Cambodia Love

Today was a great day, probably my favorite yet here in Cambodia. We went to work this morning and we were able to go with a few of the kids to see where they live. It was a pretty good distance from LRDE, especially for little kids. These little boys were so excited to show us where they lived, we followed them down backstreets and through alleyways wondering where on earth they were taking us. We ended up back behind this crazy alley and I could not even believe this is where these kids come from every morning. The floor was just mud (and who knows what else), there were flies everywhere, dogs, cats, and some weird chicken/bird mix were running around everywhere. The little huts were made of tin and fabric and that's it. So many little kids poked their heads out to see us, and some came and followed us and just wanted to be held. They live directly over this river that is without a doubt the filthiest thing I have ever seen. The water is literally black and it smells absolutely rancid. After this they took us to some other places that were a slight improvement, still just tin but at least these were a little further from the river. They wanted us to take a million pictures so we were packed in this tiny house with a dozen kids, a dozen dogs, and 60 million flies taking pictures of the kids. It really is unbelievable that anyone is allowed to live like this, Elle and I have decided to take the matter to the king. I'm sure we'll get things turned around in no time.

New paragraph (Better Jeffery?): After work we went back to the house for lunch and to chill for a bit. I finally went for a run!! Granted it was on the roof and it was 9 million degrees but it was fantastic nonetheless. I just lapped the roof about a hundred times but I'll take it. We decided to check out riverside, it's a pretty touristy area on the Mekong River. We took a tuk tuk there and just looked around and shopped for a bit. I got some cd's I have been wanting for $1.50 each, you can't beat that! We got some smoothies of course, and then got indian for dinner. It was so so good. After dinner we were walking by the river when we saw what looked like a flash mob dancing in the park. Turns out they do these dance classes every night and a million people come out and jazzercise in the park. Naturally we joined in the dancing and it was hilarious. All the people just laughed at us but it was so fun.

Tomorrow is our last day at our placement, I can't believe it's already been 2 weeks! It's a national holiday so we are having a huge "birthday party" for the kids. Since most of the kids have no idea when their actual birthdays are they are celebrating 500 kids birthdays tomorrow and all the kids are going to be at the shelter. They have been practicing a program to perform and they have 500 birthday cakes! Tomorrow we are supposed to be there from 7-7 to help get ready for the party and then to help once everyone gets there, it's supposed to be a pretty big deal! Should be fun.

On the other hand, we are getting kicked out of the volunteer house on sunday night... turns out our program only goes until the 2nd but our flights don't leave until the 4th. They have more volunteers coming on sunday and the house will be full so we have to relocate. They are suggesting we stay at a guest house, but we can get a nice hotel for $20/night so pretty sure we will be opting for air conditioning and a pool to celebrate our last night in Cambodia!

This little girl lives in this alleyway and she wouldn't let me put her down

On a happier note... Mekong River!

They have public fitness equipment in the park. Such a good idea!

We are down to our last week in Cambodia and trying to fit everything in before we leave! We got back to work on Monday and they asked us to write in a little diary for future volunteers of ideas of activities to do with the kids, skills to teach supplies to bring... and there were several entries from past volunteers which would have been very helpful to have received when we started! After looking at some of their ideas we decided to go to a local market to buy toys and books for the kids. It was by far the worst market experience ever. It was definitely not directed toward tourists and the people there were not very keen on having us for customers, which was surprising because white=money and everyone wants money... they weren't willing to bargain at all, that is if they even bothered to give us a price. We ended up getting some letter blocks, puzzles, white boards/markers (you can guess whose idea that was, I LOVE my white board!) legos, toy cars, paper, and crayons. We looked for books but they were all in Khmer, and the few that were in english made zero sense. We got out of there as fast as we could and headed back home to recover. Yesterday we took the puzzles and white boards and they were a huge success! All the kids worked on the puzzle and as soon as they were done another kid would start over. We used the white boards to teach the alphabet and help teach the kids to write their letters, numbers, simple math, and their names. I asked one of the older girls if they knew math and I just used the example 2+2 and she thought I didn't understand how to do it and was asking her to teach me. haha I got a little arithmetic lesson and I just went with it. She also taught me how to write my name in Khmer, their language is crazy! After work we decided to go to this hotel pool that is really popular with all the volunteers. It's kind of far away from the house but really nice! We swam for a bit and then hung out under the cabana sleeping and reading with our smoothies in hand. It's a difficult life we lead. We came back to the house and got ready to head out to dinner with a couple of girls from Alberta who also happen to be LDS. Cambodia is crawling with Mormons, we have seen the elders twice, sister missionaries once, and a senior couple actually came into the shelter yesterday to talk with the directors. Apparently one of our regular tuk tuk drivers is also a member but I don't know which one he is. Anyway, the four of us when to a restaurant called Friends which is a culinary school for street kids where they can come and learn a skill so they can be self sufficient. A great cause and the food was really good! Afterwards we went a got a massage and it was basically the most awkward/hilarious hour of out lives but it was really good! Today we took the paper and crayons to school and that entertained the kids for most of the morning. We stumbled upon this huge cardboard box that hadn't been opened and what was in it? A million english books! So glad we found this with only 3 days left... anyway, there was a huge book with nursery rhymes and short stories so I was reading them to the kids, and there were a couple that were songs. After I sang one of the songs he refused to let me just read them I had to sing them, so I just made up my own tune and sang through the rest of the book. Elle and I were in tears, it was hilarious. I also taught him 5 little ducks and now that's his favorite. We tried walking home yesterday and realized we were just down the street from the Russian Market which was the really awesome market we found on our first day. We decided to go back today and see what other deals we could find. We were standing out by the ATM when this little girl came up asking for money for food. We tried to point her in the direction of LRDE but she wasn't getting it. She kept patting her stomach and asking for food, we were going into a cafe for lunch so I told her to come with us to get some food. She grabbed my hand and walked with us but wouldn't come inside. She kept looking behind her, and I'm sure she would have gotten in trouble if she had stopped begging and came inside with us. The food was great, I got a really good veggie wrap and an awesome fruit smoothie. It came with 2 wraps so I got one to go and took it out to give to the little girl. We looked for her for a few minutes and finally saw her down the street. She came running back to us and I gave her the food. Hopefully she actually got to eat it and not her alcoholic father or something. We spent a couple of hours at the market and as we were waiting for our tuk tuk to leave another little girl came running up to us asking for money. It happened to be one of our favorite girls from the shelter and as soon as she realized who we were she wrapped her arms around our legs and was so excited to see us. I hate that that's her life, just begging in the streets. At least we know the kids we are with are legitimately in need and that we are hopefully doing some good.

Our Placement

Home Sweet Home

I am so bored with my workouts so I decided to spice it up with Elle's 5 inch heels!

Excited to have found something that keeps them entertained for more than 3 minutes!

This little boy would only allow singing. So funny

I wrote my name in Khmer. Impressive, I know

Siem Reap and Angkor Wat

This weekend we headed to Siem Reap to see the famous Angkor Wat temples, one of the 7 wonders of the world. We left Phnom Penh friday after work and took a 6 hour minibus ride to Siem Reap. When we got to the bus station to check in they told us we were going to be in seats 1 and 2 the seats right in front next to the driver. I was less than thrilled and seeing as how it was a 6 hour drive I figured it was worth a shot to see if they could switch our seats. Some guy ended up trading us so we got the best seats on the bus, 2 seaters with plenty of leg room! Sometimes it pays to be the obnoxious American, I know my knees appreciated it. The drive was gorgeous! Phnom Penh is so busy and crowded but the Cambodian countryside is amazing. It's just jungle, so everything is green with crazy rain storms.. i love it. We got to Siem Reap about 7:15 and they dropped us off at the Old Market. We of course got swarmed by tuk tuk drivers and we had the take us to our hotel, The Royal Empire. It was really nice, we were greeted with wet cloths and juice and we just sat on the sofa while they got us all checked in. I was so excited to have a gym and to be able to go for a run so as soon as we were settled we headed down to the gym. Biggest. Disappointment. Ever. There were 2 treadmills but one didn't even turn on the belt didn't move on the other! So I did weights and P90X and Elle did the elliptical which also didn't turn on. We went back and took our first hot shower in a week (not that we needed it to be hot) and went to bed with the AC on full blast! I turned it down to 16 degrees hoping it would take the rest of the week for me to thaw out. I got up early the next morning, worked out and we went to the buffet breakfast which was really good. Elle's dad had hired us a private tour guide and tuk tuk driver so we met him in the lobby and headed off for the temples. We went to Angkor Wat first and spent about an hour there with our guide explaining all the significance of everything and explaining what everything is. We learned a lot about Buddhism and Hinduism and it really is fascinating. You can climb to the top of Angkor Wat and look out over all the jungle but you have to have you shoulders and knees covered in order to climb the temple since it's considered sacred. I was in a tank top and shorts so I had to put on a cardigan and sweat pants in order to climb the temple. There were a ton of stairs and it was super hot but we were only up there for about 15 minutes so it wasn't too bad. After that we headed to the jungle temple where they filmed Tomb Raider. It's pretty cool, there are a ton of massive trees that have actually grown right into the temple walls. We went to another smaller temple and then went to lunch. We visited 4 or 5 other temples and the tour guide acted as our personal photographer and we had a photo shoot at each one. We spent about 7 hours at the temples and then went back to the hotel for a couple of hours and hung out by the pool and Elle got a massage. Our tour guide had arranged for us to go to this dinner and cultural show, so he picked us up again that night and took us to another hotel. It was a huge buffet dinner and the show was Cambodian dancers performing all the cultural dances, it was really fun and the food was so good! After dinner we went to the night market and did some shopping and I got a 3 dollar massage that was amazing. Pretty sure I am never coming home. We went back to our air conditioned room and fell right to sleep! This morning I work up early again for another work out and we went to the buffet breakfast. After breakfast we went to the Old Town market for more shopping. The market was huge and there was so much stuff. I have perfected my bargaining so we got some great deals. After the market it was time to say goodbye to our luxury hotel and brave the heat once again. We had our tuk tuk driver come and pick us up an hour before we were supposed to leave for Phnom Penh thinking that would be more than enough time to get to the bus station. We ended up at a bus station but we had no idea where our bus would be picking us up. We asked him and he told us to just wait and that it would be there soon, but we were supposed to be leaving in 20 minutes so I thought the bus should have been there by then. After standing around for about 5 minutes we went and found the lady who worked there and asked her where we were supposed to be. She told us that it was the wrong bus station and that we were supposed to be back at the Old Market where we had just come from. Great. Our driver was just about to pull away so we flagged him down and told him where we had to go. In his defense there are a million bus stations and even though we told him which one I don't think he could really understand us. Anyway, we head back to the old market with 10 minutes until departure time and he pulls up to this bus station but it still isn't the right one! After consulting with everyone else on the street he finally figures it out and gets to the right station at 2:10 and... the bus is gone. Fantastic. Fortunately they had just left so they came right back for us. Unfortunately we got stuck in seats 1 and 2 again right by the driver. I was lucky enough to be in the middle, and as you can imagine I was less than pleased. As soon as we started driving I started feeling sick and I spent the next two hours actively trying not to vomit in my lap. We had every language in the world being spoken in that van and there were some asian guys behind us talking as loud as possible in whatever jibberish tongue they were speaking and I don't think they took a breath for at least an hour. I tried to give them dirty looks but I couldn't get my head far enough around the head rest so they didn't get the full effect. In addition, the driver left the blinker on for the entire 6 hours. My ipod crapped out yesterday so I had nothing to listen to so I just sat there staring ahead, listening to the blinker click away. Fortunately, after 2 hours we stopped and elle traded me seats. The rest of the drive was slightly more enjoyable after I drank a sprite and got a little bit of sleep. Anyway, we are back in Phnom Penh now ready for another exciting week of work!

The echo chamber. If you pound on your chest Buddha gives you good luck.

At the top of Angkor Wat

A real live moat!

The Jungle Temple

See all the faces carved in stone?

My favorite part, the moat

Day 2

Today was our second day at our placement, we basically just played with the kids all day. I'm not really sure what our role is supposed to be there, they have local volunteers that help a lot and already know the routine so I kind of feel more in the way than anything. I know we are supposed to be helping with their english and help them be conversational but the kids know zero english so we don't have much to work with. The kids are really cute though and they love to play with us so it's still fun, I just wish we were contributing more. After placement we came back to the hostel and just hung out, worked out, slept, read... we hung out up on the roof all afternoon, the weather was SO nice! Not too hot, and there was a nice breeze, there were even a few moments when I almost thought that wearing a cardigan wouldn't kill me. We just had dinner with everyone, more rice and veggies. It's always good, but I could stand to have a little more variety, all the carbs are killing me! Oh, best news of the day! I found a scale at the shelter today and according to that I have lost a few pounds, surprising because of all the rice we eat, not surprising because of how much I sweat! I know, I'm obsessed but it did make me feel better. Anyway, that's about it for today. We are planning a trip to Angkor Wat this weekend, a must see in Cambodia so we will be leaving the hostel for a couple of nights and we may or may not have booked another luxury hotel... complete with AC and a gym hooray! It's a 6 hour bus ride to get there so we will leave Friday afternoon after work and stay there Friday and Saturday night and come back Sunday night.

The kids LOVE playing with our hair

hahah these kids wear the best clothes. his shirt says "I could be your daughter"

It's a wonder these kids don't speak better English...  

Les Restaurant des Infants

Today was our first day at our placement! We were supposed to go this afternoon after orientation but the guy asked if we would be ok going at 10 so we went this morning for a few hours. We took a tuk tuk, which was about a 10 minute ride to our placement. It's a shelter where homeless kids and kids from very poor families can go and eat breakfast and lunch, take a shower, get a hair cut, play games, watch movies and we also help them with their homework and their english. Talking to the lady that runs it, she said they feed 200-400 kids every day so it can get a little crazy. We were there when all the kids got out of school and they all came for lunch. We were running around making and serving their food and then afterwards we just met the kids and played with them. Remember the picture of the little beggar boy from my last post? He and his sister were there, and his mom and her 2 other tiny kids. One of them is probably 2 years old and the other is just a few months. It's good to see that they are being at least somewhat taken care of, and this place is providing for people who really need it. The mom was there trying to feed the little one while holding the babe so I held the babe while she ate and it was just about the cutest thing ever. I have no idea if it was a boy or girl, I do know that it wasn't wearing a diaper though which made me a little bit nervous. We took a tuk tuk back home and had lunch and then we were free for the day. We decided to go to the central market which we had heard was even better than the first market we went to. We got ourselves another tuk tuk and rode about 30 minutes to the central market. It was enormous, soo much stuff. I got a dress for $3, a cardigan for $3, earrings for $1 and the best purchase of the day... A FAN!! It was $11 but no one was willing to go any lower. We went around to like 5 different people selling fans and by the end of it, the fan people were not our friends. They were starting at ridiculous prices, like $25-$35 and then we would counter that with an offer of like $7. One guy told us to go to China and another lady yelled at us "What is wrong with you!?" But in the end we were victorious and we left with our fan, which has made the inferno that is our room slightly more tolerable. As we were leaving the market we were approached by a tuk tuk driver, so we gave him the address to our hostel and were bargaining a price when seriously 10 other guys came up and surrounded us, all wanting us to take their tuk tuks. They told us $5 but I was sticking with $3, then one guy just picked up the fan and took off! That was his ploy to get us to take his tuk tuk, but I wasn't about to let that thing go so I went after him. He was just kidding and all 20 of them just sat and laughed and laughed. I guess it was funny, but it wouldn't have been if he really would have taken our fan. Finally the first guy agree to $3 so we loaded into the tuk tuk and headed home. We just hung out the rest of the day, and now we are booking our trip to Angkor Wat this weekend!

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This little guy instantly loved us. So cute

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In the tuk tuk, holding on tight to our fan!

We made it to Cambodia! Getting here worked out quite seamlessly, no problems at all. We spent out last day in Phuket on Patong beach which actually turned out to be really nice. We had breakfast at this cute little restaurant by our hotel and then headed to the beach. We rented jet skis which were ridiculously over-priced but we didn't know what else we were going to do and it looked fun so.. why not. We each got our own and off we went into the ocean! It was slightly terrifying and I just about bucked myself off a few times but it was pretty fun. After that we went back to the hotel and got cleaned up and then headed back to the beach. It was only about a 5 minute walk from our hotel so that worked out nicely. We hung out there all afternoon, then took the round about way back to our hotel and looked at more shops that we hadn't seen yet. Once we got back we just packed and went to bed for our flight the next day. I woke up the next morning at 5:45 to get a run in before our flight. On our walk the night before we had asked a taxi driver how much it was to the airport and he gave us a better price than the hotel so we just agreed to meet him in the lobby the next morning at 8. We came down to check out at 8:02 and there he was waiting for us. We got to the airport in good time, got checked in, and waited for our flight. It's only about  an hour and a half from Phuket to Bangkok so the flight wasn't bad. We got to Bangkok about 12:00 and our flight out to Phnom Penh wasn't until 5:30 so we just hung out at the airport. Our flight into Cambodia was super short too, only about an hour and a half.  We found our bags and went out to find our driver. There were a million people out there with a million signs but we found ours right away. They loaded our stuff into the tuk tuk and we headed to the volunteer hostel. I really couldn't believe what I saw on the way here. Having been in Africa and India I have seen poverty but for some reason this seemed different. Homeless people cover the streets, and the homes we did see were tiny little holes in the wall, literally. Everything is falling apart, kids run in the streets, like tiny little kids just wandering around alone... how anyone survives childhood here is beyond me. We were driving through this little shanty neighborhood in the heart of the ghetto when our driver stops and says we had arrived at our hostel. We were less than thrilled but what could we do? We got up to our room and as soon as they closed the door we just busted up. What had we gotten ourselves into! We looked around the room and our bathroom which is more than humble... but the best part is.. no air conditioning. Just a little fan that blows the hot air around. I had a little bit of an inner freak out but that passed and now all is well. We finally fell asleep, and I woke up probably every hour trying to get comfortable in the heat. We woke up early and did a P90X cardio which I brought with me and by the end of it there was literally a puddle of sweat on the floor. We got ready in our tiny little shower, which has no hot water (not that we would need it anyway) and went upstairs to the roof for orientation. They went over all the basic rules, history of Cambodia, and then we had a Khmer language lesson. Elle and I are naturals, and we now speak Thai and Khmer fluently. We had lunch with the group which was really good, rice and lots of veggies so I can skip the meat option. After lunch we loaded into a giant van/bus and they took us on a tour of the city. It's so crazy, just like 10 minutes away the city is beautiful, it sits on the Mekong River and it's clean and so green, you would never know you were in the same place. They took us to the Khmer Rouge genocide museum which was really interesting. The tour was a little long, and of course really hot but it was really interesting to learn about. They took us to a prison where 20,000 people were killed and only 7 survived. 2 of the survivors were actually there and we got to meet them and take pictures (and buy their books). After that they took us to the Russian Market and it was AMAZING!! I was in heaven. They had such good stuff for ridiculous prices. For example, I bought a victorias secret sweater with the tag still on it ($46.50 in the states) and I got it for 5 bucks. I got two more shirts for $2 each. I also found the exact pair of pants I bought at the Gap 2 weeks ago. The exact pair! We will definitely be going back, and I guess there is another market that is even better with cheaper prices. I also got a giant bottle of water and 2 diet cokes for $1.50. I love this place! The people are so nice, and don't hound you down like they did in Thailand. And the best part, they will actually bargain with you! In Thailand they all had set prices and would just let you walk away instead of coming down on the price. After shopping, we came back to the hostel and hung out for a bit until the welcome BBQ. The food was SO good! Again, a ton of veggie dishes so I don't have to worry about that. Tomorrow we finish orientation in the morning and then we go to our placements in the afternoon. Should be interesting!

SO excited about our new lodging

Our super modern bathroom

Number 5 will be particularly difficult to follow

The first stop on our city tour... a swimming pool? 

One of only 7 survivors of S-21,  a Khmer Rouge prison

Poor little beggar boy

My steal of a deal sweatshirt! 

Phuket

Okay okay mom... here we go. So we left Bangkok early wednesday morning to catch our flight to Phuket. It was pretty uneventful we took a taxi to the airport and got all checked in with about an hour to spare. The flight to Phuket was nice, only about hour and a half and we flew over all the different islands. When we landed we were expecting to take a taxi to our hotel which we were told would cost about 500 baht (about 15 dollars) but when we came out we saw that we could take a minibus for only 150 baht. So we bought our ticket and when out to wait. Waiting for the same minibus was this older Belgian guy who has traveled all over the world and he was telling us some good places to eat and things to do in Phuket. After about 15 minutes he went and asked the people how much longer it was going to be. They told us they had to wait until they had 6-8 people to make the trip so they were waiting for other flights to come in. Great. So we continued to wait and in the mean time, this guy in his late 20's from seattle joined our group. After about 45 minutes we were over it, so these two guys went and bargained us a taxi, got us refunds and all 4 of us and our luggage piled into this little taxi. Turns out all of our hotels were within 5 minutes of each other and it only cost us 200 baht! Our hotel is the Centra Ashlee on Patong beach and it is really nice. Patong however is not my favorite. All the reviews and guide books said Patong was really touristy and was like the party beach so we thought it would be fun... not so much. It is lined with all the shops and all of the irritating people inside the shops, you can't even look inside without one of them beckoning you inside, and if you do go inside they are right behind you handing you things within one second. So we braved Patong our first day and we went to this shopping center which looks like it could be anywhere in the states it is super nice. It rained all day, like torrential downpour, so we avoided the beach. We were so exhausted from Bangkok and all our traveling that we literally slept ALL day. We got back to our room at 4:30 and slept until 9. Then woke up for like 20 minutes and slept the rest of the night! The next day we woke up well rested and went to book an elephant trek. A lot of these treks and tours come with 3 or 4 additional activities like monkey caves and snake shows that we have no interest in, all we wanted was the elephants. So we found one for a good price and we booked it. That afternoon the guy came to pick us up in his tuk tuk and off we went. This elephant trek was like 20 minutes away on Karon beach which is so so pretty. We decided that we would have to visit Karon since Patong was not so nice. We got to the place, and they loaded us onto our elephants and off we went! It was in this jungle/rain forest and it was really cool. The guy driving our elephant was really nice, and funny and we could almost understand him! About half way through he got off and let Elle and I drive the rest of the way! In the beginning we were in the little seats on it's back but by the end we were riding in bareback which was awesome but I was so hot and sweaty that when it went downhill I thought for sure I was just going to slide right off. The rest of the day was pretty chill we just hung out, looked around, and I fell asleep at like 6. I don't know why but I am banking like 15 hours of sleep a day! Yesterday, we decided to make our trek to Karon beach. The tuk tuks are the only ones approved to transport between beaches so they can charge ridiculous prices. They wanted 500 baht to take us to Karon beach so we decided to walk. We asked all the front desk people how far it would be to walk and they just laughed and were like oh no, very far, very far... whatever, they were just trying to get us to buy their taxi, or they just thought we were lazy americans that didn't want to walk. Wrong. It was very very far. But we didn't know that yet so off we went. The first 2 miles or so were straight uphill, literally, and keep in mind it is like 95 degrees and so so humid. After about 4 miles we came to a beach and it was so so pretty. But we couldn't figure out how to get down to it. We saw an entrance that was literally like through someone's house and of course all the people that lived there were sitting there staring at us. But it was either that or another enormous hill so we just went for it. Just walked right through their yard and to the beach. We were the only ones there (because everyone else could read the no trespassing signs) but that's ok. It was a beach resort, and we blended right in. We ate lunch there and I discovered these amazing pina colada smoothies (I may or may not have had 5...) and just hung out at the beach. We had literally sat down for 3 seconds and the worker boys were there telling us we had to pay for the chairs. They let us have 20 minutes free and after that we decided to venture over to the other side of the beach. We went to the front desk to ask for directions and this is when they showed us the map of where we were. We weren't even half way to Karon beach! I thought for sure we had made it but we were barely off of Patong. We hired a taxi to take us the rest of the way. The beach was nice and we just hung out by the beach, got a couple more smoothies and just relaxed. It rained once and we hid under our umbrella til it stopped. The second time though we decided that was enough and we snagged a taxi back to Patong. We got ready and looked around at the shops, went to dinner, and I was asleep by 9! It's an exciting life I lead. We were going to take a tour out to one of the islands today but they are so expensive and they are all laced with monkey caves and fish watching and we're not really into that, so instead I think we are going to hit up the weekend market and I am going parasailing! We leave early tomorrow morning and head back to Bangkok for our flight out to Cambodia.