunrise over Angkor Wat. Even though I’m terrified of heights, one of my co-workers “got” me with “You will regret it if you don’t do it,” so I felt that I had to brave my fears and do it. The ride turned to be more of a lift to see the sunrise over the surroundings of Siem Reap and the temples---it was not scary at all, even though the basket would tilt almost 90 degrees when everyone would rush to one side to see the sun rising over the temples.
Our hot-air balloon at 4am
View of Angkor Wat at sunrise
Cambodian countryside at sunrise
The other cool thing happened on Friday morning when I went out to see a real floating village. Despite my somewhat weird expectations, this was actually a “real” village: there were homes, stores, a mechanic, a school all located on boats floating in the great Tonle Sap lake. We even saw a floating Protestant Church.People used boats to get around from place to place. It is hard to imagine what their lives must be like being confined to small spaces with big families. This village had tourists visiting it (hence, some cash flow), but the others that are more remote must be quite poor. It was fascinating to just go through the village in our boat and observe the everyday activities of the inhabitants.
Floating church
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