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Day 17, Wednesday 8th April, An Excellent Day with Elephants and Rats

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Today is our final day of exploring Cambodia, before we start our journey home tomorrow. All four of us decided to go on a tour to an Elephant sanctuary. The sanctuary was about a 45-minute drive from our hotel. We were picked up by a people mover and there were another 7 people joining us. The sanctuary was small and looked after 3 female elephants. These elephants were once working elephants used by the farmers in small villages to haul things and work on the farms. A young woman did a wonderful job explaining how elephants were used just like horses, bullocks, camels etc. were used in the past to help on the farms. There are still a few small villages that use them but now the elephants are being rescued and as they can’t go back to the wild, they are put in these sanctuaries. Cambodia now has only about 500 wild elephants, and about 75 in sanctuaries.  Our tour started with us making banana rice balls to feed to the elephants. We had big bowls with rice, bananas and rice husks ...
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Day 16 Tuesday 7th April, And then there were Four

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Last night we returned to Pub Street for a dinner to say goodbye to a lovely couple, aged in their mid-40’s from WA. We had hit it off with them and despite the age difference and they had been wonderful company. Rob and I, and Trevor and Marilyn who had also become good travelling buddies, all went into town on Tuk-tuks and enjoyed a fabulous meal and a few drinks. Today all of the group bar Rob, myself, Trevor and Marilyn, were leaving. They had various pick-up times to be taken to the airport during the day from early morning until just after lunch, depending on where they were going. We had opted to stay for an extra two days and were so glad we did. Our group of sixteen became four. Our guide Ons, and our driver picked the four of us up in a very comfortable van at 8.30am We were being taken to Phnom Kulen National Park. We drove through traditional small villages, and the remnants of the dried paddy fields, before climbing up a winding rocky road to the top of the mountain. Along...
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Day 15 Monday 6th April Angkor Wat and other Temples

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We had a fabulous day which started very early. A 5 am pickup had been organised by our guide as we were going to visit the temple of Angkor Wat to see dawn and then the sun rise. We were driven to the temple and then had a 15-minute walk in the dark, to the area near the temple where we would observe both dawn and then the sun rising over the temple. It was quite beautiful, the colours, reflections etc. We returned to our hotel for breakfast before once again returning to the Angkor Wat temple.  Our guide had an incredible knowledge of the history of both the temples and the history of Cambodia itself. There are many temples located around the area, and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was hard to keep up with all the information, but I will try to summarize my understandings. The temples were built from about the 10th century to the 13th century, by various kings to worship and leave offerings for the gods. It seems that over the years, the religions changed, merged, split ...
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