Siem Reap Day 2 of Temple Trekking
Friday, July 21st, 2006The next day started off at 5am. We got up before the sun to catch it rise above Ankor Wat. This was an even more amazing sight. Not only for the sunrise, but the throngs of people all over the south wall of Ankor anxiously waiting for the sunrise (IPH) I got some great pictures of Ankor Wat with the reflection of the temple on the pools of water in front of the temple (IPH). By 10am we had been out visiting temple after temple for 5 hours and were exhausted. The mid-day heat was upon us and we were tired. When we stopped at a lake, 2 little girls came up to us trying to sell us drinks, T-shirts, bracelets…. They were both very cute, but 1 only had a skirt on with no top. I asked her why she didn’t have a shirt on and she told me she was too poor to afford one. LOL They are good. So, I decided to buy a round of beers from her at 10am (hey, it’s 5 O’clock somewhere) and we had already been up for 5 hours. The other little girl was just despondent, absolutely inconsolable. She was so mad that we bought all 5 beers from the other girl and none from her. One of the Dutch girls, Martine, tried to give her a dollar, but she wouldn’t take it. She just said, “I don’t want money for free” (but in her head, I could hear, “I want to rip you off fair and square”) and she ran off crying. We felt so bad for her as her tears really seemed genuine. I also had a bad thought in the back of my mind about what kind of message we were sending here by buying 5 beers from the topless little girl and none from the clothed little girl. So we ended up buying another round from her too.
[read on]
Kane