Gabriel Adventure - Cambodia Leg (November 10-15)

Our second part of the trip was a trek to Cambodia. We had a lot of fears going into the trip - mostly about mosquitoes and our safety, but we planned well and ended up fine. I had coordinated our trip with a WONDERFUL young woman, Roath, who took us under her wing and gave us the tour of a lifetime (if anyone wants to visit Cambodia, I will get you in touch with Roath!). She and I prioritized our visit, so we could take advantage of seeing the most significant things in our short visit. Our entire stay was in the town of Siem Reap - home of Angkor Wat, Cambodia's spiritual heartland. Siem Reap is a bustling town (about a million people) with tourism as it's main source of income. We can't even begin to contrast Singapore with Siem Reap - they are of two different worlds. Although we found the conditions in Cambodia to be vastly different from the way we live, the culture and people are rich with happiness and everyone always had a smile to offer. The temples of Angkor Wat were fascinating. At times we felt like Indiana Jones during our exploring. These Buddhist and Hindu temples date back to the 9th through the 14th centuries and most of them are still in fairly good condition. It was amazing to see the details in the walls and to try to imagine how they actually built these great structures (Angkor Wat took roughly 39 years to build). Roath was very knowledgeable on the history, so it was great to learn about Cambodian history through her. We visited Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, Angkor Thom/Bayon, Banteray Srey and Preah Kahn. Personally, my favorite was Bayon - at one time it had hundreds of Buddha faces, now about 60.

The other side of our trip consisted of learning about the people in Siem Reap and in the outlying villages. We visited a Floating Village on Tonle Sap Lake - the largest lake in Cambodia. It was amazing and different to see how these people live. Evidently, it is free for the people to live on water, so that is why they choose to live there. Most families have a floating raft for houses and they use the lake water for everything (cooking, drinking, eating from, laundry, bathing, toilet and garbage bin). We saw a floating school, church, pig farm, and stores. It was incredible.

One special occasion we got to partake in was the Water Festival in Siem Reap. It is a three day festival and it brought in many people from the countryside. Truckloads of people came into town to make their "wishes" or "offerings". Roath and Sydney had a special shopping trip, where they bought floating wreaths with candles and incense for each of us. We then went to the river and made our wish floating them down the river.

Meeting handfuls of Cambodian children was also a highlight of our trip. We had brought an assortment of little toys to share with some of the kids. It was a big hit and I am glad we took the time to share. The girls were a big hit with the locals and foreigners. Their hair and cheeks got touched many times each day and they had numerous photo ops with various people. We visited the Green Gecko Project, a worthy non-profit organization whose goal is to keep the kids off the streets. They have 65 kids that they are currently seeing through their program. We were impressed with them and the girls had a great time interacting with the kids in the program. I will include a link on our blog to the Green Gecko, in case you are ever looking for a cause to contribute to.

There is much too much to write about to possibly explain our visit to Cambodia. I feel like the highlights from this visit are 1) Meeting Roath and getting the opportunity to gain first hand knowledge about the history and people of Cambodia - we really hope our paths will cross again sometime in the future 2) Seeing the temples of Angkor Wat and surrounding Siem Reap, and 3)lasting memories - our visit will forever change how our small family views life and the lives of others. I'm sure I will add more bits and pieces as I think of them, but enjoy the various pictures I chose to include in the slide show. It really was awesome.