Visiting Anker Wat had been one my ambitions for many years, so we detoured from Vietnam for a short stay in Siem Reip to take in the temples. We weren’t’ the only ones, as everyone who comes here is heading for Anker Wat, which is a shame but Siem Reip is a really nice place and Cambodia has a lot to offer.

The city leaders are a clever lot, and to keep us hanging around the created Pub Street, which is another good reason to come here. They have created a long street full of bars, that keeps the rowdy tourists in one place, having fun while the citizens carry on with their lives uninterrupted.

The highlight of this trip was the HeroRats that are covered later in the blog, they were incredible and, in many ways, the highlight of the trip. A creature that the whole world regards as vermin is at the core of saving lives and removing the landmines that still remain from the war with the US.

To be honest, Pub Street is overhyped, all the bars are doing beer deals and food, there is the odd night club or live music venue scattered around but the best bit, is most of the bars are airconditioned. As with many things in this part of the world, Pub Street gives you great Instagram photos to share, which of course makes it even more popular.

Everything was geared towards the travellers so we ended up eating there every night because it was nice and easy, and the beer and food was cheap, but by the 3^rd night it we definitely time for a change of scenery.

To get a better perspective of town, we found a tuk tuk tour called Hidden Treasures and had a great guide called Lux, (you can find him on Facebook as Lux Lux). He had great knowledge of the history and spoke fantastic English, he also had a real passion for his country and he made the tour extra special for us.

Psar Chaa – Old Market. Local food market was the first stop and it was jaw dropping. The region is full of markets and things but this one had the most incredible variety of fresh food.  Most of it was fish from a giant lake the size of a small sea a few miles away that seem to feed the entire region. All the farmers carted their products into this central area and the place was packed with locals doing their daily shop from the amazing it display of vegetables and meat; it makes our weekly trip to Lidl look particularly dull!

Wat Preah Prom Rath. Everyone comes here Anker Wat, but there are temples spread around the whole city. The temples are unique as they blend Buddhism with Hinduism, historically the religion is Buddhism but one of their kings changed the religion to Hindu and this lasted for a couple of centuries, before another king changed it back, so this means the temples have artifacts from both religions.

It isn’t a visit to a temple unless they have a sleeping Buddhu, and this one had a beauty.

Satcha – Cambodian Handicraft Cente. Another really interesting place where the locals maintain ancient crafts, it was a bit like an apprentice college. This isn’t really my sort of thing, I couldn’t help but be intrigued watching the delicacy of the stone or wood engraving, and how the pottery and painting studios. After 30 minutes we got on to the good bit, they make cracking coffee.

APOPO Visitor Center, otherwise known as the HeroRats. This was absolutely incredible. Rats are trained to sniff out landmines. APOPO is the charity that trains the rats in Cambodia and in parts of Africa as well. Apparently, rats are intelligent and sensitive creatures and watching the affection that the staff at the visitor centre show them is quite moving.  They take years to domestic and train to do the minesweeping, but they have saving hundreds of lives.

I hadn’t realised that their rural countryside is still littered with landmines and children are still being killed and maimed, they rats are not only saving lives, but they also open up more land for cultivation as there are vast areas that are still too dangerous to inhabit, which is an incredible tragedy.

We took in another temple where there was some celebration going on, with people having a good time but it was all getting a bit hot by then and we could feel the swimming pool and cocktails calling.

Lux had rather impressively taken us on a route that actually left outside our hotel, so the call of the pool was even louder.

Thanks again to Lux for a great day.