As you may know by now, we have finished our time in Cambodia and arrived safely in Vietnam two days ago. So far we are enjoying our time in Ho Chi Minh City, but are ready to get out of the city. Tomorrow we take a day trip to the Mekong Delta and then a night bus north to Dalat. From there we’ll work our way north to Hanoi.
Here is our goodbye to Cambodia…
After our day riding around the ruins we felt we still hadn’t gotten enough time on the bike, so we headed out to a silk farm 9 miles out of town. It was nice ride with many locals waving and looking at us funny as we are pretty sure most tourists don’t bike on this road. We became interested in visiting a silk farm after watching a Frontline special on Cambodian silk making, a tradition that nearly died with the Khmer Rouge. Luckily this art form has made a come back and it was interesting to go and see it first hand. We pulled up to the entrance of the National Silk Center and were immediately greeted by the man who would be our guide for the next hour. We were taken through the whole process from growing the mulberry trees that feed the silk worms to the weaving of the final product. We even were given the chance to eat a silkworm (after being boilded) and we took it. Kind of tasted like boiled peanuts (this is a southern treat).
The tour gave us a great appreciation for the work and skill that is needed to create every piece. A more complicated scarf with a design can take up to 4 weeks to complete from beginning to end. We also learned that many of the “silk” pieces seen in the local markets are imported and often are only 50% silk mixed with other fabrics. The average tourist wouldn’t have ever noticed but going into the shop at the end of tour we could definitely tell a difference from what we had seen on the streets. We were able to pick up one of the less expensive pieces which will hang on our wall at home.
If you are interested in viewing a little bit more about the process checkout the Frontline special called “Cambodia: The Silk Grandmothers”.
The owner of our guesthouse sits down with each guest and shows them a detailed bike tour he designed. It hits all the major spots and a few that got us off the main tourist routes for a little while. His kitchen even starts serving breakfast at 4:30am so guests can make it to the ruins by sunrise. Before the sun had even thought about rising we were out of bed, had eaten breakfast, and were on our bikes by 5am. Erin in the front with a bright headlamp lighting our path and John in the rear with his lamp turned backwards on the strobe mode. By 5:45am we had arrived at our first ruin, Phnom Bahkeng. It was quite an experience to climp up an ancient ruin in the dark to see the sun rise. Just as we had been told there were only about 15 people there. We spent the next hour enjoying the sunrise and taking way too many pictures but it was our first ruin and we were pretty excited.
From there we rode on top of the wall of Angkor Thom, an ancient walled city. This was one our favorite parts of the day as we were all by ourselves except for the monkeys that kept us company. They were only slightly interested in us but didn’t seem to mind getting their picture taken. The road led us around to Bayon which was flooded with tourists and we could see why. Everywhere you looked there was another face looking at you and no we are not talking about the tourists. 216 huge faces were atop 54 towers of Bayon and were quite a sight. We spent about an hour there before we couldn’t take the crowds and decided to move on to Ta Nei which was the exact opposite of Bayon. We were the only two people there except for the unofficial tour guide who walked around and pointed at stuff. Didn’t say anything just pointed. We hopped back on our bikes and pedalled our way to Ta Prohm. What made this place unique was the trees that seemed to grow straight out of the ruins.
We then took a quick break by Sras Srang reflecting pool before heading on to the main attraction of Angkor Wat. This expansive structure is the largest of all of the ruins and most popular. The reflection in the moat surrounding the temple was one of our favorite features of this site.
Around 3 pm we had been exploring for 10 hours (ridden 15 miles) and decided we needed a break so we peddaled 3 miles back to our hotel for an afternoon siesta. We really wanted to see the sunset from the ruins and knew that this was our chance so at 5pm we got back on our bikes and returned to Phnom Bakheng with 2000 other people to watch the sunset. Luckily we knew this going in and were up for the experience. It was kind of like going to Costco at Christmas, you know what you are getting into but you go anyway. Even with this in mind it was an incredible amount of people and slightly shocking to go from 15 people here for sunrise to well over 2000 for sunset. After sunset it was back to the bikes and one quick stop to see Angkor Wat all lit up and then we started 3 1/2 mile ride back to our hotel. We would not want everyday to look like this but it was really fun way to see the ruins and would recommend it to anyone who happens to be in Cambodia.
To view a slideshow of all the photos from Angkor Wat, check out our Flickr.
For a slideshow of all the pictures you can go to our Flickr page. It is easier than opening up each of the pictures above.
From there we rode on top of the wall of Angkor Thom, an ancient walled city. This was one our favorite parts of the day as we were all by ourselves except for the monkeys that kept us company. They were only slightly interested in us but didn’t seem to mind getting their picture taken. The road led us around to Bayon which was flooded with tourists and we could see why. Everywhere you looked there was another face looking at you and no we are not talking about the tourists. 216 huge faces were atop 54 towers of Bayon and were quite a sight. We spent about an hour there before we couldn’t take the crowds and decided to move on to Ta Nei which was the exact opposite of Bayon. We were the only two people there except for the unofficial tour guide who walked around and pointed at stuff. Didn’t say anything just pointed. We hopped back on our bikes and pedalled our way to Ta Prohm. What made this place unique was the trees that seemed to grow straight out of the ruins.
We then took a quick break by Sras Srang reflecting pool before heading on to the main attraction of Angkor Wat. This expansive structure is the largest of all of the ruins and most popular. The reflection in the moat surrounding the temple was one of our favorite features of this site.
Around 3 pm we had been exploring for 10 hours (ridden 15 miles) and decided we needed a break so we pedaled 3 miles back to our hotel for an afternoon siesta. We really wanted to see the sunset from the ruins and knew that this was our chance so at 5pm we got back on our bikes and returned to Phnom Bakheng with 2000 other people to watch the sunset. Luckily we knew this going in and were up for the experience. It was kind of like going to Costco at Christmas, you know what you are getting into but you go anyway. Even with this in mind it was an incredible amount of people and slightly shocking to go from 15 people here for sunrise to well over 2000 for sunset. After sunset it was back to the bikes and one quick stop to see Angkor Wat all lit up and then we started 3 1/2 mile ride back to our hotel. We would not want everyday to look like this but it was really fun way to see the ruins and would recommend it to anyone who happens to be in Cambodia.< >< >< >< >
<-->
“The population of USA is 300 million minus two. Why minus two? Because 
you are standing next to me.” These are the clever words of a book salesman who entertained us on our first night in Siem Reap. He also was able to amaze us by knowing just as many state capitols as we d0. As bothersome as the child street peddlers are, this guy actually made us laugh and we thought it was a much better approach than, “You buy book? You buy postcard?” over and over again. We did not buy a book from him, but I’m sure his talents convinced other tourists to purchase his wares.
Siem Reap is most famous for the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat and this was the main purpose for our visit here. We took a five hour bus ride from Phnom Penh, getting to see a good cross section of the countryside along the way. John even got a closer look at things because he had to sit in the stairwell of the bus for the last hour of the ride as his seat was starting to buckle from the bumpy road. After checking into our guesthouse and figuring out when our bicycles would be available (free bike use for each guest during your stay), we walked into town to check things out.
The highlight of our first day in Siem Reap was a cello concert we attended in the evening. We had never been to a cello concert before and it was a pleasant surprise. The character of the musician and his passion for more than just his instrument made the evening. Dr. Beat Richner, the musician/founder of the hospitals is a Swiss Doctor who in a former life was also a famous (in Switzerland) cello player and entertainer and started playing again to raise money for the cause. We were attracted to this event because 1) it was free and 2) all donations are given to the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospitals. Besides the music, we viewed a 40 minute video describing the work of the hospitals for the children of Cambodia. We were particularly impressed by the work of this place as it provides free health care for any child, regardless of the service provided (from surgery to vaccinations). In a country as poor as Cambodia, operating without social health care , this is an important work. In the early 90’s Dr. Richner was asked by the Crown Prince to come back to Cambodia and establish a children’s hospital. There is more to say and you can
check out his website for more details. The next night we rode by on our bikes coming home from Angkor Wat and at 7pm there was already a line of mothers and their children camping over night so they could see the doctor the next day.
After the concert, we settled in for the evening knowing our role call the next morning was 4:15am.
Here is a video of Erin and I crossing the street in Phnom Penh at night. You can’t hear Erin in the video but she is saying oh crap oh crap oh crap which always helps when navigating through cars and motos. If any of you are wondering we were shining headlamps if that makes you feel any better.
YouTube DirectCrossing the street in Cambodia
If you have never heard “same, same” before it is phrase people here use a lot to compare two things. Guess it’s easier than saying “similar” or “like” or “is the same as”. There are t-shirts sold to tourists that say “SAME, SAME” on the front and “BUT DIFFERENT” on the back. The girls have been saying, “John same, same Jesus” and pointing to his beard since day one. But on this last day they added an extra compliment, “John same, same Jesus; same, same monkey.” This, of course, was followed by hysterical laughter and then they kept repeating it. John took it as a compliment 
. It’s not every day you get called a monkey (or Jesus–although John had another period of life in which he was often referred to as red headed Jesus).
What's your vote? Monkey or Jesus?
Today was our last day of teaching and the girls were in no mood to learn. It was kind of like the last day of school before summer–they have a holiday this weekend that many are going home to celebrate and they wanted to play not be taught. It also doesn’t help that when we arrive they are just getting up from an afternoon nap so they stagger downstairs with grumpy faces and attitudes in tow. Usually we get them warmed up and they are fine, but it was definitely a struggle today. We made a deal with them that we would only inflict them with the pain of learning for an hour, which mostly consisted of games to reinforce what we have taught the past week or so. They reluctantly agreed. It was great to see how much they had learned in just over a week of teaching and we felt our time had been well spent.
The rest of the afternoon was filled with playing games, John teaching them guitar (well, letting them strum anyway), giving piggy back rides, receiving gifts the girls kept trying to give to us (we made out with two necklaces, a bracelet, a ton of origami, five rocks, and a lot of kisses and hugs), answering to the constant, “John, John, John, John!” or “Erin, Erin, Erin, Erin!”, exclaiming over pictures drawn of us on the white board (which always said “I love you”), and finally sharing an amazing meal of curry soup, french bread, and the best spring rolls ever. We capped off the night by eating cake to celebrate our time with the girls. Then the goodbyes… you would think by the way they clung to us that we had been there six months rather than two weeks. They followed us out the door and to our tuk tuk, continuing to give hugs, kisses, and high fives. They even tried to jump on the tuk tuk. After several more rounds we pulled away waving our last goodbyes and sending our last blown kisses their way.
Tomorrow we wrap up a few things in Phnom Penh and we are on our way to Siem Reap on Saturday. It is hard to believe three weeks have gone by already. We are very glad for the time we were able to spend here. Not only was working a good experience, we learned a ton, we got to have a “home” for awhile, and made some new friends. We look forward to sharing more about our time here and the work of the organization when we return home.
Our second week in Phnom Penh, Cambodia was great fun. Although we were tired by the end of each day, our students learned a lot and were, overall, a good class. Among other things, we taught them a few songs from home and on Sunday we sang with them at their church. John was a patient teacher and they love singing along with him and his guitar. Throughout the week as the girls were around we would hear one spontaneously break into, “Be bold!” and a small group echo, “Be bold!” and then continue singing the song. Those moments brought big smiles to our faces.
If you read our last post you saw a typical day in the life last week and that stayed pretty consistent through the week. On Saturday we met up with Laurie and Michelle to see more of the sights. We went off the beaten path and had an experience few tourists probably get. The 
Mekong River is a life source for millions of people and flows from the Tibetan Plateau to the South China Sea. We have been interested in the Mekong since we saw a short documentary called “Exploring the Mother of Waters” at the Banff Film Festival a couple of years ago. This documentary highlighted a man’s journey as he went from source to sea, exploring the impacts of mega dams on the environment and culture of the river and it’s people. There are floating villages along the rivers edge where some of the poorest people of SE Asia live. The water is used for washing, cooking, cleaning, fishing, and even as a toilet. Every time Laurie and/or her husband, Carl, come to Phnom Penh they make a trip out to the river’s edge with fruit to pass out. We were invited to come along and help distribute. When we arrived we learned that many of the people had to move from their homes on the river so there weren’t nearly as many folks as usual, but those who were there seemed to really appreciate the fruit and they all came 
away each with a good amount of oranges and Asian pears.
After lunch on Saturday, we ventured to a popular tourist attraction known as, “The Killing Fields” (considering the name it doesn’t sound like a real great post-lunch activity, but it was good =)). We have been learning about the reign of the Khmer Rouge in the late 70s during our time here and this is a place where many lives were taken. We won’t get into the details now, but are processing everything we are learning and will post at a later date with something more thorough. Erin is reading a good memoir of a girl/now woman who experienced those years firsthand. If you are interested, it’s called “First They Killed My Father” by Loung Ung.
Week three did not begin as we anticipated. We both started feeling crummy on Sunday, John spent part of his night in the bathroom, and Erin spent hers sleeping in the fetal position. We 
gauged ourselves throughout Monday morning and when we figured out John was running a fever (he referred to this as his body’s way of being a “self cleaning oven”) we decided to call in sick. Kind of a funny thing to do when you are technically on holiday, but the last thing we want to do is infect the kids. We have noticed improvements throughout the day and are hopeful to be at a good functioning level tomorrow. We have been blessed to have pretty good health the majority of our travel so far and have known it was coming. This really isn’t even bad and we aren’t looking forward to the day we have to take the pills for amoebic dyssentry with which our team doctor sent us off.
After spending the weekend touring Phnom Penh with Laurie and Michelle, it was back to our day jobs on Monday morning. We are now teaching 6 to 15 kids at a time ranging in age from 7 to 16. The age range and schedules of these kids has made it challenging to keep who knows what straight. Luckily, none of them know a lot so there is a lot we can teach them. We started off with the essentials–Boom Chick-a-boom (a silly reply game that teaches words like louder, softer, faster, slower, etc.) and the human knot game (pretty much self-explanatory). The funny thing is they loved these games and everyday have asked to play them again and again. Kids here aren’t much different than those back home. Needless to say our hearts have easily been won over by these kids. We are sure they are trouble but the language barrier seems to smooth some of that over. We are nearing the end of one week with them which is hard to believe and have made arrangements to spend a second week with them as well.
So this week an average day looks like this: Get up around 7am, finish lesson plans, make breakfast (still loving the fruit/muesli/yogurt combo with toast) and then down to meet our tuk tuk driver Hua around 9am. Normally you walk out of the building with drivers shouting “tuk tuk, tuk tuk sir?” but now they call for Hua letting him know we are coming. So far we have learned that Hua has six children, the youngest is 18 months and the oldest is 20 years old. Not sure how he supports a family as a tuk tuk driver but he seem content and is always very happy. We decided he would be our driver because the first time we rode with him he offered a fair price without dickering. We figured good business practices should be rewarded. Plus, he has been a very safe driver and is very pleasant for the 25 min (2 mile) commmute we have with him. We get there around 9:30am and within 10-15 minutes lessons begin. We are working on basic conversation intermixed with games and stories to keep it interesting (we hope). After two hours of teaching, singing, and playing games it’s time for lunch. It has been really good to be a part of the lunch scene. Eating rice, tofu, chicken, veggies, pork, and soy sauce (which we have learned is much lighter than the Chinese soy sauce we have at home, actually we prefer it). After lunch we take a nap (meaning John takes a nap) and we start class again around 1:30pm. It feels more challenging in afternoon because only half the girls were there at morning session. So what to teach? Were are trying to get the girls from the morning to help teach the afternoon class. It has worked pretty well so far. By 4pm everyone is pretty well tired of learning and we join in on whatever games they are playing: a strange game jump rope, tag with the jelly flyer (soft frisbee), boom chick-a-boom, human knot, and today we taught them some origami (really they taught us). By 5pm we are leaving by tuk tuk or on foot and are back home by 6pm.
We weren’t sure how our week of teaching was going to go after the first day as there was construction going on across the
street all day. There was some sort of motor running that sounded like constant jack hammering. Our throats hurt from having to speak so loudly and our heads hurt from 7 hours of that noise. It also made it difficult to tell the girls to be quiet or for them to hear how we were pronouncing things. Thankfully, Tuesday and Wednesday have been relatively quiet in comparison but is still 10 times louder than our street at home. Our new contact at this teaching center has been a good resource and helps translate throughout the day, which is a huge benefit. We are very glad we will be with this group for 2 weeks as they are full of energy and eagerness to learn.
We still love our “home” at the Golden Tour Eiffel Guesthouse and are getting spoiled by CNN, HBO, The Discovery Channel, and other cable channels we don’t subscribe to at home. Planning to do some more sight seeing with Laurie and Michelle over the weekend and will definitely need some rest after the energy consumed this week.
We finished our first week of work in Cambodia and are glad to have a weekend to rest and prepare for next week. It was pretty incredible how quickly the week flew by. We are feeling quite comfortable in our new city, and although we are certain we are not “city people,” it is fun to try it out for awhile. There is so much to see and process, especially in a place so different from home.
Here are some things we see/hear on a daily basis:
We know there is much more and we’ll try to paint a good picture as we go along.
We arrived in Phnom Penh with little fanfare. As THE international airport for the country, it took us no time to get through this Spokane-sized airport and we were in a tuk-tuk weaving through a slow crawl of motor bikes (motos), cars, and more motor bikes. Our hotel, The Goldiana, was by far the nicest hotel we have stayed in since leaving the US, similar to a Holiday Inn (that might say something about our accomodations on this trip). We were ready for some shut eye after the many hours of travel and few hours of sleep we had received. Since we actually had “work” in the morning we knew we needed to get to bed, but not before dinner and meeting with the folks from the organization we are working with to find out more details about what we would be doing in our time here.
Monday morning, we found ourselves in another tuk-tuk on the way to a hair and nail salon, which would double as our classroom for the week. We realized quickly how difficult teaching can be (especially when you don’t know their language) and thought of many of our friends who do this professionally, day in and day out. We understand better why they are so tired during the school year!
Our daily routine has been to get up around 7am, do some calisthenics, eat a big bowl of fruit, museli, and yogurt, finish preparations for our lessons, around 10am take a tuk tuk the approximately 12 minutes to the salon, teach until about noon, take a lunch break, return and watch a half hour or so of Cambodian TV or music videos (which we would make the girls explain to us), and teach until 4pm. We have taken to walking home from the salon instead of taking a tuk-tuk to get a little exercise and download the day together. Walking in Phnom Penh takes a little getting used to. Crossing the street is best described as playing a game of “Frogger,” minus the sinking turtles and alligators. If you are not familiar with “Frogger” the idea is to get across the street without getting squashed. Traffic does move fairly slow here, but there is a lot of it. Generally, you want to time it so you only have motorbikes dodging you and the road is clear of cars. We have also tried the tactic of using a Cambodian man as a blocker which worked very well. We were sure to thank him upon safe arrival on the other side. We’ll try to get some video, if we can.
Teaching has been challenging and rewarding. Most of the girls are very quick and they want to learn which makes our task easier. The girls are 16-19 years old. After two days of teaching, the girls invited us to join them for lunch on the third day. We were pleased to accept their invitation. They fixed us a simple, but delicious meal of rice, pork, egg, garlic, squid oil (sounds weird, but it’s good), and chilis. Today, the fourth day, we were again invited to dine with them and had deep fried tofu, tomatoes, onions, over rice with a side of soy sauce and chilis. Again, simple, but delicious (the first time either of us actually really liked tofu!). Their dining room is the floor in the kitchen which they seem more than comfortable squatting over while they eat.
Tomorrow will be our last day at the salon and next week we will work with girls who are 7-12 years of age. Saturday we plan to join Laurie (co-founder of the organization) and Michelle (intern) in a few touristy things around the city. We have found a temporary home here in Phnom Penh at the Golden Tour Eiffel Guesthouse–it was a pretty money find, if you ask us and is more like an apartment than a hotel. It includes a kitchen with dishes, fridge, gas cooker, table and chairs; our very own bathroom; a large bedroom with TV and cable and a DVD player (which we have a funny story about); and a balcony with chairs. We love it. Check out the photos below for an idea of what the place is like. This will be our longest stay in one place since we moved out of our house, August 17, 2008, nearly 5 months ago. We have also found our favorite place to eat in the area and we have tried almost all of their Khmer dishes. The two big draws to this place are how great the food is and that they are running a 30% off discount on their food (which means dinner, a beer, and dessert for about $9) as they are introducing a new menu. Also, they are incredibly kind and seem to really enjoy their work.
We have had a lot to process the last few days and have more to share, but you probably have other things you need to do so we’ll leave it at that for now.
