Friday, April 24, 2009
Graham said the funniest thing....
When Graham woke up from his nap today he was fairly cranky so I held him on my lap while sitting on the couch, him snuggled into me. He finally warmed up and sat back looking at me. Then he leaned in close, pointed to my lip and asked, "Mom, what is that?" I asked what he meant. He said with a very serious expression and tone, "Mom, what is on your lip? Is that where Daddy punched you?" I burst into laughter and couldn't stop for several minutes, he finally decided it was funny too and laughed. After awhile I was able to ask him if he thought Daddy had punched me in the mouth and he said "Yes," like, "That's a stupid question."
For the record, Daddy has never punched me in the mouth. Have a good day! :)
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Cambodia Trip Part 2: The bike ride!
That night we had a nice dinner and some entertainment, at risk kids from Phnom Penh doing a breakdancing show. They were just adorable. Then, early the next morning we had our arranged taxi ride back to the airport in the city. We had been told the drive back would be a little shorter since we were in a car rather than a bus. It was still dark and a Toyota Camry picked us up. The driver (hardly any English) wanted $30 up front and the other $20 when we got there. I gave it to him and we drive about 4 minutes when he stopped and said, "My associate will take you the rest of the way." An almost identical Camry waited for us. I explained to him I had just given him $30 and he said, "It's ok!" So he got 30 for a 4 minute ride the other guy got 20 for a (supposed to be) 5 1/2 to 6 hour trip. This second car had no seatbelts in the backseat. He did have a little screen covering the rearview mirror that showed music videos and played the music very loud (all in Khmer). It's still dark and he starts driving. We asked a couple times to turn down the music (using charades since he doesn't speak any English). He is driving incredibly fast on these narrow roads. There are already people on bicycles, people walking and buses and trucks on the road. He honked his horn constantly for everyone to get out of his way and swerved around everyone, no worries at all at what may be coming towards us in the other lane. As daylight came more and more people were on the road, many holding children on their bikes or mopeds. This did not phase the guy. I yelled at him many times to slow down especially when we were driving through towns where people (many kids) were just steps off the road. He didn't. I thought we truly might die especially with no seatbelts and wondered if that would be better than surviving a crash in rural Cambodia with no doctors etc. We obviously did survive but a dog and a chicken did not. He slammed through both of them while we gasped in horror. We made the 3 hour trip in 2 hours and 5 minutes. Even in the city he continued to drive this way. I had planned to tip him as I thought he got the raw end of the deal but of course, by the time we got there, I didn't give him an extra cent. After he unloaded our suitcases he turned to us with a big smile and said, "Bye!" Just another day at the office for him. We tried not to think about who or what he hit on his way back to Kep. Other than that experience, we loved it all. We had to pay another $25 to get OUT of the country but had such a fabulous time. We can't wait for next year, we hope to bring our families this time to cheer us on and stay a little longer so we can be at the closing ceremonies. May even throw in a quick trip up to Siem Reap and Angor Wat so we will have really experienced all of Cambodia. I have to say every single person we met (besides the murderous taxi driver) were just as nice and sweet as anyone I've ever met anywhere in the world. Thanks for reading!!! :) I will send out my kodak gallery of pics now. If you don't get it and want it, send me a note tracyefaulkner@yahoo.com .
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Cambodia Trip!
On Friday, February 27th my friend Meredith and I flew into Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This is the capital city and we were going to spend the day there before taking a 3 hour bus ride down to the town of Kep for a bike ride the next day. After paying $20 USD to get into the country we found 2 guys trying to get us to take their taxis into town. We picked the $7 vs. the $9, the other guy laughed and said, "He doesn't have air conditioning!" Turns out $7 gets you a tuk tuk which we thought would be fun. Dara, our driver, said he'd take us around all day and bring us back to the airport that evening to catch our bus for USD 35. We probably could have bargained but decided that was a pretty good deal and off we went.Our first stop was a school run by the Cambodian Children's Fund http://www.cambodianchildrensfund.org/. This was started by a Hollywood exec a few years ago after visiting Phnom Penh and seeing all the children who lived and worked in the trash dumps, scouring the trash for tiny pieces of metal etc., from sun up to sun down. He ended up quitting his job, hoping to start one school and try to help 40 kids. He now has about 7 schools and has helped hundreds and hundreds of children. Meredith and I brought school supplies and some kids shoes for the children there. I didn't take any pictures there as the kids were all in school and we didn't want to be disruptive. It was really cool to see though, I promise! :)
The rest of the afternoon was spend visiting 2 museums and the Royal Palace. The first picture below is the museum with lots of artifacts, clothing etc. The second picture is just a tiny portion of the huge Royal Palace. The third picture was taken as we were zooming through town, many people live in this type of situation, so much poverty. The second museum we went to used to be a school. It was turned into a prison the 70's where the Khmer Rouge held and tortured men, women and children (yes, children, even babies). They took pictures of each prisoner, these are on display, headshots of each one almost like driver's license pictures. Some of the pictures of the women show babies in their arms. Some of the pictures are of people strapped to beds for torture. Each building we went into was worse than the last. It was devestating to see and yet I am so glad we went. To get a small glimpse into what the Cambodians went through. Anyone who was educated, spoke a second language, even wore glasses was executed eventually, after months of torture usually. Obviously I didn't whip out my camera here either, much too solemn. There are lots of books about the tragedy that went on there, Meredith and I both have started reading more about it. I'm in the middle of "First They Killed My Father."
Finally Dara took us back to the airport. We were a little early but felt we had already had a full day and after the last museum, didn't feel like doing much else. Turned out there was one thing at the airport that cheered us up......there was a Dairy Queen! So, ice cream while we waited and then we joined some of our fellow riders and some runners, climbed on a bus and headed off to Kep, driving for 3 hours on one of the bumpiest roads I've ever ridden on! Next posting I'll write about Kep and our bike ride!