(Grace you'd be ashamed of my behavior...possibly only one 10 minute nap the whole week!)
Pics:
1.While in Cambodia's Capital, Phnom Phen, most went to the genocide musem and the Killing Fields. A few of us chose cooking school and learned to make a traditional Cambodian curry and seafood salad.
2.In our oxcart (with our boat in the background) for the ride to yet another Wat/Monastery
3.Our working Oxen
4. Our guide Pauily organizes and sponsors 50+ kids from this village (near her home town) to learn English.
Sailua ran along with us in the hopes of practicing her English and for a handout of money. She does have a sponsor for classes but according to our guide they also have to have the money for uniforms or cannot attend these classes. Teachers here are paid the least amount of money possible to the point that they have to charge their students just to make enough money to get by. I'm sure this contributes in a small way to Cambodia's rating as the most corrupt country in Asia and 3rd in the world.
I found out what sponsorship costs and took up a collection from our 12 person group and others from the cruise. Kim and I donated and I managed to gather enough to sponsor a child for a year with uniforms, books and lunches and even a little bit over that I told Pauily to use for uniforms for other kids.
5. Traditional Khmer dancing (reminded me of Thai dancing but I have since learned that this entire region was once part of the Khmer Empire so that's where it all came from originally)
6. The fancy boats used to celebrate the annual water festival in April.
7. Large Stupa (where ancestors ashes are buried)
8. Typical view of Cambodia throughout our week. ..very flat...lots of rice fields!
9. That evening in the Capital Phnom Penh, Nelson and Kim posing in front of the Bunny Bar to impress David...it would have worked better if they hadn't looked so scared of the scantily clad 'bar girls'
10. In the Wat/Monastery that the oxen took us to.
During our touring we had numerous lectures about the Buddhist vs Hindu religions because many of the places we visited were converted from one to the other and then back depending on what war was going on, leaving some trace of both many times...so a Buddhist wat or pagoda but with Kinaree on the outside or a statue of Vishnu or Brahma or Shiva as well.
11. One of the original pre Angkorian Stupas from around the year 900 that managed to survive the wars and destruction by the Khmer Rouge.
12. A typical house in this region. Most are built up on stilts because of flooding during the monsoon season and now with China damming the Mekong upstream more than half of this flat country floods if China opens the dam gates.
13. This Wat/Monastery was built higher to avoid floods
14. Joe and Kim pose for me
15. Many of them are very colorfully painted inside
16. David has an admirer who not only snuggled against him but followed us through town for quite a while..and we all hoped he put those trousers in the laundry after :)
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