Sugar sweet

January 1 2006

After a late start Lees and I venture out into the midday heat. It is nice to sleep in & canoodle in the Smiley guest house room, fan whirring. We go eat fry ri and draw pictures.

Before bed...

Happy New Year!

...after...

After...

Dance the traditional way

LET THE PARTY GO WILD!

Smiley's New Year's Eve Party

The ladies have all had their hair curled and are looking ravishing and very dolled up. They are serving a wonderful smorgasbord of fish and vegie curries, salad and garlic bread and other meaty shaslicks and BBQ meat ...& the men are serving Angkor beer

Our Room

Our room is very comftable and we're enjoying hanging out, playing around, doing acro-balance! reading and of course drawing the days events. Jai and Marc are staying at the Green Garden Guesthouse. We make a visit, it is a very short walk, but Jai is in a meeting and Marc is engrossed in a Chinese DVD. So we return to Smiley for the New Year's Eve Party.

Smiley Hotel

A Fan, a large bed, a balcony, orange walls, lovely wall hangings, bidet & shower...Who could ask for more!

Siem Reap

On arrival in Siem Reap we take a tuk tuk with Phany into town. She is originally from Phnom Penh. Her family fled Cambodia to a Thai refugee camp in 1978, where they waited for 2 years for sponsorship to enter USA, eventually settling in Chicago. Phany has returned to Cambodia to stay indefinitely. She says she is searching for herself for she feels neither American nor Cambodian. She looks Khmer but the locals recognise her as baraing (foreigner) partly because her American accent is so strong.

The tuk tuk driver doesn't know where we want to go and has to keep stopping to ask his colleagues for directions. After dropping off Phany at Socheata Hotel, we continue around town until finally, we scoot down a dirty narrow alley in what appears to be the red light district. At the end, behind the palatial gates stands Smiley Hotel. I expect a run down old guest house but low and behold, it's the mansion of the gods! Lees is especially delighted.