February 1
Today was a very early day, as we had to bags packed and ready to be offloaded by 7:00. We were on the bus by 7:45 for the 5 hour journey to Siem Reap. Very different countryside than we have seen. Open countryside, with lots of rice paddies, Brahma cattle and water buffalo wandering around.
We stopped at the Kampong Kdei Bridge, which was built in the 12 century. 
Here we exchanged tour guides. Our guide went back with a new group of folks going the opposite direction. Our new guide will be with us in Siem Reap. It was a long ride to a Siem Reap, but this city of only 1 million people has a way different vibe. Tonight we went to Phare Circus, Cambodian acrobatics/theatre. This was an amazing experience, such good performers. They were able to bend and contort their bodies in ways that I did not know was possible. The show was all done through traditional Cambodian storytelling with a live Cambodian orchestra. I highly recommend 5his experience, if you ever find yourself in Siam Reap.
February 2
Today we were on the bus at 7:30 to head to Angkor Thom and the Bayon temple which was built in the 12 century. It is a ruin, that has been discovered and dug out of the jungle. It was amazing to walk through. 
Next we went to Ta Phrom temple. This temple was featured in the movie Tomb Raider, with Angelina Jolie. This temple is another ruin, and you can see clearly where the jungle has tried to take over. 
This afternoon we are going on a street food tour, possibly more deep fried crawly things. This was so much fun. We went by Tuk Tuk to a local street food market. Hundreds of street food vendors, you name it and you could get it. We tried more crispy fried insects, Cambodian corn, grilled octopus, grilled calamari, grilled fish, grilled chicken, marinated pork, grilled beef skewers, and much more. Then to top it off we had some gelato near Pub Street. Our Tuk Tuk driver picked us up and dropped us back to the hotel. 
February 3
Today we were on the bus at 5:15 to watch the sun come up over Angkor Wat temple. It is a short bus ride in the dark, and the. We walked in the dark to get through the gate into the temple. We all sat on the boardwalk staring at what we assumed was a temple, and slowly the sunrise brought it into view. My photos do NOT do this justice, but it was a very cool experience. After the sun came up, we went through the temple. This is a massive Hindu/Buddest temple from the 12th century. 
When we got back to the hotel it was 9:00, felt like we already out in a full day. After some coffee and breakfast we decided to take in the Apopo museum. APOPO is an acronym from Dutch which stands for “Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende Product Ontwikkeling”, or in English, Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development. This is a non-profit organization which trains southern giant pouched rats and technical survey dogs to detect landmines and tuberculosis. They call their trained animals 'HeroRATs' and 'HeroDOGs'. We were given a brief talk about how the rats are trained and then we got to see a demonstration of a rat sniffing out a “fake land mine”. These rats apparently have a strong sense of smell and can detect one trillionth of a gram of TNT. There are an estimated 4 - 6 million unexploded land mines leftover from the civil war. Each rat can clear an area the size of a tennis court every hour, and it would take 4 days with a metal detector. These rats are used in many other countries affected with land mines. We learned the rats can also detect TB, a rat can detect TB in samples faster then the samples can come back from a lab. So they use the rats to identify possible TB cases and then send those samples to the lab to be positively identified. This means people with TB are getting identified and treated much faster. Finally, we got a chance to hold a rat. The rats are bread and trained in Tanzania, and once they are trained they are put on planes and sent to countries that have land mine issues. All the rats are vet checked monthly and kept in a clean environment to make sure they are not carrying disease. Here is the website if you want to learn more about them. https://apopo.org/
Tonight is our last night on our tour. We have had a great group of 28 people on our tour from 4 different countries and a multitude of backgrounds. We have had time to visit and learn about each of them. Tonight we have a farewell dinner and then tomorrow everyone departs for different destinations. Some fly home, most are off to somewhere else for a few days. Bill and I are going back to Danang, Vietnam for 2 weeks of slower paced vacation time, sun, pool and beach (oh and laundry 🤪).
This featured blog entry was written by Basebrown from the blog Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
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