Today is a day without temples... Cambodia is entering the cool season, but the temperatures right now are still pretty hot during the day and yesterday I found it tough going around lunchtime so opted to relax around town today and do a bit of shopping.

This morning I woke early and went to the old market to have a look. There are a lot of stalls selling the same Bayon face carvings and other stuff, a lot of it not great quality, many stalls selling t-shirts and silks (although the quality is very variable) and cotton (again mostly questionable) cramars, which are the traditional Khmer scarf, use for everything, from blocking out the dust on trips around the red dirt roads, a head covering in the sun, a sarong, a makeshift towel etc. You could fill many suitcases here, but I have seen it all so many times there is little that interests me anymore in the souvenier line.

So having had a wander there and fending off the thousands of tut tut and motodop drivers that hang around offering lifts, I set of towards Artisans d'Angkor, where they have workshops and very high quality goods. Beautiful silks and sandstone carvings that rival those at the temples, now here is somewhere to be very tempted indeed. The showroom is popular on the tourist circuit and they do promote high quality local products so worth supporting, despite the higher prices, after all, you get what you pay for.

After that I wandered back to the old market area and found a cafe to have an iced coffee and check emails and then, because of the heat to be honest, walked back to the hotel to have a cooling shower. I decided to have lunch by the pool as the food is good here and ended up with Tonle Sap fish in ginger with steamed rice... Just feling lethargic today.

I was toying with the idea of getting a tut tut driver from the hotel and going to a couple of temples later, but the ones I know were busy and again it was just too hot, so I set off along the river towards Wat Bo and crossed the bridge to head towards Central Market. I walked up street Oum Khan street where the hotel we used to use, the Shinta Mani is, now demolished apart from the old central portion which was the old post office in French colonial times, the site is surrounded by corrugated iron and the foundations for the new and greatly enlarged new hotel are being dug. Continuing up the the main street I stop off at Angkor Mart, once the only place for western goodies, now it has crossed the road and greatly enlarged. A litre of Vodka is still $8.50 and wine from across the worl can be bought for less that the UK.

Having cooled down a bit in their airconditioned splendour, God it's hot... I continue down the road to Central Market. This market is less crowded than the old market, but the stall owners still have the slightly annoying habit of saying; "Hello sir, sir, you buy..." every step of the way and God it's hot, so I head out and jump on the back of a motorbike taxi to get back to the hotel. I rather enjoy getting around on the back of a bike. I England I have always been a woos where bikes are concerned and never had the slightest wish to learn to ride one, a push bike sure, but once you attach that motor I run in the opposite direction. I was converted to the simple pleasures of riding pillion in Indonesia where I quickly discovered it was the only way to get to some temples. My first few times filled me with abject terror, especially due the the nature of the traffic and it's seeming lack of order, but rather as you quickly learn planes don't fall out of the sky very often I soon learnt to lean into the corners and enjoy the whole experience. They are also cheap, which is an advantage.