Woke up with bloody, freakin mother of a headache and felt that the room was spinning. Both of us overslept and poor Ou Hok was waiting for us till it was time to fetch G and M to the airport for their flight home. Close to noon, I forced myself to stomach some brekkie w A at a cafe across the road but when the food arrived, the vomit also did. So I hurried back for a lie low till around 3plus when the universe stopped breakdancing on its head and we were ready for more sightseeing.
Since this was the last day of our temple pass, we hurried to Banteay Srey, some 30+km or an hour away. It was touted as one of the smallest but also prettiest with delicate ornate carvings fashioned out of pinkish sandstone, instead of the usual dull grey laterite. We arrived 5mins late at 5.05pm, delayed by the extremely bumpy dirt road where Ou Hok skillfully twisted and turned his handlebar to avoid the potholes. Initially the guards refused to let us in although we could still see some visitors inside the temple. Ou Hok told A that if we gave them US$5, they'd let us in. Merda. 
I was at first reluctant standing by my principle but I figured since we had come so far, it'd be a terrible shame not to see it. The temple was serene and deserted by this hour, save for a family and us who were taking our time exploring the grounds. The beautiful classical Khmer art was truly evident from the deeply etched carvings and dainty apsaras covering every inch of the temple. 
We left shortly as the temperature dipped and light dimmed at sunset, and bounced up and down on our even bumpier ride back in the darkness. There was no luxury of street lights, only woodfires lit outside their basic rural huts - probably good for cooking dinner and keeping the mozzies away. The countryside scenery was worth the hour-long trip alone and we smiled to the villagers including scruffy kids who ran shoeless after one another. 
The backlane of Pub Street offered us more traditional Khmer cuisine, this time at Le Tigre De Papier, where A had DIY BBQ platter and I nursed a taste-bud awakening lime fish soup, washed down with fresh coconut juices (US$10 for meal). Next to our restaurant, a group of street musicians who were also mine casualties performed traditional Khmer music for a living while kids as young as 5 peddled US$1 postcards and travel books to foreigners. 
The Old Market area was always bustling at all times of the day as you'd find shops, internet cafes, restaurants, pubs and galleries concentrated at this intersection. After yet another unsatisfying US$6 massage this time at Dr Feet, we popped into Blue Pumpkin, a slick spanning-white cafe, for a slice of average pineapple custard tart and watched the procession of musicians, bighead dolls and mini fireworks - probably their way of ushering Xmas. Buon Natale, tutti!
Day 4: 25 Dicembre Lunedi - NataleAfter a splendid early brekkie, Ou Hok ferried us to the Cambodian Landmine Museum some 20mins away for a quick history lesson on war. Started by this fellow Aki Ra who's the same age as my brother, the museum didn't impose a fee (accept kind donations instead) and appeared to be just a makeshift kampung hut but what were on display gripped our attention. There were collections of mines in all variations; small ones that were design to maul a leg to big anti-tank cylinders that would rip a heavy vehicle apart to the kind attached with an invisible wire that you'd trip and set it leaping in mid-air to kill 20 in one blast.
I was memerised and haunted by the amateurish drawings and posters explaining the atrocities carried out by the Khmer Rouge who killed as freely as they farted, and had no qualms taking lives from the young to the old. Between 1975 to 1979, an estimated 3 million people died under Pol Pot's communist regime. Even to date, the landmines victims kept escalating and some have found refuge at Aki Ra's. In Siem Reap alone, there are 27,000 casualties including innocent kids who played in unchartered fields. It was depressing to learn that they'd take up to a century to find and clear every mine. 
It was a sobering experience just reading Aki Ra's account of his childhood and his daunting efforts in setting up this museum to educate and reverse the curse in his country. As we surveyed the bombs, Ou Hok recounted matter-of-factly that he remembered when he was 16, the US warplanes were carpet-bombing their country and how they'd run in the opposite direction of the planes to avoid them. I couldn't imagine how they had lived thro' such a horrifying experience and still managed to grin and bear with their current hardships. 
We made a small donation and gave out more sweets and pencils to the smiling beautiful children at the stall outside. The youngest pin-sized girl started crying because all the older taller kids were reaching over her head for the gifts, ignoring my pleas "Wait, wait, there's one for everyone!" Ou Hok had to gather them around to pose for a group shot before we waved goodbye to the gleeful bunch. 
To get a glimpse of culture, we stopped over at an artisan centre to see how the tradition of carving is kept alive today by the Cambodians. It was quite amazing how the young girls could magically fashion a block of stone or wood from a simple buddha or apsara paper cut-out into an artpiece that can fetch up to thousands of US dollars. 
Still hungry for more history, we had a leisure tour of the deserted War Museum (US$3 each) to view the relics of war from the old fighter plane and helicopter to all kinds of tanks, anti-plane guns, rocket launchers, guns, grenades, mines - all cruel reminders of the brutalities of war. Why do men invent these horrible things? Why do people continue to fight and kill one another? Why?? 
Before we left, Ou Hok told us that his friend who is in his 30s and also a tuk tuk driver, was a former Russian-trained fighter plane pilot and could speak a few foreign languages fluently. Wah, one would never tell. There's so much going on under the surface and behind the stoic smile of everyone here, that it was terribly disturbing and depressing. 
Since it was still early, we managed to catch the action inside the Old Market where locals were bargaining noisily with traders selling fresh produce like live fishes and turtles, the greenest vegetables and fruits, the most pungent spices, dried fish and raw meat, to heaps of clothes and shoes. The wet market is one of my favourite haunts in any place and stupido A had to spoil it for me by complaining how dirty it was and kept hurrying me to leave! Aspetta!
He was cheered by the souvenir shops outside where we bargained for some colourful woven scarves and then a sumptuous lunch at Soup Dragon, a Vietnamese-Cambodian restaurant located at the corner of Pub Street. We should have come here earlier as the food was terrific. 
Imagine the freshest rice paper rolls with shrimps (US$2.50), fluffiest deepfried eggplant with a sweet-spicy dip (US$2), and fragrant fried chicken with finely chopped lemongrass and ginger (US$3) heaped onto our bowls of rice. The weather was rather warm today so we chilled out at the hotel's pool till late afternoon and we walked back to the Old Market area for tea at Blue Pumpkin and our last dinner at Khmer Food in Siem Reap.
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