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Published: January 9th 2012
Breakfast!
The mangoes here are amazing... be jealous!Each day here is truly a gift! Here is another thank you, to those people who donated and made this possible... I am fulling more and more in love with the people, the country, the food, EVERYTHING. After I finished last night's blog, Amy's friend, Ang, ( who is also volunteering in Siem Reap), came home. We stayed up for nearly two hours, exchanging hilarious animal stories. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard, her parent's cat, Mr Charles Darcy, sounds like a real character! After having possibly one of the best sleeps in my entire life ( the bed is somehow bigger than my own bed at home!), I woke up and had a read by the pool. Another off topic hint, if anyone is looking for a good book, "Keeping Faith" by Jodi Piccoult is spectacular! Anyway, after a delicious breakfast, we sat down once again in the meeting room, and talked about culture shock, safety and our thoughts on our trip so far. Amy gave us some great advice, which was about not comparing anything here to home, but rather immersing ourselves in the culture and becoming part of the country. When our session concluded, we had
Amazing Race
Sophie outside the gates of a temple, one of the destinations for our 'amazing race'. a couple of hours to ourselves, which I spent with my nose buried in my novel. It was such a serene two hours, I often feel like I am in paradise. We then proceeded to do some personal and team goal setting, writing down exactly what we wanted to achieve during our time here in Cambodia. Amy ( our amazing team leader!) then surprised us with our very own, AMAZING RACE! The teams you may ask? Sophie & Ellie v. Colleen & Jess.... It was on like donkey kong! We set off in a tuk-tuk to the Blue Pumpkin, where Amy debriefed us all on our mission... may the best team win! As soon as Amy gave us the word, Sophie and I were off! We rushed into the nearest tuk-tuk ( the driver almost jumping with glee at being hailed by a tourist, rather than begging for someone to have a ride!), and asked the driver if he knew where our first destination was, the office of TLC (Thats life Cambodia). He replied, "ahh yes... maybe... I think so... I find for you". Sophie and I glanced at each other wearily, though as we are both very competitive, we
Fish massage!
Sophie and I getting our feet nibbled, for only $1.00! went with the first tuk-tuk we found... BIG MISTAKE! After aimlessly driving around for about half an hour, we stopped on the side of a random dirt road, with the TLC office no where in sight! Our faithful tuk-tuk driver gave us a devastatingly sad look, indicating that he had in fact, no idea where he was going. Well, we weren't going to let this us deter us! After quickly paying our driver, we started to roam the Siem Reap streets, looking out for anything on our list. There were 22 things in total to complete, which included how to say "I love Cambodia", finding out what the current exchange rate was, seeing how many bananas you could get with 50c (eight!! ) and getting a fish massage for only $1! After running around for about two hours non-stop (an impossible feat for two teenage girls who weren't peaking in their fitness levels), we finally arrived home, an hour early! Almost hallucinating with dehydration (not really), we promptly got changed into our swimmers, and spent a glorious 30 minutes in the cool, refreshing water. Our competitors the came home, and we are still awaiting the results of our amazing race!
Day Spa
One of the MANY amazingly cheap spas in Cambodia, another destination for the race! We were then given a couple of free hours, which were spent reading... are you really surprised? After another 10 chapters had been successfully devoured, we went out to dinner at the Khmer Kitchen, a beautiful restaraunt that served traditional Khmer food... delicious! This dinner was spent with a few people from TLC, including Billy, the founder. Billy really put things into perspective for me, he was so passionate about his work.. it really is great to see that people like this exist. Billy is an Australian who has lived in Cambodia for the past five years, where he runs TLC, which helps to have justice for Cambodians, and encouragaing education and a healthy lifestyle. He was talking about how their is no juvenile justice system, and for people that know me well, know that legal studies was my favourite subject at school. To hear that juveniles are treated the exact same way as adults, and hearing that both men, children and women are kept in the same prison was appalling and shocking. There are children the age of 13-14 in the jails, this made me so upset. In Cambodia, it works the opposite way to the Australian system. They work on the system that guilty until proven innocent, and because many people can not afford to pay off the guards, there are innocent people who have spent two years in jail just waiting for a trial. They do not separate different criminals either, so they have pedophiles housed with the children.... words cannot explain how angry this makes me. I feel so passioante about making as much of a difference as I can while I am here, I will do what ever it takes!
On a lighter note, after dinner the girls (minus Sophie who was feeling very sick) went to the mall and got delicious gelato, one scoop = $1!!!!! Yes, I was in awe too! Now I am sitting once again in the deliciously warm air, typing this on Amy's laptop. I am honestly falling more and more in love with Cambodia!!! <3
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