Cambodia Trip!

It's been a month since I've written on here so I don't know if anyone is still checking the site or not! Here I'm going to write about my trip to Cambodia and post a few pictures, I have more in a Kodak slideshow that I will send out right after I post this with more pictures.
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! :)

Once we unloaded one full suitcase there at the school our driver, Dara, decided we like doing charity things so he suggested we get a big bag of rice (took us awhile to understand what he was saying) and take it to an orphanage. But first, we wanted to eat. The girl at CCF had suggested a restaurant down on the river so we asked to be taken there. Dara said that place was too expensive and he'd take us to a different place on the river for cheap western food. We ended up at the Pink Elephant Pizza place. It was pretty darn good and cheap (the little place behind our tuk tuk)! The river view was not quite what I was expecting and we had several people come up to sell us things. I ended up buying some sunglasses, a newspaper and we both bought a book which had been photocopied and sometimes the words slid off the page. But, we were helping the economy there, right? :)

Next we were off to find a big bag of rice for the orphans. Dara took us to a place I'm sure he takes all the tourists and we got a 50kg bag of rice. That's over 100 pounds. It was HUGE and HEAVY. Between the rice our suitcases and us, we barely fit in the tuk tuk and I was starting to think we'd be too heavy to move. But we did and started our trek outside the city limits to the orphanage. We were onto dirt roads, in a much more rural part, lots of frightenly thin cows. We aren't sure why since there was lots of green grass but these guys were walking skeletons. I don't think my pictures did them justice. We realized our driver wasn't exactly sure where this orphanage was as he kept asking people and turning around. We were in an area that I wasn't sure we'd be too welcome as American women and at one point I said to Meredith, "Our mothers would not be pleased right now." She thought our hubbies would be more upset but I could just hear my mom if we ended up missing in Cambodia!!!! Anyway, we finally found the orphanage, gave them the massive bag of rice and got to meet some of the children. They were all darling. The older kids were at school in the town, the younger ones getting ready for lessons on the "ranch." They all speak Khmer (native language), English and most are also learning French or Japanese. The youngest, a 3 year old boy, spoke to us in English and Japanese. Truly remarkable. Again, not really able to take pictures of the kids but it was a great experience. Here is the website though: http://www.lighthouseorphans03.0rg/.

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!