After simply "chilling" on Wednesday after our epic bus journey from Laos the previous day we were ready and raring again (well I was anyway, Ash is a little bit more relaxed) to explore Siem Reap. The only highlight of Wednesday was having dinner with a nice girl called Dani we`d met at the guest house who was from Boston. We really enjoy meeting different people! We lazed on the comfy chairs on the veranda in amazement at how cheap Palm Garden Lodge (our guest house) was. 9USD for the room with breakfast included, free internet, satellite TV and free bikes. They are also going to give us a night free!

Our lonely planet told us about a local wood carving school that you can visit for free as well as a free shuttle bus to their silk farm in the afternoon so we were set up for the day. After a few wrong turns we managed to locate the school and was quickly given a visitors pass (very formal for this part of the world) and a guide was assigned to us. We wandered around for around 45 minutes taking in all of the different workshops with our guide giving us lots of information about what theyre all about and each process. It is a professional training school which was founded to help young Cambodians rediscover traditional handicrafts and give them the opportunity to take part in the rebuilding proccess their country had undertaken. It was established in response to an urgent need to train disadvantaged young people with little formal education living in rural parts. We were really impressed with the whole structure of the place with their being a formal assessment process and visit to their home to check they are the right person for the internship.

We stopped off at Blue Pumpkin (a chain of cafes over here) for saghetti bolognase (Ash was craving some italian food) and a huge ice cream each before we headed off in our mini bus to the silk farm. It was the poshest mini bus we`d been on all trip! The silk far was equally as interesting and we enjoyed seeing how the silk scarves were made.

That evening we wandered around the night market and watched some films in their"movie area" on Paul Pot and Angkor Wat. Much needed insight for me ready for our trip the following day to Angkor. Another relaxing day!