Siem Reap 2

I met a Cambodian fellow down by the river... he could speak French and couldn't speak English.. My French vocabulary is very limited but we sort of spoke for about 1 hour. He said he was 75 years old and told me how he was dragged out onto the streets and beaten during the Khmer Rouge times. He showed me marks on his hands which he said were from being dragged by his feet. He was very proud to be still wearing his glasses. I wish I had taken some photos of him.. he had only a few teeth and a lot of wrinkles on his face.

I met another fellow who asked me to sit and speak with him. I said yeah OK. We chatted for quite a while. He said he was 19 and that he was from the mountainous region north of here and he is in town studying. He wants to be a doctor to help his home town and that he needed to improve his English for going into further studies. He said the doctor they have where he comes from does a sort of ritualistic dance or something to make the people feel better. He said he doesn't believe that that method works and wants to bring more help to his town. We are now communicating via email so it would be nice to hear how he goes in the future.

I bought a loaf of bread today (like a football shape) which was very dark and crunchy... was very nice. As I walked through some old markets the ladies were pointing and wanted to know what it was. I showed them and offered them some. they said no no no.
Then one of them offered me some jelly stuff which looked like it had a type of bean in between.. then she sprinkled coconut on top and gave a piece to me. It was nice. I broke off a piece of my bread and gave it to the lady. Another lady came over to try it too. Then as I walked through the markets some other lady poked it with her finger to see what it was. None of them could speak English and I can't speak Cambodian. It is a lot of fun doing these types of things with people.

Walking a looking around town for a few days...Some local housing by the river...I have never seen one of these for rent before...
Some lights in front of a hotel...This is a gecko I saw on the wall, but it has red spots all over it and it is about 3 times bigger then the little geckos we have in Australia...
A bit of traffic chaos...
Thailand has a new law which means that the driver of a motorcycle has to wear a helmet.
So you see a lot of bikes like this ...with only the driver wearing a helmet.
In Cambodia they do not have to wear a helmet at all. (as you can see from the picture).

These are some sings out the front of some pizza shops...I found out that if you ask for extra toppings... you will get them.

There are quite a few people walking around town with these wagons...
They are selling mussels... they must get them from the lake near by.

This is a working team putting in a water pipe...I walked past and they had started digging and a couple of hours later they had finished and it was all filled in again. They are fairly efficient.

This is a lady riding her bike down the road with a chicken on a nest on the back of the bike...The chicken lifts it backside up and down as they were going over the bumps on the road.