The orphan band

Angkor and Siem Reape are full of children, they are filthy dirty ( so is everything with a layer of red dust) but generally a happy bunch. In a country where 50% of the population is under 25 the mothers are only children to an old lady like me. Visiting a traditional Cambodian silk weaving workshop the children were with the mothers as they worked the little ones asleep in hammocks, the older ones playing on the floor, perfect childcare. There are many orphans and street children and these sell postcards, books, scarves and water around the entrance to the temples. This could be quite unnerving but they are so happy and love to practice their English that you can't help buying everything. When a 9 year old can tell you the population of London and the last 6 Prime ministers you just have to admire their sales technique. Since then we have found that the children just love to talk even if they have nothing to sell and today i have realised that if you keep saying hello enough you just can't help smiling. Maybe that is why Cambodia has survived such terrible atrocities without.
The Orphans and land mine victims also have some great bands around the Temples and here due to the wonders of technology is a brief sample.

Angkor Temples

Angkor is the earthly representation of Mt Meru, the mt Olympus of the Hindu faith and home of ancient gods. The Cambodian God kings for 600 years between AD802 to 1432, each tried to better there ancestors in the size, scale and symmetry of their temples, culminating in Angkor Wat the biggest religous building in the world. When London boasted 30,000 people Angkor had population of 1 millon. A civilization that traded rice and built huge irrigation systems that created wealth. It is an amazing sight, not just the number and size of temples but all the walls have intricate carvings recording the legends of first the Hindu then later the Buddist faiths. Carvings of the struggles of the Khmer people against their neighbours give a idea of the history, but Angkor still holds its secrets as their are no written records as it was thought palm leaf would have been used and this disintigrates with age.
Angkor is a great inspiration and pride for the people of Cambodia a nation that was once so great, has suffered so much and now has so little.
Not much farming but certainly a sight worth seeing.