Day 5: Tuk-ing down Siem Reap's Countryside 。。。

Wif only half a day left in Siem Reap, we had arranged for a half day tour to the countryside on a Tuk-Tuk. Mr. Tee finally appeared to collect the fees & didn't brought us personally to the villages as promised. He left it all to the tuk-tuk driver & even told us that he would get the driver to send us to watch some rice harvest. We requested our driver to drop us at the Roast Duck Noodles' coffeeshop for breakfast. Juz as I wanted to place my order, we realised that the staff didn't understand english! Finally, there's this young gal who could understand some simple eng. I wanted to request for more noodles & she asked: ''Bigger?'' and i nodded ''Ya, bigger!''. Guess wat? End result, we got our huge bowl of noodles but there's no roast duck leg, sob sob! In place, there were the cut pieces...not as shiok as previous day's. It's double the price we paid yesterday too!!!

We boarded our tuk-tuk and off we went on our ride along the countryside. It's really relaxing as all we did was sit there & snapped pics casually.  We caught sight of horses, cows and water buffalos... the animals were all skinny & i called them ‘苦命牛’as they were a striking difference from the well-fed cows found in aussie. Probably that's why meat dishes were generally more stiff in cambodia? About 50mins into our journey, our driver asked us if we wanted to visit the silk farm nearby.  We were puzzled as we had not stopped at any particular villages? When the driver explained ''that's all'' in his halting english, we realised Mr. Tee had failed in his job again! He failed to deliver what he had promised us. Since we were already mid-way at the countryside, there's nothing we could do. So, we proceeded to Artisans d'Angkor at National Silk Center.  

Mulberry Fields

We wandered around the silk farm and snapped some pics. It's landscaping & lush greenery formed nice backdrops for our shoots. There were bright yellow cocoons of silk worms in their pens & an area wif newly hatched lavar which depicted the 47 days life cycle of a cocoon. As we strolled thru' the various areas, we saw how the silk were being spunned into various elaborate designs by the workers. It's really tedious & you definately need good coordination of both hands & feets to maneuver the huge looming machines.

Bottles of 'Whisky' for cars to 'drink', hehe!

It's the return journey now and along the way, we requested our driver to drop us at impromptu places to take photos. Hence, we alighted outside a primary school & saw school children strolling out after their classes. I managed to get 3 kids to pose for me & i really like this shot! We also posed for shots wif our driver & tuk tuk, as the countryside made a nice backdrop. Lastly, we paused outside a temple along the road for more shoots... As we headed towards city, I requested to drop at Angkor National Museum, our Day One's place to take some exterior pics... There is this famous Madam Sachiko Angkor Cookies further down the museum's route. Our driver was unsure of its location & asked his fellow tuk tuk drivers.

Prior to our trip, saw a blogger raved abt the cookies here, which were butter cookies shaped like Angkor Wat. But after our biscuits tasting, Ruby & I did not fancy & I felt that the taste was veri ordinary. But to each his own, maybe this is a good place for your last min's shopping. hehe! We went into Cafe Puka Puka~an attached cafe next door, to eat Mango Ice, which proved a great relief from the heat.  

Pub Street in the Day ~ huge contrast rite?

Returned to Pub Street and it's relatively quiet in the day, as most tourists were off at the temples. We finally sat at an alfresco table at Khmer House Restaurant located in the alley.  Ruby had her last USD50 cents Angkor beer (yes, dun rub your eyes at how cheap the beer is!) here. For our lunch, we shared the grilled beef & Amok Fish. But the Amok here was prepared differently from our first evening's dinner at Khmer Kitchen. We still prefered the first Amok Fish.

At Ei8ht Main Gate

Day & Nite Views of our Lovely Balcony

  Garden View Twin-Sharing Room

It's time for us to return to check-out at Ei8ht Rooms & our luggages were downstairs already. We took pics of the resort-feel huts at the entrance & the balcony. At this point, I realised that I had not taken any pic of our room! So, i asked the staff if he could open our room for a photo-shoot but alas, someone had checked-in. But he was nice enuf to open an almost similar room next door to let me snap a shot ^o^ The staff here are polite & friendly & speaks simple mandarin.

We got Ei8ht to arrange a Tuk Tuk to send us to the airport to catch our 4.30pm flight. The journey to the airport was at top speed manz! Our driver was a 'cheongster'! In a twinkle, we ended our 5 days 4 nites adventure in Siem Reap. Lea heuy (goodbye) Siem Reap!