February 1, 2015.  After saying goodbye to the 12 people who are not continuing on to Cambodia, we waved to Bon and got on the bus to go to Cambodia.  It's a 45 minute flight on Cambodia Airlines.  Reid had 10 people on his ticket that he needed to get checked in and Ron had five on his. I was with Ron and with that few of passengers, it didn't take long to get our boarding passes.  The plane was nice, and in that short time, we all made out our immigration forms before we landed.  It was another hand-out-water flight, with no snacks or picking up of empty bottles. 

I wish we could have taken pictures in the immigration area when we arrived in Siem Reap.  It was a full flight with a school group of volunteers that looked like high school age so the area was crowded.  It cost $30 US to enter the country and another $2 for a photo if you didn't bring an extra passport photo.  Since we didn't, we paid $32.  After waiting in line and handing over the money, we went to the end of the counter and waited to get our passports back with our visas.  How do I describe this?  It was a long counter with about 15 immigration agents sitting at it.  I handed my passport and immigration form to the first person on the left hand side, along with my money.  He looked at it, stamped something on it, and handed it to the next person, who looked at it, stamped something, and handed it to the next person.  This went on for the entire 15 people.  At the end of the counter, the last person took it and hollered out the person's name for them to come get their passport.  I couldn't figure out when they took your picture and asked Reid about it.  He didn't know so he went and asked someone and they said "we scanned the photo in the passport."  Okay, so I have nothing to show for that $2, which isn't a big deal. 

Then we went to other lines where more immigration people checked your passport and form.  This was kind of like US Customs where they look at the form, stamp it and let you through.  Luckily, three of us were sent to another line because in the line next to ours the school group chaperone or leader or whoever had all 40 or so passports and was processing all of them at once.  That line had not moved when we were finally finished.  I'm about fifth in line.  Two people were processed and then it was Bill, Judy and me.  Bill gets up there and has to take his baseball cap off.  They had one of those little ball cameras on a stand to take pictures so I think that's why.  Anyway, he does that and then the immigration agent says something to him and gets up and leaves.  What?  After about 10 minutes, he comes back with a plastic bag with two Styrofoam containers in it.  His lunch!  All this time, Bill is just standing there waiting.  He stamps Bill's passport and gives it back to him.  Judy and I were next and we whizzed through.  At all the counters on this part of the process were fingerprint units.  None of us had our prints taken, but every other person on the tour that was in another line did.  Since we were the first ones through, we started getting everyone's luggage off the baggage claim area.  When all of us were processed, we left the airport for the bus.  This antiquated process took longer than the 45 minute flight. 

Siem Reap is not a very large town, but it is built solely for the tourists that come to see Angkor Wat.  Lots of large hotels, lots of people with tuk tuks wanting to take you places.  These tuk tuks are not like the ones in India that had three wheels and were very old.  These are motorbikes with an attached "trailer", for lack of a better word, that has two bench seats facing each other and a top on it.  Stella and I took one to the market twice.  They whiz right along, it was nice.

But I digress.  We checked into our hotel, which is very nice, has a pool in the center and a large dining area.  Supposed to have wifi but no one in our group could get it to work.  A couple of hours before we left for home, someone found out that they change the password daily and if you didn't ask them, they didn't give it to you. 

Our local guide, Ken, met us and we went to get our passes to the Angkor Wat complex.  Another photo opportunity because your pass has your picture on it.  Awful pictures, even worse than driver's license ones.  The pass is good for three days and if you fold it, crinkle it, or otherwise damage it, they won't take it.    One of our group found that out after he washed his shirt with the pass in the pocket and had to get another one. 

Angkor Wat is 65 meters high.  No buildings here can be higher that that.  It took 27 years to build and then the king died and it was never finished.  Centuries old.  After seeing pictures of it, I was expecting it to be larger than it was.  Since this is Sunday, it's very crowded.  Ken told us that tomorrow and Tuesday, the crowds will be smaller.  It's only about 100 miles to the border (or less) so lots of people from Vietnam and Thailand come just for the day. 

As we were walking up to the entrance, we saw Buddhist monks coming toward us.  They were dressed in bright orange robes just like in all the pictures.  Reid and Ken told us that men are allowed to get within 4 feet of them but women have to stay back 10 feet, and we should not violate that rule.  We didn't, but I saw other women tourists get closer to take pictures.  We were standing and listening to Ken when a monk came past us and was going to go through the building but a woman was standing at the top of the stairs with her back to him taking pictures of the shrine inside.  She stood there forever.  He stopped at the foot of the stairs and waited awhile but she didn't move so he finally walked to the side and stepped through an opening and went on.  We did see a monk that was about six years old.  Monks can start training at 5 years old.  When they are 18, they are more restricted to
where they can go and what they can do.  Ken also said that they can be monks for life or they can be monks for a couple of years and then do something else.  I know it is an honor for a family to have a monk in it, but I can't imagine sending your five year old off to do it.

We watched the sunset and then returned to the hotel.  Dinner was at a place about a block away.  It was a buffet that was about the size of a football field, although it was square.  Ken hurried us over there because he wanted us to get there "before the Chinese eat everything."  Interesting observation, but okay.  The food was just so-so, but there was entertainment afterward.  We were sitting up close to the stage.  It started with five musicians playing.  They were good, a different style of music than we had in Vietnam.  We smiled about the boy on the end.  He looked about 14 and was beating a drum with his hands - and looked like he'd rather be doing anything than that.  Then they moved to the side, and dancers came out.  Six pairs who used small wooden bowls to clap together in all kinds of rhythms.  I'm sure it takes a lot of practice to do that changing partners all the time and smacking the bowls together in a pattern with your partner.  It made me think of Monty Python in Spamalot where they use coconut shells to make the clipclop sound of horseshoes.  I think that's also in "The Holy Grail", too.  Anyway, the performance lasted about an hour.  The women dancers did the dances with their hands making all the movements while they moved very slowly.  I enjoyed it more than the water puppets but it was an entirely different kind of show. 

When it was over, the audience could go up on stage and have their pictures taken with the performers.  No one in our group did that, but others were.  For the size of the venue, it emptied out in about five minutes.  Amazing how everyone just disappeared.