Cambodia, Part 3

Souvenirs and Shortcuts
08.03.07

These last few days of my trip have been interesting to say the least. We spent our last day at Rapha House on Monday – it was a day of pampering for both the girls and us. The team from Indiana brought all kinds of fun makeup and hair baubles for the girls and we spent the day playing dress up. For you hardcore missionary types this might seem a tad frivolous, but the truth is that these girls all had their childhoods ripped away from them and the simple act of playing is HUGE. After that we went to the salon that some of the girls work at and had our hair and nails done. This is when I discovered that I picked up an unwanted souvenir – they found a louse in my hair! Immediately my whole scalp started itching. Lice! But what did I expect, hugging on these 60 girls who all live together? Lice are bound to be rampant. Luckily, I’ve had someone check my head every day since and it appears that my strategy of using half a bottle of hairspray to drown the little suckers has so far prevented any eggs or more bugs.


After a tearful goodbye, we left Battenbang and took a four-hour boat ride to Siem Reap. The boat was long and skinny, barely big enough to hold our group. I kept jumping up and switching sides because I was sure we were going to capsize. At one point the driver decided we should take a shortcut and the next thing I know we’re pushing our way through weeds and bushes - you couldn’t even see the water anymore! For about 45 minutes all we could see was vegetation and sky. I still don’t know how we made to our destination in one piece.


At Siem Reap we visited the temples at Angkor Wat (where Tomb Raider was filmed) and saw a spectacular sunrise. One of the temples had a monkey running around, carrying a live frog like a child would carry it’s favorite stuffed animal. This place really is amazing.



One of the trees growing on and through a temple.



Temple Monkey

Back in Phnom Penh I took advantage of the hotel’s cheap spa services while the rest of the group toured the places I had visited with Bill and Mary just the week before. My massage was very thorough - something I wasn’t expecting. Fair warning if you get a massage in Asia. Thankfully I had a female masseuse. Otherwise, Ben would be very, very unhappy with how that $15 was spent! In case you get the munchies while exploring Phnom Penh.

Oh - also, another first for me on this trip: being the one with the best sense of direction　This, my friends, is a very scary thing indeed.