Last day amongst the temples and back to Phnom Penh

Linda left us early Tuesday morning to head back to Dhaka, and Anna and I decided that we had the patience for one more temple. It was a special temple - about 30km from Angkor Wat lies the temple of Banteay Srei with the most wonderful carvings I have ever seen. It is a small temple, they believe it was either built by a scholar to one of the kings or else may have been built by a woman.
On our way back we stopped at a shadow puppet shop - they are wonderful pieces of art and so articulately done. The afternoon involved a tour of the Angkor design facility where local people learn the ancient trades of carving and painting. Six months of the year the fishermen of the area live on the river - literally. They have their houses, schools, restaurants, town hall and even a pool hall all floating on the water. At 7 that evening I had one of the most wonderful experiences of my life - a massage by a blind man. An organisation started this enterprise a few years ago and it has spread all over Cambodia; it is a way of training blind people to give massages and therefore empowering them to make their own living. We ended the day with a wonderful meal at a Khmer restaurant with a bottle of wine.
Wednesday was a long bus journey back to Phnom Penh, an afternoon in the coffee shops and a wonderful evening chez Pia. Tomorrow was going to be a very difficult day - I will write about Thursday as soon as I have gathered enough thoughts to put into words what I felt at I visited the recent past left behind by the Khmer Rouge.


Banteay Srei - the final temple


A boy sitting amidst history with not a care in the world


Me in the arches of the temple


Life on the river


A pretty little house floating on the water


A very cute resident of the floating village