Cambodia - suk sabai sai sabrok!

PHNOM PENH
After another long bus journey, we arrived in the sweltering, sprawling city, Phnom Penh. Our first stop was the famous Russian Market, Psar Toul Tom Poung. It is packed with rows and rows of trinkets, jewellery, art, clothes and food... It was fun for the first 20 min until the heat and smells forced me to step outside for a breather amongst the many tuk tuk & mototaxi drivers... who turned out to be pretty sweet guys once they accepted that "NO, for the fifth time, I do not need a ride anywhere!!" (the most said phrase during our visit to Cambodia).

Sarah joined back up with us in Phnom Penh after a visit to the coastal city of Sihanoukville! To celebrate we enjoyed a night out on the town. We were very surprised by the night life in Phnom Penh and had a great time... However, after realizing that just about every Cambodian girl in the club was a prostitute I found it hard to get past the amount of sadness & pain I could see through the dancing & boozing...

We spent a lot of time driving around the city in a tuk tuk with our favorite driver who we called Angelo . It was a great way to see the rugged, crowded city and its people. On our last day with him, Angelo very kindly pulled over and treated us to some very sweet & refreshing surgar cane from a street vendor. Thanks Angelo! We visited one of the many Pagodas in Phnom Penh, Wat Phnom, which can be recognised by a gigantic clock outside. It had the most beautiful Buddhas that I had seen so far...

Choeung Ek - A memorial filled with more than 5,000 human skulls that were left behind at the Killing Fields located near Phnom Penh. Signs were posted around the field to mark the spots where over 300 victims were detained, executed & dumped daily by the Khmer Rouge executioners during the 1975-1979 genocide...

BATTAMBANG
Rach & I continued west to the very quaint town, Battambang. We explored the countryside, following the Sangker River by bike and past many remote villages and amazing scenery on our way to Ek Phnom. Sadly, we saw many shoeless kids walking along the dirt roads on our excursion... One of these shoeless girls was hiding from the sun inside the ruined temple and she stole my heart. I wanted to steal her away and take her home with me... instead I gave her the measly 8000 Riel ($2) that she needed for a week of school...

Phare Ponleu Selpak - we went to this amazing and, from what I can see, extremely effective arts school and orphanage to see their circus performance and were blown away by the talent and passion we saw. We had dinner at the school and had the chance to meet a couple of the performers, learning their stories and the problems that Cambodian children are facing today. We returned the following day to purchase a few of the students amazing paintings and hope to be able to help this organisation in a much bigger way in the future....

SIEM REAP & The Arrival of Kirk and Cabral!

I have never been so shocked, surprised and excited to see someone in my life, until 2 of our best and wildest friends from home jumped out at us from the shadows in Siem Reap, yelling "Aye gurl, What bus you catch?!" I think Rach & I must have woke up the whole city with our shrieking. We had no idea that our friends had been planning this surprise and Sarah & Jessie had been in on it for months! You guys are amazing!! XX

Angkor Wat - One of our days was spent exploring the spectacular Ankor Wats. We learnt a lot about the history and culture from our Cambodian tour guide who, as a child, was one of the first people to start working as a vendor at the temples after the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Out of the hundreds of Apsara carvings around the Angkor Wat this was the only one smiling...

Enjoyed a Khmer cooking class at the Temple Restaurant on Bar Street.

Had a treatment by Dr. Fish after a night out.... can you guess who's feet the fish liked the most??

Chres Village School & Orphanage

One day we loaded up a tuk tuk and headed out on our way to surprise the kids at the Chres Village Orphanage with toys & food. Jess handed out photos of the kids that her boyfriend Johnny had taken during his stay at the orphanage last year... They called him Teacher Johnny and spoke about him with the brightest smiles I've ever seen. They were ecstatic when they found their face in a photo!

A group of us learned how to play with a South East Asian toy that looks like a badminton birdie with a spring at the top. Its supposed to be kicked around without touching the ground... I saw a group of people doing some pretty wicked tricks with it in a park in Vietnam. We also enjoyed some hula hooping, colouring, a failed attempt at dodge ball & later a session of very entertaining (for us mostly) karaoke.

There were 5 classrooms, one of which was turned into the girls bedroom at night. The teachers told us how they loved coming to work as the children were always so happy and eager to learn.

If your interested in learning more about this amazing orphanage go to - http://www.cambodianorphanage.org.uk/

The people in Cambodia are the most kind hearted people I've met on my travels and I have truly been touched by this amazing place...