Cambodia 11/5/2010

Forty-six of us met in the Union this morning to get our itineraries and head to Cambodia. After a 40 minute flight we arrived in Phnom Penh. I was so glad our group was split in half; it is much easier to tour busy cities with smaller groups. As soon as we arrived, we were off to the national museum. It was interesting, but it was a lot of the same statues, just different sizes. After the museum we headed to a sunset cruise on the Mekong River.

THE RIVER BOAT

This was rather interesting; we were able to see the city, with all the lights, from the water.  We made a big circle and then headed back to where we started. We were starving by this time, I had missed breakfast and we had a boxed lunch from the ship which was disgusting and it was 8:00 at night. We still were going to visit the Palm Tree Orphanage before dinner. This day was a bit random to say the least. I feel like Semester at Sea just wanted to fill the rest of this day up so they picked random things to do. The orphanage was by far my favorite thing that day. Right when we showed up all of the kids instantly grabbed our hands and wanted to be right by us. I loved the fact that they were not shy. They started to give us a tour of the place. These girls took us down this dark alley to get to the entrance of where the bedrooms were. We made it up the several flights of stairs and finally made it to their bedroom. It also made me really sad because I have been to tons of orphanages on this trip and all of the kids have had beds. However, this one did not. It broke my heart when the little girls showed us their rooms and there were no beds in them. 

GIRLS BEDROOM

When I asked them were they slept they showed us the tile floor.  It made me so sad; I could not believe they did not even have a mat or a cot. That would not be that expensive. One of the girls in this group could speak English pretty well. She kept trying to teach me words and phrases. She was getting so frustrated with me because I could not say them. I tried to tell her I had many years of Spanish and still cannot pronounce Spanish words. I am still in shock at what one of the Semester at Sea students said. This girl about 21 yells out, “Why are they all clinging on me?” I thought to myself are you kidding me, all they want is love and to hold your hand. They do not get that ever! It just disgusted me and I wish people like that were not here. The hour we had to visit with the kids went quickly. I would have loved to spend the whole afternoon here, instead of doing the museum and the boat ride. I love spending time with the children.
        We ate at Khmer Surin Restaurant. I am not a fan of Vietnamese food by any means, so I knew this was going to be interesting.  The restaurant had a long table set up for all 46 of us. The food was not good at all and once again I stuck to my bowl of steamed rice. Leah and Ashley had me try some of the food, but I still did not like it. Yes, dog was a choice and of course, you cannot come to Vietnam and not try it.  That is all I am saying about that! After dinner we headed to the Sunwasy hotel and checked in and I went straight to bed.

MY BED AT THE HOTEL