Upside-Down Pigs Make Horrible Noises.

After our trip to Angkor our time in Siem Reap has been spent relaxing, eating and wandering around town enjoying the sites and sounds as well as talking to locals and learning more of the language. Our favorite place to eat so far has been the Le Papier de Tigre which has the best lasagna I have ever tried. Ryan is very partial to their Khmer Cannelloni which has an excellent Cambodian curry twist to it.

Another notable place to drink and dine is the Dead Fish Tower. It is an establishment that would break every building code there is in Edmonton but it is so much fun! It's like swiss family robinson but with a crocodile pit. It would be quite scary to get really drunk because you could easily end up falling off one of the many platforms. There are hammocks to laze around and tires with glass over them for tables! We had drinks there one night after dinner and we were very amused to get to hang out in this adult tree fort.

The free breakfast at our hotel has also been a treat. Every morning we have an option of 5 dishes, we usually go for the scrambled eggs or the omelette, each comes with a lovely selection of local fruit. The mangosteens and the dragonfruit have been our favorite so far but the lychee and pineapple are also really tasty. The best part, especially for Ryan, is that coffee refills are free and plentiful.

We also headed off the the Butterfly Garden for lunch yesterday. Unfortunately a more appropriate name would probably be the Butterfly Graveyard due to the fact that we saw many more dead and injured butterflies than live ones. I do appreciate what they are trying to do as a portion of their sales go toward good causes such as Cambodians living with Aids/HIV, but the garden was not as romantic a spot as I had hoped for. Still we had a good meal, some nice photo ops and their pond had some gigantic and gorgeous koi in it. Also there was lots of other wildlife to see including skinks, agamids and frogs.

Besides the food we have also had some great conversations when we go out to eat. We talked with a young Cambodian traveller for a while at the hotel restaurant about the places he has been around south east Asia. The next night we discussed temple and border disputes between Cambodia and Thailand with one of our waiters. We also received our best language lesson from one of our waitresses who taught us how to say 'no, thank you' (very helpful with the touts), 'excuse me' and 'the bill please'. Whenever we use our new found language skills we are usually met with a surprised laugh and smile from the locals which makes our effort well worth it.