Menlo Abroad- Cambodia 2024

We are currently on day 4 at Koh Pdao and loving every minute. Today we woke up at 6:00 am and went to breakfast. We did our morning check in and then changed into our swimming gear. We took a 20 minute boat ride to another island with a beach. Due to the intense current of the Mekong River, our guides set up at 10 feet radius in order to ensure our safety. Our group played three flags up, volleyball and built sand castles. Swimming in the Mekong River was refreshing and a relaxing experience for the group. Moreover, the Mekong River offered us a chance to wash off all the grit and grime of the Cambodian climate. After a quick shower, the group enjoyed a delectable lunch. Next, we enjoyed downtime with our families. We (Shailen and Aaron) are living with the village chief and are blessed with the best hammocks on the island and a spray shower. Our family consists of the village chief and all of his adorable grandsons and granddaughters who constantly quiz us on our math abilities. We d...

We started off the day checking the fishing rods we set up on the river the night before. Unfortunately, the fish outsmarted us and ate all of our bait (prohok, or fermented fish) and ultimately escaped unscathed. We made the trek up the stairs to breakfast, but before breakfast we did our morning check-in. Today's "way of the day" was a Cambodian proverb: "immature rice stalks stand erect; mature rice stalks bend over, heavy with grain." Mony explained the meaning of this proverb–young people with undue confidence stand straight and refuse to accept differing opinions or wisdom. Mature people will “bend over” out of respect, or open their minds to the knowledge of others.  We had a delicious breakfast of fried rice and pork, then headed off to cook our lunch. We each had separate roles–team fire, which kept the fire going; team leaf, who picked herbs and lettuce; team vegetable, who cut and cleaned the ingredients; and team cooking, who cooked and assembled the...

Hi parents and friends!  I hope you are all very well. Today was a doozie to say the least. We started the day early. The roosters began their cacophony at around 4:30 am, which effectively signaled the start of our day. After greeting the host family and taking our morning showers, the iron cow picked us up and drove us to the community center. Breakfast consisted of rice (crazy, I know), fried egg, a tofu-cabbage dish, and dried mango fruit roll ups (homemade). Also, coffee with condensed milk is readily available in the mornings! After breakfast we took a quick walk down the road to one of the village fisherman, who showed us his assortment of fish traps and explained how they worked, and how he made them. We asked him questions about fishing for around 45 minutes, and learned how the fish population in the Mekong has been declining due to illegal fishing with electricity. At the very end, we made our own fishing rods out of bamboo, which will come up again later. We ate lunch a...

Today we finished the second half of our journey to Koh Pdao, the community we would be calling home for the next seven days. The morning started off with a popular western breakfast: star shaped pancakes, fried eggs, bacon, butter, and toast. Menlo students are usually grateful but you’ve never seen gratitude until you keep boys away from their bacon. In the hotel, we reviewed our Khmer (pronounced k-mai) language for the homestays as the families who would be hosting us did not speak English. Pum taught us the words for family members (mother = “madai,” sister = “srai”) so we could affectionately greet our new families. Then, we embarked for Koh Pdao. After an hour bus ride, we stepped foot into the ‘Hundred Pillar Wat.’ The complex was beautiful with gorgeous gardens     marvelous murals (detailing the stories of Buddhism), and amazing architecture. Then we set sail for the highly anticipated boat ride. Unfortunately, it wasn’t all it was hyped up to be. The nausea was palp...

Today was a long bus ride day. We saw beautiful countryside on our way from Phnom Penh to Krati (pronounced kra-chay). We enjoyed a stop at a local market where some of us tried eating fried spiders and other bugs! We are staying the night in Krati before moving on to Koh Pdao island for the homestays tomorrow. We witnessed a beautiful sunset overlooking the Mekong river just before dinner on the hotel veranda. 

  Even though we have been living a lavish lifestyle in the Phnom Penh hotel, today, we embarked on the difficult aspect of Cambodian history. We went to S-21 or the Khmer Rouge prison system. We will spare you the gruesome details of how the Cambodia people were treated, but we each individually experienced the place where Cambodians were brutally tortured and killed. We each had the opportunity to listen to an audio tour of the museum and walk around on our own for a couple of hours while we processed the difficult information. Once we were done with the museum tour, we ate a delectable lunch, followed by an opportunity to meet a survivor of the Khmer Rouge. The survivors name was Arun and he was merely a child when he was forced to play propaganda music for the Khmer Rouge. After four long years of seeing his friends and teachers brutally murdered, he was sent on the front lines to fight against the Vietnamese. One day, Arun got injured in combat and he went close to the Thailan...

  We started our day with our final breakfast and final iron cow ride in Chambok. We had a special breakfast with donuts and other Cambodian pastries. Before leaving, we had another Khmer lesson learning phrases like “how much?” and Khmer numbers 1-29 (which we learned in just 2 minutes!) which proved to be very useful in the market later on! We said goodbye to our favorite Chambok guide, Mr. Cham before setting off on a 2 hr bus ride to Phnom Penh. We were glad to be back with our modern amenities and air conditioning but sad to leave the Chambok community. We checked into the hotel quickly upon arrival then immediately went to lunch, our first meal in Phnom Penh, at a local cafe.   We ate staples such as morning glory curry and ginger chicken. Then we traveled by tuk tuk and paired up in random teams of four to complete a market challenge. Each team had two hours to answer questions like “how much is 1 kilo of rice?” (2500 reils) and “What is the color of a Cambodian orange?...