Wat Wat

My two weeks in Cambodia flew by.  Coming into the country, I had no idea what to expect, but I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it.  Granted, most of my time was spent either in class or in a tuk-tuk going to and from class.  For those who don’t know, a tuk-tuk (in Cambodia) is a moto with a carriage attached.  The ones we rode in had two benches facing each other.  Since there were 10 people in our group we split it five to a tuk-tuk.  It was a tight fit everyday, but hey, they were paid for by LanguageCorp so our only expenses were food and any shopping we wanted to do.

One night it started to rain super hard while we were getting ready for our welcome dinner.  Blake, Gordon and I shared a tuk-tuk and on the way all the way back across town to the restaurant, we came to a street that was under a couple feet of water…enough water to drown the engine of the moto and cause us to be stranded in the middle of an intersection while trying to make a U-turn!  A few boys watching from the sidewalk gave us a push, so thankfully I didn’t have to get out and walk through the water in my nice clothes.

As for training, we had class everyday from 9am-5pm that was broken up in four two-hour long classes with an hour for lunch.  My head hurt everyday from the crazy amount of info thrown at us for so many hours on end and the fact that we kept the room at a chilly 21°C (69 F).  When it’s pushing 90 outside, I tend to forget that so many Americans want to keep it as cold as possible inside so I should dress for that instead.

During our lunch breaks we tended to walk next door for yummy baguette sandwiches filled with a friend egg, some ground pork and sweet and sour coleslaw.  Other days we walked around the corner for fried rice and sat in a park across the street to fill the rest of the break.  However, one day we took advantage of extra time and made our way out to see the Killing Fields.

Old graves coming to the surface

The Killing Fields hold mass graves of thousands of Cambodians who were killed during the Khmer Rouge Regime between 1976-79.  You can still see some of the bones and clothes protruding from the ground, and others are housed in cases near where they were found.  During the Khmer Rouge, the cities of Cambodia were emptied and everyone was marched into the countryside and forced into peasantry.  Between executions and disease caused from being over worked, nearly 1/3 of the population, over 1.7 million people, died.  Our visit to the Killing Fields was a sobering one and I’m glad we made the time to go.

Can't wait to try it...haha

The kids won't take it off
until you buy something.

Midway through our two weeks in Phnom Pehn, we took a weekend trip to Siem Reap.  During the 8-hour drive there we stopped at a little market where I had some kids put a tarantula on my shirt and then proceeded to eat a fried one!  It’s didn’t taste all that bad, but I won’t be eating another one anytime soon….but maybe a cockroach?  Anyway, we continued to Siem Reap, grabbed some dinner and went to sleep so we could get up way too early for a sunrise tour of Angkor Wat.

At 4am the following morning, we were headed towards the main complex in the dark.  Unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy so we just stood there and watched the sky lighten behind the towers.  Around 7 we headed back to the hotel and Lizzy and I had the chance to hold a baby crocodile.  When we got back to our room, I looked out my window to see the humongous farm with thousands of crocodiles behind out hotel.  Around 9 we returned back to Angkor Wat and spent the rest of the day exploring the various complexes of this ancient capital.  My favorite was the Bayon.  This temple has a bunch of towers with a giant face bearing a serene smile on all four sides.  That night we all got dinner in downtown Siem Reap and while everyone else chose to go to bed, Blake, Lizzy and I decided to enjoy the nightlife of this touristy town.  We ended up having a great time watching girls dance with the air conditioning unit and trying to get strangers to pose with us and a chicken puppet we “borrowed” from class.

 

Our last day there we went to Beng Melea another temple complex that was sort of the trial run for Angkor Wat.  Over time, this complex was forgotten so nature has taken over and tourists are allowed to run free and explore every nook and cranny.  We climbed over so many walls and squeezed through old windows for a couple hours before returning to the bus sweaty, dirty, tired and ready to go home.

The remaining week flew by and ended in a goodbye dinner celebration.  It started with just our class on a boat with one of the trainers.  We turned it into a booze cruise and shared a few bottles of whiskey and played a few drinking games to pass the time.  This was followed up with a dinner at the owner of LanguageCorp’s restaurant with other graduates from the program.  It was fun, but I think we all had a little too much fun considering that many of us had to be ready to leave for Thailand at 7am the next morning…