Celebratory dinner & 1st day in Siem Reap

Hi guys!!!

Im back!!!

hehehe....gosh this is an exciting holiday! like i mentioned, last paper ended on friday. after that had celebratory dinner with college frens and boyfriendsSSSS. hehehehe. let the pictures do the talking...

The entire gang (minus my photographer Hunnie) in some seafood steamboat restaurant in Damansara (near Atria). there's Alex, Raymond, Mel, Kel, Don, Dan, Nat, Sel and EV!
Raymond...we caught your miang-ness on camera!!! *bluek*
we ordered Satay...but not sure what kinda meat...it was so tough i used both hand and could not tear it apart!!! erm...do u notice me under Darling's armpit???
Posers outside the toilet. setting is pretty cool here...
besides being a seafood steamboat restaurant, apparently the owners are land animal lovers too. there's this HUGE tortoise there, and rabbit and biawak and birds too

well, thats all bout our dinner. food was so-so, lots of variety, and the prawns were still jumping when they served it!!! *horrified sympathetic scrowl* that night i seriously thought of turning vegetarian...

anyways, that was friday. next day, Saturday, i was shopping whole day with mom, preparing for Cambodia trip. Sunday early morning we left house at 7.30 to LCCT...

of cos LCCT la...taking AirAsia mar...

can see Tonle Sap!!!

we've reached Siem Reap International Airport!!!

this is our 3-Star hotel, Angkor Star Hotel

the first place we visited was Floating Village along a river flowing into Tonle Sap. in case u forgot your geography, Tonle Sap is the biggest lake in South East Asia. its the main water source which keeps agriculture going, hence keeping Cambodia's economy alive. but although it was the biggest, it definitely wasnt the wealthiest area. in fact, this part of Siem Reap is the poorest area...

there were children trying to sell can drinks and banana to us. their parents chased our boat with their boat, then their children would climb abroad with baskets of food and drinks to sell.

as we said, it was a Floating Village. so beside houses, there were handphone repair shops, church, school, restaurants, and crocodile farm! honestly, it was just floating stationarily along the river bank, caged up by bamboo sticks. in this village, crocs are not the dangerous man-eating predators, but viewed similar to rearing chickens and ducks

the river was really so essential to their lives. the adults wash kitchen utensils in it, children and adult bath in it, and we saw one child poo poo into it too. children all run around naked, flesh naked. i dun wanna imagine what kinda bacteria and diseases they're already infected or the risk of being infected. plus their lack of nutrients really aint building sufficient antibodies to give immunity. watching them really made me feel thankful for my life, helpless for not able to do anything, guilty for living such good life when they're not, and admiration at their will to survive

after that heart-wrenching scene by the river, we went to a totally tourisy place. this is the cambodian cultural village. there are miniature scultures of all the temples and major attraction in cambodia. very nicely kept garden, with exotic cambodian food, like the half-formed duck fetus cooked in the egg, like Philippino's Balut egg. gosh, how cruel can human be?

we had buffet dinner in the cultural village, eating while watching cambodian traditional dances

after dinner the driver dropped us back in hotel. after bathing we were out again, this time on our own, without guide. we took the local "tuk tuk" and went....

MASSAGE!!! hehehe...massage in Siem Reap is so cheap! and they're everywhere!!! i had a full body massage, with oil, lasted one hour, for only US$6!!! thats less than twenty ringgit! wooo....syok! but one night is enough....the next morning woke up with aching back. i think the lady pressed the wrong nerve....sigh....

ok thats all we did on the first day. continue 2nd day in next post!