Day 19 - Mekong Cruise Day 8 - Off to Siem Reap

A slightly earlier rise this morning to get up and bid farewell to our home for the last 7 days, I had a quick shower and headed up on to level 2 (where the good wifi was), had my regular morning drink provided by Ya Ya, thanked her for all her service over the last week, Jason the hotel manager came up and thanked me for the help with the projector and gave me a thank you gift. While it wasn't necessary for him to do that, it was very much appreciated. I then headed down to breakfast, where is seems on the last day everyone just decided to sit at different tables, out morning routine felt a but off. Rachy guided us to a different table. Getting an Omelette this morning was a bit of a mess, seems with having such an early departure the Omelette station was packed. After breakfast it was time to say farewell to our favourite staff and then jump on the Bus to make our way to Siem Reap, the gateway to Angkor Wat. The trip was about 5 and a half hours away. It passed through the countryside and remote villages so we got to see some of the rural life in Cambodia.

We arrived at our hotel, grated with a team outside dancing and performing for us. I wasn't expecting anything too fancy, just a nice hotel, but this one is stunning in reception and then heading toward our room it looked like I was walking through some kind of gardens. I got to my room to drop my bag off, then had a light lunch in the hotels dining hall.

We had a little time to refresh before setting off to visit the 'Opportunities of Development through Art' center, an organization that provides education opportunities for disadvantaged children. It focuses on educating the children through cultural dance, art, IT and English studies. There are 34 kids living there, 17 girls and 17 boys. The kids art work wasn't bad, some had some real good talent too, they did see the artwork, 25% of the artwork went to the students the other 75% went to supporting the school. I'd show you photos, however they have asked photos not be posted online.

Once we had finished visiting the ODA, we made out way back to the hotel and had an hour and a half to relax, I fitted in a gym session and then took a little dip in the pool before getting ready for a circus show performed by the Phare Circus, they have a world record for performing the longest continuous circus performance, 24 hours, 10 minutes and 30 seconds which they received during Covid. The performance was carried out online for people to watch. We were taken backstage and shown around the place then sat down to watch the performance, there was a story behind the performance, I didn't understand the entire thing but got the general understanding. I've seen plenty of circus performances before, so nothing performed was really new to me, but they performed well. I couldn't help myself from calling moves in my head when I saw the mini tramp come out. All and all it was an entertaining evening.