Today we went to a silk farm on silk island. Very interesting on how they extract the silk from the cocoon. As they are practising Buddhists they cannot kill the silk worms. So they leave them in the sun to die - their reasoning is they committed suicide by not getting out of the sun! They extract 40 meters of silk from each cocoon. Ann bought a silk scarf at their shop.
On return to the Spirit and we have a taste of Cambodia for lunch, which includes fried tarantulas, frogs, crickets, silk worms and cockroaches. I tried crickets and silkworms. Crickets were ok, but not a fan of the silk worms. Ann passed and stuck to normal food.
This afternoon we visited a local village that was fortunate enough to be left untouched by the Khmer Rouge. It was fascinating to see the homes, virtually untouched and as they were pre Pol Pot. We then went to a school where the students were being taught English. The teacher asked for each one of us to sit with a child and help them with their English. The kids were between 6 and 12. It was a private run school and operated after school hours. The kids were great and their English was very good. The teacher wanted one of us from each country to stand in front of them and introduce ourselves and where we from and then read each sentence that was on the board so they could hear the different accents. This was a highlight of the whole trip. We were disappointed that we didn’t have some simple gifts to donate to the kids.
Tonight at port talk we got our parting instructions, can’t believe we have now arrived at this time. We have one full day tomorrow and then we must depart from the Scenic Spirit and then head to Siem Reip.
The crew have been fantastic, so friendly and cheerful and thankful that tourists have returned. Our stars are our butler Raksmey, bar manager John and waitress Vaneeta. Not to mention our Cambodian guide Dara and of course our regular guide Duc. We have had the best guides compared to the other group.
I have warned Vaneeta about Luggy!
The litter in Vietnam and Cambodia is terrible. Worse along the Mekong, every village we entered had litter lying around and some blocks seemed like dumping grounds. There is also a lot of rubbish floating down the river.
Can’t believe we only have one more full day on the Spirit a very luxurious barge.
so cool going to the school
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