Today we had a liesurely day of shopping and swimming. Woke up to another sunny hot day and read an email from my Dad about snow in PA! Hard to imagine as I’ve been sweating from every pore all day. We had breakfast and packed up our stuff checkout – they stored our suitcase for the day in hotel office.
Walked down to the old market and spent a long time browsing before buying some gifts and souv’s. There is so much neat stuff, but we have limited space (I purposely brought a suitcase bag to avoid buying to much) and we really just don’t need a bunch of kitsche even if it is cool. As it got perilously hot we tuk tuked over to the Butterfly Garden Restaurant I read about from the ad on the back of a tuk tuk. It was fun and cool; an outdoor place with huge netting around and lots of butterflies and gardens. Zoe had a banana pancake while I tried the chicken and cashews plus a red bull; I needed wings. We spent a long time there and then had a nice long stroll along the shady river back to the market area. Zoe spotted some ‘needs’ and the locals are good at selling her stuff. She has gotten good at saying “how much is it” and “no thank you”.
Eventually she was almost asleep on my shoulder so I thought I’d get a massage. Well, apparently there is nothing like a darkened zen room full of futons to wake up a sleepy child. She ran around playing with the towels and one of the massage girls for a while; they both seemed to have fun, and she even got her fingernails polished. I had a Khmer massage which is awesome; similar to Thai but less forcefull. You wear a linen shorts/shirt set and they both rub you and do a semi-chiropractic number with stretches. It’s great. Well, Zoe finally konked out…I decided that another hour of massaging was in order (hey they are only $5) and opted for a foot reflexology and back/shoulder combo – the lady was amazing.
When Zoe woke up we walked back to the hotel, hit up a grocery for some snacks, and went for a swim. We stayed at the hotel playing in the pool, looking at pictures, and then skyping with Bryan until 9:30. Pearom met us for a final ride to the airport. It was actually tough to say goodbye, he had gotten fond of Zoe and really made our trip enjoyable. He was even tearing up. I was sad to say bye, as we had gotten to know him so well…our 26 year old Cambodian tuk tuk driver worked in a factory for a long time (some teen number of years) to earn enough money to buy a tuk tuk. Now he makes good money, but doesn’t yet have a wife and family. Such a nice guy! We happily exchanged emails.
Zoe and I are now waiting in the boarding area of the Siem Reap airport (free wifi!) waiting for our flight. She fell asleep on the ride here and is now sprawled on the bench beside me. The next couple weeks will be so busy as we move to Georgia, I’m not super excited to go back to that but can’t wait to see Bryan.