Another day at Siem Reap. We left the hotel at 0730 to a silk farm recommended by Va, our tuktuk driver. It is located outside of town. We reached the place at 8 but it only opened at 8:30, so we had time to drink coffee at the cafe nearby.

The admission to the silk farm was free. It was a very informative tour for me. I never seen how silk was made. It was almost unbelievable that the tour was free. We got to see the plantation where the leaves for the silk worms were grown, the 10-days old worms that were busy eating the leaves indoor, the cocoons and the mating moths, the silk extraction from the boiled cocoons and followed by silk processing starting from bleaching, colouring and the different ways of weaving. If you never seen how silk is made, this free tour is a must-do.

We left the place at 0945hrs and went back to the city to collect our laundry from yesterday and have breakfast at Pub Street near the hotel. We said our goodbye to our tuktuk driver, Va, who had been with us from the beginning.

Here is Va’s information. I recommend him if there’s anyone visiting Siem Reap.
Name: Mr Va
Email: write_toLucky@yahoo.com
Facebook: CheaSamnang Va
Phone: (+855)92913576

The local brunch was good and the free wifi made it even better. We didn’t have anything else to do other than to wait for our mini van to Phnom Penh to pick us up at the hotel.

After spending so much time surfing the internet and played some games at the hotel lobby, a tuktuk came to pic us up at 1350hrs. It brought us to another travel office to wait for the mini bus, that came at 1425hrs. They cleaned the mini van after the previous passenger alighted. We moved off at 1335hrs.

Our first 20 minute stop was at 1645hrs. It was a straight road almost all the way. The dirt on the road was terrible! Even the plants ten meters from the road were covered by it. We had another break, a short one, at 1900hrs. When we continued the journey, the road started to get really dark. The road was not lit. The vehicles totally reloed on their own lights.

I thought of a lot of stories in my head along the way. The long ride on mini van got so boring and I couldn’t sleep because of the bumpy ride. But I guess I made use of the time to think of new stories to write and write for this post.

We reached Phnom Penh at 2030hrs and had Va’s friend, Bona, picked us up. But before we agreed for him to take us around Phnom Penh for the 2 full days, we talked a lot. Like seriously, I didn’t pay attention to him. He talked about Phnom Penh being the capital city of Cambodia, like I came from Mars. But anyway, we offered us $70 for the total trip in Phnom Penh and it took us quite sometime to get him to reduce the price to $50. We told him that we still have to pay for our hotel, airport tax, food and souvenirs. I even put on a sad face. $50 is still a lot though. But it was good to have that price from $70. Or was he planning to have it at $50 since the beginning and could we have had reduced it to $30?

Oh well, we had dinner at our hotel after a failed attempt to walk around the area in search for cheaper food. We had a quite early night to rest!

Tomorrow will start at 9 and we will be going to the Killing Field, Genoside Museum and the Royal Palace. Hopefully Phnom Penh won’t disappoint us.