My 1st Entry 5 days later...ive been busy

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Greetings from Siem Reap, Cambodia...

Hi everyone, sorry its taken me so long to write but weve been BUUUUSSYYYY! Whoo what an adventure so far...unlike any I have ever had so far! Lets begin shall we...

Day 1 - 2: We left on Sept 6 thurs at 330pm from Miami to NYC-that took 3 hrs, then NYC to Frankfurt- 8 hrs, then to Singapore-12 hours, then to Cambodia- 2 hrs. So we got to Asia on Sat morning! You do the math! It wasnt as horrible as I wouldve thought. Singapore airlines is really nice. Good service, lots of food, nicely rolled warm towels to refresh us, our own movie screens with lots of entertainment and then theres AMBIEN or RESTORIL! This was magical! I slept a good few hours with that. Yes Mom & Dad, I stretched, did my ankle pumps & took my Aspirin. But I still got cankles when I got here! Estoy hecha una vieja! I need support hose already! JAJAJA

Okay, now comes the fun stuff: When we got to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the capital, we got our visas at the airport & headed to our hotel with our tour guide. Nice young woman who spoke pretty good English, but you really had to concentrate. Anyhow, what a shock. The capital is really destroyed except for a few parts. Sooo much poverty, torn up bldgs, dirt, dust, stuff everywhere, thousands of motorbikes (this is their most popular mode of transport), no traffic laws (its basically a free for all), naked children on the sidewalks, people missing limbs & burned, and very few tourists, oh and an elephant who walks along the river...so we stood out BIG TIME! 1st stop was the Central Market..what an experience. Boy these people are aggressive when they want you to buy something. And the beggars do not take NO for an answer. The 1st minute we arrived Adri got attacked by a man missing a leg & a little boy selling books and postcards. By the way, they sell Lonely Planet travel guides...$25 in the US-here they photocopy the entire book & sell it to you...very creative i tell you.

The market was HUUUUGE! They sell EVERYTHING there! And we learned quick how to bargain. It was crazy! We laugh bc now we are fighting over something costing $3 and we want it for $1...que abuso! Sometimes Im like dude its only $3 and were trying to go lower than that! Oh and they only want dollars here, no riehls. Its about 4,000 riehls for $1. Very smart! Its amazing what people need to do in order to survive here, they become quick & clever. We also went to the touristy area, Riverside & got 1 hr foot massages. The food situation is also a challenge, especially after we see animals hanging from a string in a market in 90 degree heat next to the snakes & Lord knows what else. When in doubt, stick to carbs...bread, pasta, etc.

Next day we went on a day tour to the Royal Palace, National Musuem, The Genocide Museum (Tuol Sleng S21 prison) & the Killing Fields. Whew, it was a lonnnng day! We have learned so much about Western culture & religion. 90%of Cambodians are Buddhist, 10%are Hindu. They are very complicated religions. Lots of gods, Buddhas, symbols etc. Too complicated to explain here but very interesting I must say. We went to a few temples along the way & prayed to the Buddha. Oh and my favorite...quitate los zapatos, ponte los zapatos...everytime you enter & leave a Wat (temple). These temples are amazing though, sooo many statues of Buddha in different forms, lots of gold at times, candles, and lots of incense (you would love this Dad). We lit some incense, donated money to the monks & got on the floor & prayed. You do this thing with your hands 3 times...they are in a prayer position & you touch them to your face & down to floor 3 times. We looked very believable...yeah right.

The intense part of the day was seeing the S21 prison (used to be a high school) which was one of the prisons where they kept & tortured Cambodians during 1975-1978 during the Khmer Rouge Revolution under Pol Pot (POLitical POTential). Its the only one left intact. There were over 100 prisons. It was truly a genocide. They killed 200 million Cambodians in 3 yrs, 8 months & 21 days as my tour guide put it, and for no reason..just simply bc Pol Pot wanted to empty out the capital. She actually lived through it & told us her personal story. It was very emotional & incredibly difficult to maintain my composure while she recounted all the horrible things that happened to her & her family. She is truly a SURVIVOR! She was only 8 yrs old when this happened. Luckily her & her parents survived & escaped death & imprisonment. They however, were forced to work the rice fields, move around, wear black uniforms, and lost all their possessions among many other things.
Its sickening to think that this all happened just 32 years ago and these types of things are still happening today. Im sure soon we will be visiting memorials & musuems about Darfur & the Iraq war as well.

The Killing Fields was the area where they took the prisoners to die. They would have them tied up, blindfolded & shot or beaten to death & then finally thrown into these mass graves. Well we were there, walking all over these fields where you can still see the victims clothes coming through the eroded soil. Parisa & Ana even saw some bones on the floor. People pick them up & bring them to an area where they are put. It was surreal to be there. Meanwhile you hear chanting monks in the distance through a loudspeaker. We saw many monks in their beautiful bright orange robes walking through the fields. We got the courage to have our tour guide ask if we can take a picture with them. We did. They also wanted a photo of us. These were not very traditional monks as per our guide. They have many rules but these were more laid back. You are not supposed to make eye contact with them, you cannot touch them or hand anything over to them. Very interesting indeed!

Well my friends, we are now in Siem Reap which is soooo much better. What a difference a 35 min plane ride makes. Like going from Overtown to Coral Gables. I will write later about Siem Reaps many adventures

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
SEe you soon!

Marce
xoxoxoxo

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