Welcome to Siem Reap 2

DAY THREE:

On the third day but really the second day of any action going on, we hopped out of bed bright and early, had breakfast, and departed the hotel at 7am for the first 4 temples of the day. On this day, we learned a lot about the sadness within Cambodia’s history and current daily life.

During our first temple, Sokkun pulled up into a sandy driveway and a bunch of little girls started banging on the door. Sokkun didn’t say anything and it was really awkward when these sweet little girls wanted us – begged us – to buy their homemade trinkets, but there were signed everywhere saying “Don’t give money or candy to the children” so I didn’t cave. Bernard felt so bad and hated the feeling of telling kids “no thank you” and then ignoring them when they kept pestering. It reminded me of when I went to Morocco so it wasn’t super new to me, but that didn’t make it any easier.

On this day as we trekked through the majestic temples of Angkor Wat, we learned:

-       80% of people in Cambodia are farmers

-       60% of people outside of the city (Siem Reap) don’t have electricity or a toilet

-       10-20% of people go to university, but this university isn’t recognized outside of Cambodia

Then on the last day in the morning, we went to a water village and learned more heartbreaking truths about this incredible place:

-       people living in the village used surrounding water and animals for daily living needs

o   We saw lots of dogs and I told Sokkun I loved dogs, and he said in Cambodia people are afraid of dogs and only use them for protection. He then said he found it really strange and baffling that Westerners feed their dogs people food. He said that in Cambodia no one would ever do that because there are too many starving people who deserve that food… he makes a good point!

-       The life expectancy in Camobodia is 50 years old for males and 60 years old for females

-       There are many orphanages in Cambodia that are funded by foreigners

I also learned a lot about Buddhism and feel that it is a beautiful and peaceful belief system. We learned about the beef between Hindu and Buddhist religions and it was crazy the physical evidence of this – all of the Buddhas’ faces that were beautifully carved in the temple (there was thousands!) were scraped out by protesters when the religions clashed. It was really neat to see but scary to think that religious wars are so powerful and threatening.

I learned throughout my short stay in Cambodia that the people are humble and thankful for all things regardless of how little they have. I wish more people were that humble. We overheard some foreigners complaining about Cambodian food, and yes I’ll admit it isn’t as “delicious” as the Pad Thai we had eaten weeks before, but it was good and we appreciated every last morsel as the people were appreciating us and the tourism we brought to their country.

On the last day, right before check-out, I noticed one of the staff members washing the floors and I forgot something in the room but I didn’t want to step on the clean floor. She insisted that I do so and said that she wanted something to clean. She then chatted with us about where we were from and how we had been traveling for a few weeks. She sat in awe as we talked about our busy life in Shanghai and I could tell she wanted that.

At check-out, the last exchange we had with the amazing owner was that he gave us a gift – he gave Bernard and I matching scarves! We were so touched and he was so touched that we were appreciative of everything. I guess we were the smileyest people in the hotel and didn’t complain at all! You know me and Bernard…we’re always happy, so when we’re met with friendly people who go above and beyond? It’s almost too much! After shaking his hand and dorning our new scarves (you could tell Bernard was in a good mood because he actually wore the same thing as me, -- something he claims he’ll never do, at least not before the age of 85), we hopped a tuktuk (on the house!) and headed to the airport to head to Da Nang, Vietnam. Hmmmm, I hope DaNang is better than Hanoi! Here’s hoping. It’ll be hard to beat Cambodia, a beautiful, historically sad, but friendly and warm place.