Today I celebrated a month on the road by visiting a Cambodian barber and getting a haircut and goatee trim, augmented by the usual neck rub. I can’t recall the last time manual hairclippers were used to do the job. It was a slow and careful process that held my attention because the shop is on the banks of a flooding river. This afternoon the rains returned with a semi-biblical force, explaining the massive flooding we saw from above when our plane from Hanoi landed yesterday. Fortunately, it wasn’t raining at the time and the airport was dry.
After weeks of staying in hotels, we especially appreciate the hospitality shown by Jennifer and Alex Sutherland and their entertainment provided by their children, James and Lauren (Alex has created several of the bigger and better restaurants in Ankor Wat and has a few more projects in the works. The rainy season isn’t good for business and all hope that it will end soon and that the tourists will return. Siem Reap is a growing community that must have been fairly sleepy a few years ago (Alex and Jenn say cars were rare in the streets when they arrived eight years ago). It is a provincial capital that relies on the tourist trade. Despite tourist spending in town, the province is reported to be the poorest in Cambodia, which is saying quite a bit.
We’ve yet to see the ruins, but plan to in the next day or two, weather permitting.
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