Written by United Planet Volunteer Valerie Mulhern about her time in Siem Reap, Cambodia
Saturday and Sunday were both temple viewing days and I must have taken about 500 pictures! I love the crazy trees the best. I’ll have to watch Tomb Raider again now that I’ve been to the place where it was filmed. Angkor really is amazing and each temple has so many hidden charms, detailed carvings, etc. It was great to spend the two days climbing all over the temple complex. One temple was still quite flooded and we had to pay a dollar to take motorbikes across to view it. The flooding has improved and so far Jen and I haven’t had any more tuk-tuks (Cambodian taxis) get stuck, forcing us to get out in lots of water to push! (That was my first day!)
Saturday night it was raining again and we weren’t really feeling like going out. So I suggested to Jen that we try to order a pizza delivery and it actually worked! Of course, we had ordered veggie with half mushrooms and got half pineapple and half ham, but a version of Hawaiian tasted good too. And we spent the night hanging out and watching movies. Jen is delaying her first year of college to volunteer, so we had a little pseudo college dorm experience going with pizza and movies in Jen’s room. Wild Saturday nights here, I tell you!
One of the best experiences I’ve had was on Sunday when we visited the orphanage. Of course, with the Sox down two games, I pulled out all the stops to try to bring them luck. I had brought a bunch of Red Sox shirts plus a plastic bat and wiffle balls (or rather Kat brought them over with her when she met me! Thanks Kat!) Since I had given them Red Sox cards last week, they at least recognized the Red Sox and when Jen and I showed up in our matching red shirts, they really liked them. It was even more awesome being able to pull out the bag of shirts for everyone! I had just enough for all the kids and the two staff working there. They were all very excited and put them right on. And they were even more excited when I pulled out the bat and balls.
I showed them copies of my old childhood baseball pictures and we took some official “Cambodia Team Red Sox” pictures. I even taught them the “Horns of Hope” for good luck
! Fortunately, the yard area wasn’t flooded anymore so we used rocks for bases and everyone joined in for our own baseball game. They grasped the basics quite well! It was just a terrific afternoon.
To read more of Val’s time in Asia check out her blog at Val’s adventures in Asia.
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