Monday, May 27 Drive to Krati

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. 













Popular posts from this blog

Thursday, May23 - Chambok

Image
We woke up at 5am, played poker and enjoyed the Chambok morning. We started with a Sok Sabai -a form of daily wellness check in. We used an Iron Cow (see below), a common mode of transportation, to get to breakfast. First, we filled our stomachs with eggs, fried rice and toast. Then, we had our 2 hour long orientation in which set some ground rules and learned about Cambodian culture. Following the orientation, we had Pum class (a vocabulary lesson by one of our guides) in which we learned common Khmer phrases such as Hello , Bye , What’s your name ? My name is __, Good morning, and Good Night.  For lunch, we had soup, vegetables and rice. We had the chance to listen to Mr. Cham-our local guide-who told us his experience with growing up in a struggling Cambodian country.  His stories were violent and gory, but still they were necessary to capture the true essence of Cambodian history. We walked to the local temple and participated in a water blessing with a monk. We learned ...
Read more

Saturday, May 25 to Phnom Penh

Image
  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?...
Read more

Tuesday, May 28 to Koh Pdao

Image
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...
Read more