5 Things I like about living in Siem Reap (at the moment)

This used to be our holiday destination- now we live here!

1. The small town feel of bumping into the same people at the supermarket and kids playground, it feels like its easy to get to know people. There are only a handful of shops that sell foreign food, and only a few places to take kids to play- so I often see the same people again and again. Its a lovely community feel. Various nationalities, and it feels like there are quite a few mixed race families (or whatever the proper term is) too, our kids have many playmates who have one Khmer parent and one non-Khmer parent.

I think most expats I know in Phnom Penh are with Christian organisations. I feel like I have much more of a variety of expat friends here, compared to in PP. Might be more related to having kids than having moved to Siem Reap.

 

2. Yet, despite the small town-ness, I can still feel anonymous when I want to. The tourist industry is huge here, I can walk around in the restaurant district and feel like I'm on some exotic holiday.

3. After living in PP, its nice to live in a small town with less traffic and less flooding. It feels so much easier. More relaxed, less hassle to get around. More pleasant for bike riding- a river flanked by grass and tall trees is a much nicer environment than kilometres of busy dirty city.

4. And the whole reason we moved here has worked out too, better than we thought. Originally we wanted to move north as Soeun wanted to help church leaders in remote places by giving them ongoing training and chances to have fellowship. We had looked at living somewhere really remote- it would be a huge adjustment for me, and I'm not sure how I would cope, especially  at this stage of life.  Siem Reap seemed like a good place to live for the family, and at the same time quick and easy for Soeun to travel out. 

However it turns out the church in town already has this set up, and the church leaders/students travel into town for classes. There are now also some other locations a bit out of town when classes are held as well. So Soeun is able to do the ministry he had hoped to do, but without leaving town too much. And if feels like it makes so much sense to join in what is already happening. 

5. growing up in a country that has Christmas and then living in Asia, its been really weird. I remember my first Christmas in Asia, seeing people go to the bank and school etc on Dec 25th, it just seemed so wrong. Thanks to the tourist industry, Siem Reap feels Christmassy in December. We can catch a tuk tuk around and see the Christmas lights. 

Sunrise over Angkor Wat (mum visit part 2)

While we were in Siem Reap we saw the sunrise over Angkor Wat, the famous ancient temples that are on the Cambodian flag.

Holiday!

The other week we spent four nights away from home. Basically we drove around the huge lake that is in the middle of Cambodia. See map.

First we drove north to a town called Battembang. We stayed 2 nights, bought some famous Battembang oranges, then drove east to Siem Reap. After staying 2 nights and buying a particular dried fish product (see above) that is best bought in SR it was time to go back to Phnom Penh.

I enjoyed walking around these 2 towns. They some smooth footpaths, some even with trees for shade!
Walking is something I miss here in Phnom Penh. I don't mean hiking, I'm just talking about strolling along a footpath. The streets near us don't really have footpaths, and its always too dusty or muddy to be enjoyable. And there there is the lack of shade and abundance of motos zooming around.

This is what we saw in Bantemean Chay province as we drove between Swai sisophan and Siem Reap....

and this...

Above you see Battembang oranges for sale (yes, they are actually green- we also eat green tomatos, green mangos, green skinned bananas.) And below is the sight that greets you as you come into Battembang town from Phnom Penh.

Battembang and Siem Reap are both towns in provinces of the same name.

Holiday!

I just had an Aussie holiday in the comfort of my own home! A friend from Australia came to visit me for two weeks. It was so fun to have a holiday with her. We have lived together before so it was nice to pretend we were housemates again. It was great to have a friend to do fun things with. (KS and I haven’t had overlapping holiday time yet.) Here is a photo of Ang riding Sambo the elephant at Wat Phnom!



We ate lots of Western food (rather than rice and fish that I would normally be eating); travelled by tuk tuk (I would usually ride my bike or go by motor bike taxi) and went to places that tourist go. These included places of historical/ political/ religious significance to Cambodia. In this blog post you can see some pictures of the temples near Siem Reap. One of them is Angkor Wat, which is on the Cambodian flag.

If you want to read Ang’s (aka Gelato/Dave id dah) impression of Cambodia and about all the different things we did have a look on her blog “The Adventures of Ang”. Scroll down to find what she wrote in the last 2 weeks of January (15th-27th).
And look out for her photos.