Siem Reap - Luang Prabang 1/23

In the morning we drove to Marie and Harley’s orphanage/cultural center outside the city. It was such a pleasant surprise to see how lovely and how well run it is. The building is nice and well maintained, the grounds are clean and pretty. The main director, Amrin, arrived with his aunt and uncle shortly after we got there. They are Cambodians who emigrated to France, and now live in Montreal. Amrin is an orphan himself who was adopted by a French family as a child. The family then gave him the land and money to build the orphanage. He does an amazing job. It feels like home. It’s the second generation of kids there. There are 16 kids living there now and 4 are in college and only come to visit. He gave us a tour, hosted us for breakfast/lunch. Two boys played traditional Khmer music, which they teach at the center. Overall, it was a great visit. Before driving me to the airport, Pierre wanted to show me one of his favorite places in Siem Reap, Conservation d’Angkor. It’s officially not open to the public, but we just walked in and nobody stopped us. It’s a very atmospheric place --- behind a red wall, in an overgrown, unmaintained tropical garden you have several buildings from the 70s in various stages of decay. They house archaeologist teams from Italy, France, Germany and India working on conservation of pieces from Angkor Wat. There are also big warehouses with hundreds of sculptures. Sculptures are also scattered throughout the garden and intertwined with trees and plants. A very special place that may soon be gone. At the airport I reunited with Laurie and Florence. The flight to LP was easy – 2 hours. I was first at the visa line and quickly grabbed a taxi to get to Project Space, my home for the next 4 days. The building is an art gallery, and my guestroom above it is really nice. Nicer than expected. I even have a mosquito net! Rik, director of the botanical garden, who also runs the gallery showed me around and then we went to a local Indian place for a quick dinner.