ELEPHANTS!!!

Alright so I'm afraid this is going to be a quick and not very elaborate post because I only have an hour and a half left here in Bangkok and I have stuff I have to do!! So here's the quick, brief scoop:

I ended up spending 4 days with Brin on Phi Phi island/Phuket island on the west side of Thailand. It was SO great to see her, and we had an awesome time catching up, relaxing on the beach, and taking in a few "bückets" (crazy drink composed of local whiskey, red bull, and a can of pop) in the evenings. It was weird though, because when I first saw Brin she didn't look like what I remebered her to look like, and she said she felt the same with me! And that was only 3 months we spent a part! So I'm kinda wondering what it's going to be like seeing the rest of you that I haven't seen in a whole year!

I started a week of volunteer work on Monday the 15th up at the Elephant Nature Park, near Chiang Mai, Thailand. What an amazing place! I'll have to elaborate on it more later, but basically it's a park set up by a Thai woman to help save elephants.

My week here ended up being an exceptionally special week at the park. On the Tuesday evening, my second day at the park, a 2 day old baby elephant was brought to the park. Her mother works at a camp, and had been chained up on a hill, and the owners had not known she was pregnant. She gave birth to the baby during the night, and the baby rolled down the hill. She was brought to the park in very poor condition, and my week at the park ended up being a mixture of work to make the mom and baby more comfortable, and around-the-clock baby ele watch. All of the volunteers were resposible for watching Baby Ele over 2 hour shifts, day and night. It ended up being a VERY exhausting week, but so rewarding. My last shift with Baby Ele was 3-5am this morning, and she was actually starting to get up on her own and walk with way less support than the [previous day.

I could really write on and on about this for hours, but unforunately I have to run. For more info on the park and Baby Ele, check out the par'k's website at http://www.elephantnaturefoundation.org/

The following link goes straight to infor on Baby Ele: http://www.elephantnaturefoundation.org/go/news/entry/43

I really am still in kinda a state of shock over the experience I've had - it was utterly amazing, and I again have all of you to thank who supported me in doing volunteer work in Asia. Thank you so much!

Hard to believe, but it's less than 2 weeks and I'll be home. I'll have more stories to tell in person!

Oh and I'm taking a bus in a couple hours down to the eastern islands of Thailand, and I'll be meeting back up with Brinny - should be good times!

Love you all and can't wait to see you!

Goodbye Cambodia...Hello Thailand!

So I had my last day of volunteering on Friday the 5th, and it was quite a sad day. The 3 weeks I spent there were just enough to let myself get attached to the kids, and knowing that I probably won't see them again was hard. But I decided to make it a fun day instead of a sad one, both for them and me, so we played games and I gave them their present: a photo album of pictures I'd taken of them over the duration of my volunteering. They were absolutly tickled pink, and it wasn't until I saw their excitement that it dawned on me that these kids have probably never had a photo of themselves. So the album was a hit, and I'm glad I took the time to do it.

Saying goodbye to my older students wasn't quite as hard, but it was still sad. I was showered with all kinds of gifts, from carved wooden owls and scarves to photos and keychains. Such sweet kids and so thoughtful! One of the girls (she was a bit of a keener) also asked if she could record my voice! So I talked about my time in Cambodia while she recorded - gave me a chuckle.

After teaching I met up with Sophanit and 3 volunteers from Germany that I'd met my first week in Cambodia for supper. We ate at a place called Queen BBQ - a local hot spot that has all you can eat Cambodian style BBQ. It's kinda hard to explain what a Cambodian BBQ is like, so you'll just have to wait and see pictures!

Saturday afternoon I caught the bus to Phnom Phen, and it was a wondurfully smooth and straight, 6 hour trip. I arrived late enough that there wasn't much time to do anything, so I called it a night early and decided to start my Sunday bright and early at 6.

My first stop was to the Killing Fields - a place outside Phnom Phen where the Khmer Rouge held mass executions. Words can't possibly describe how chilling it was to be there. Thousands of women, children, and men were brought here to be killed and then buried in mass graves. Some of the graves have been dug up, while others have not. As you walk along the paths you can still see clothing poking up from the ground - it was a depressing start to a depressing day.

My next stop was the S-21 prison. A school prior to the Khmer Rouge takeover, it was converted into a prison and held captive 20,000 people, only 7 of whom walked out alive. The classrooms were converted into interrogation rooms and cells, which now hold gruesome photos of tortured prisoners and their mugshots upon arrival to the prison. Just being there is enough to make anyone sick to their stomach - the 30 year old blood stains on the floors and walls topped it off.

So that was how I spent my last day in Cambodia - not exactly what you'd call uplifting.

I caught my flight from Phnom Phen to Bangkok at 4:30, and arrived in Bangkok around 6. After a night in the airport and a 10am flight this morning, I'm now in the town of Krabi awaiting a fairy over to the island of PhiPhi where Brin is waiting for me! I got accepted to volunteer at the Elephant Nature Park for a week starting on the 15th, soI'll have about 6 days with Brin on the islands, and I'm really excited to see her!

Oh and speaking of exciting, you're never going to belive what was at the Phnom Phen airport....a Dairy Queen! I think my jaw almost hit the floor when I sw that red and white sign (for those of you who don't know, the members of my family all have a DQ addiction, and for me I've been giong through some serious whithdrawl these past 11 months!!) So I walk into the DQ and pull out all the money I have left (a measly 73 cents) to see what I can buy. To my dismay, the cheapest thing on the menu was a DQ sandwich, at 80 cents. The woman behind the counter must have seen my dismay, because she said to me " I discount for you", and then took my crumpled cash and exchanged it with a DQ sandwich. Well bless that woman's soul!! I was the happiest girl around!

Well that's all for now...just wanted to end the blog on a happy note!

An Interesting Day

Tonight I attended a talk put on by several monks about Buddism. 90% of the Cambodian population are buddists, so I figured it was about time I learned somthing about the religion. Just a few interesting tid bits:

1. It is very bad to touch a monk - especially if you are a woman.

2. Pointing your feet in the direction of a monk is considered very rude, as the feet are the lowest part of the human body.

3. Buddism is over 2000 years old.

4. Monks only eat two meals a day - breakfast and lunch. Lunch must be eaten before noon.

Sophanit attended the talk with me, and afterward took me to a local restaurant for supper. We had soup, but not any ordinary soup. This soup had pig brain in it! Suprisingly, it didn't taste that bad!

One last thing: for anyone interested in learning more about the Khmer Rouge and their take-over of Cambodian, I just finished a book called " First They Killed My Father", by Loung Ung. It was extremely good, and I highly recommend it.

Only one week left!

Believe it or not, today marks my 2nd week in Cambodia and I can hardly believe it! The time was flying by before I arrived in this country, and now with a daily schedule it's whizzing by quicker than I thought possible!

My two weeks here have been absolutely amazing. The volunteering is going really great, and it feels wonderful to know that my presense is making a difference. The kids I teach from 9-4pm are the most charming kids ever, as they greet us each morning with smiles and affection. They are such a smiley group of kids, and are so grateful that we are there to teach them. They all bow their heads and thank us when we hand them worksheets to do, and their faces light up when they are assigned homework. It's really the most bizarre thing ever. It makes me ashamed to think of how I grumble and mumble over homework, and complain about assignements and essays. It's so easy to forget how lucky we are to have good quality education available to us. I hope to return to school in January with a new outlook and attitude.

The most challenging thing thus far with the group of 13 that we have is catering to their different ages and levels. We have some kids who are very bright and pick up on things very quickly, and then we have others who struggle to read and write in Khmer, let alone english. It was managable handling this obstacle with two people, but unfortuantely Nicola left me this weekend to venture to Vietnam, so I am now flying solo. I'm hoping things will go smoothly, and I'm also hoping that the brighter kids will help teach the younger ones once they have finished their work. We'll see how it goes.

After finishing teaching the children at 4, Nicola and I had have a refreshing banana shake at our guesthouse while writing a summary of the day in the log book. Then it's off to the Wat Demnak Pagoda to teach two more classes from 5-7, which are classes focused on speaking, rather than writing.

I've really enjoyed my classes at Wat Demnak. My first group of kids are in their early to mid-teens, and like all the other kids I teach, they are very happy and enthusiastic. Their written english is all fairly good, but their speaking skills are definatley what needs the work! Cambodians have a tendancy of putting an 's' at the end of some words where it doesn't belong, and then not pronouncing it where it does belong. They also have difficulty with he 'th' sound and the 'sh' sound. I try and get them to practice making these sounds, but often all I hear is 'ssssssssssssssss'. Cambodians have a great sense of humor though, so most times we just end up laughing at how silly they sound. At the end of class I often get gifts from some of the students, such as paper bills folded into things such as hearts and flowers. I don't know how they do it, but it's really neat.

My second class is something I really look forward to. It's a group of older kids - in their late teens and early twenties - and all of them can speak english. We work out of their textbook, which is basically just different articles relating to topics and events in our western world. My job is to read the articles for them to get a sense of the pronouncation, and then they take turns reading it out loud. There's lots of slang and volcabulary in the reading that they don't understand, so I try to explain that to them as well. For example, on Friday there was an article about a teenager coming home after his curfew. First off I had to explain what a curfew was, and then I had to go into detail about how teenagers in North America are typically disciplined, and what it means to be grounded. It's really interesting discussing these types of things, because in return I get to find out how things are done differently in Cambodia. It's a culture lesson for both them and me.

By the time Nicola and I finish teaching at Wat Demnak, we're hungry and tired. We usually grab a bite to eat and then relax and go to bed. As a result I haven't had much of an oppourtunity to suss out Siem Reap, but this weekend was a free weekend so I finally got out and about.

Before Nicola left on Saturday afternoon we went to visit the Land Mine Museum. Land mines are still a major threat in Cambodia today, and there's not a day that goes by where I don't see someone walking in the street without an arm or leg. The museum was very informative and very well set up.

During my time here in Cambodia I've also had the oppourtunity of meeting a man named John Ryder, who's a dentist from the states and puts a lot of money into keeping programs like PACE (the orphanage I teach at during the day) up and running. Last week John purchased a newly built guesthouse and hopes to have people from programs associated with the Life and Hope Association run it. It will create job opportunities for the people, as well as give them experience in the tourism industry, which is becoming such a huge part of the Cambodian economy. Nicola and I were invited to go see the guesthouse, and it looked more like a 5 star hotel! It's to be named "Imagine Angkor", so for anyone going to Cambodia I'll recommend you stay there!

This last week a ceremony was held where all the kids who are a part of any program associated with the Life and Hope Association received backpacks and school uniforms. All of us volunteers were honourned guests at the ceremony, where the goods were distributed and the kids put on different cultural dances. The govenor of Siem Reap was present, which was a pretty big deal, and it was wonderful that we were able to take part.

Today was my first real day off, and I spent it cooking! A girl named Mouy who works at my guesthouse knew of my interest in cooking, so she offered to take me to her friend's house, who's a chef, to cook some traditional Khmer food. First we took a trip to the market to get all the fresh ingredients (and when I say fresh I mean FRESH! The fish were still alive when we bought them!) and then we cooked up a storm! We made a really yummy Sweet and Sour Khmer Soup, which consists of fish, pineapple, tomato, lemongrass, garlic, and numerous other delicous spices. We also had fish with a type of mango salad, which was spiced with chillies and garlic. I'm slowly becoming accoustomed to spicy food, and I really enjoyed this dish. Lastly we had fried frogs! It's not the first time I've eaten frogs - to be honest they kinda taste like chicken, and I really like them!

After eating our delicous feast it was time for dessert, which was fruit dipped in salt and chillies - something found all throughout SE Asia. Then, after cleaning everything up, it was nap time - also a big part of SE Asian cultures.

The longer I'm in Cambodia, the more I fall in love with it and it's people. There's just a real genuine quality about the people here that I can't get over. For those of you who don't know, from the years 1975-1979 the Cambodian people went through one of the world's worst genocides. A Communist Khmer group named the Khmer Rouge overthrew the Cambodian government in April of '75, and proceeded to evaculate the cities and herd all people into collective farms. All intellectuals and skilled workers were assassinated, and millions of other died from starvation and overexertion. I've read several books about what they went through in those years, and I guess that's what ceases to amaze me about these people. I often find myself staring at people who appear to be in the 30s and over, and wondering what their story is - wondering how they survived those aweful years. You'd never guess by the look on their faces that something so aweful could have happened so recently.

So tomorrow will be the start of my last week here in Siem Reap. I will finish teaching on Friday and then I plan to head to to the capital, Phnom Phen, for a few days before flying out to Bangkok. At this point I'll only have about 3 weeks left of my year adventure, and I'm undecided at this point what I will do with that time. I've applied to volunteer at an elephant orphanage outside of Chiang Mai in Thailand, so hopefully I'll get to spend a week there. I've also planned to meet up with Brin on the islands in Thailand, so hopefully I'll get to spend at least a week or so being a beach bum and soaking up as much sun as possible! I'm really starting to get excited about coming home though, and I can't wait to chat and catch up with all of you! Thanks again for tuning in, and I'll be seeing you soon!

Some interesting information...

1. Cambodia has the world's largest religous building - Ankor Wat - and we went to visit it yesterday along with several other temples. The architecture was amazing, and it absolutley blows your mind to think of how they built when they did - the 12th century. We also visited the tomb where the movie Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie was filmed. It was pretty cool, and probably my favourite.

2. Cambodia has SE Asia's largest lake - Tonle Sap.

3. It's friggin' hot here right now! The weather hovers around 35 degrees.

4. The average maximum age in Cambodia is 55.

5. The ATMs here dispense American cash.

I thought I had a longer list of facts, but I guess not! I'll post more when I remember more!

Volunteer work in Cambodia

I arrived in the Siem Reap airport around 9am on September 16th and was greeted by the Cambodian United Planet coordinator, Sophanit. From the airport I was transported to my home for the next three weeks, the Reatrey Angkor Villa, where I ended up sleeping the majority of the day. My body was absolutely exhausted from my travels in Laos, and had given me a bit of a fever as a result. My guesthouse room was the perfect place to shake it off - I was treated to air conditioning for the first time my whole trip. I also have an ensuite bathrooon, which is equally as luxurious. Thankfully after the day of rest I was back on my feet the next day.

Monday and Tuesday were basically orientation days. United Planet has partnered with a local organization called Life and Hope, which is run by monks. Life and Hope has several different programs: PACE (Program for Advancing Children Education), Food for Education, a sewing center for woman to learn sewing and english, and the CDV (Children Development Village). I was taken to all of these places and given more information about how they are operated.

Along with another volunteer from England named Nicola, I have been given the task of teaching children at PACE both english and math. PACE is set up at a house containing 14 children and a house mother and father. The children are aged 11-20, and they are either orphans or living at the PACE household because their parents are too poor to support them. With the exception of the 20 year old boy, who is an orphan and land mine victim, all of the children's english is very basic. However, they are quite clever and I see them learning from us quite quickly. The one exception is a 15 year old girl named Ra, who was just recently brought to PACE and has never been to school before in her life. It shows greatly, as her thought process is miles behind that of the other children.

Math is taught in the morning from 9-11. I had no idea where the children were at in their workbooks (which are written in Khmer), so I felt quite unprepared for the lesson. Prepared or not, it proved to be just all around difficult to teach math to kids who couldn't understand the language you were speaking to them. Yes they know their numbers, but trying to explain HOW to solve the problems was the difficult part. I was exhausted by the time 11 rolled around, and I imagine the kids felt much the same.

From 11-2 Nicola and I had our break, but because PACE is a bit of a distance from our guesthouse we ended up just staying there the whole time. Boon, the 20 year old land mine victim, ended up asking for help with his english pronuncation, so I spent some time going over his work book with him. He's a really sweet guy, and very intelligent.

From 2-4 was the afternoon english lesson, and today's lesson was on the numbers 1-20. The english was much easier to teach and the kids were a lot more enthusiastic about it.

From PACE we went straight to a Wat to help monks teach english to their students. I attended 2 one-hour classes, and found it much less exhausting than teaching the children. I was basically there to help the kids with their pronunciation. From 5-6 I had a group of teenagers, and from 6-7 I had a group of older students. Talking with the older students was lots of fun, and I really enjoyed my time with them. It'll be really nice getting to know all of them over the next 3 weeks.

Cambodia is definately the most third world out of what I've seen. On one of my orientation days Sophanit took us out to one of the villages that the Food for Education program operates in (Food for Education supplies familes with rice so they can afford to send their children to school). Many of the children in the village looked malnourished, and the housing was far from adequate. The one family has to huddle under a mat when it rains because their roof is in such bad condition. Being the rainy season, it rains almost every day. It would cost them $25 to repair the roof, and Sophanit said they'd probably never be able to afford to repair it. It just makes you feel so aweful - and thankful for what you have. $25 is just a few days spending for me, and here it would be a lifetime of saving for this family. Nicola and I both agreed that we'd like to give them the money, and the mother honestly looked like we'd just given her a million dollar lottery ticket. She rushed off to tell her husband the good news, and in a matter of minutes he was gone to go buy the materials to fix the roof. We get to go back and see the new roof in a couple of days.

I'm sure there's lots that I'm forgetting to say here, but it's getting late and the thought of tomorrow is making me think I should go get a good nights sleep. I just want to say a quick thank-you though to everyone who supported me in coming here to Cambodia. Thanks to you, more Cambodian children are being given the oppourtunity to learn english, and an impoverished family is sleeping under a solid roof.

Laos: September 4th-16th

Today marks the second last of my 13 days in Laos, and it's been a remarkable journey.

After taking a 5 hour bus from Chaing Mai to Chiang Khong (Thailand) I took the two minute boat trip across the Mekong River to the small Laos village of Huay Xai, which was an absolute ghost town.

From Huay Xai I took part in a three day ecotourism project called The Gibbon Experience. Set in the Bokeo Nature Reserve (123,000 hectares of mixed-deciduous forest), the Gibbon Experience was created to transform the local people's economy from one based on slash-and-burn farming, logging, and poaching, to one based on long term, conservation focused activity.

With the help of the local people, tree houses and a network of zip lines through the canopy of the Bokeo Nature Reserve have been established. As a participant in the project, I visited and stayed overnight in the treehouses, and spent my time zipping across the rainforest and seeing some of the most amazing sights ever! All the money from tourists such as myself is invested back into protecting the forest.

So my first day of the project started out with some serious trekking - and through lots of mud and water! Being the raining season, it was to be expected. During our trekking we passed through several villages, and they were exactly what you would picture an Asian village to look like. Heaps of children running around, the majority of them naked, stopping every now and then with curious eyes to analyze the strange looking people in their village. And of course every sort of animal imaginable roaming around at free will.

After about 6 hours of trekking we finally reached the project, and were greeted by participants from the previous day. The tree house we stayed in the first night was really amazing. It had three different levels, with 3 segregated bedrooms, a bathroom (looking down at the toilet you could see the bottom of the forest!), and even a kitchen sink with running water. The only thing not available was electricty, so once it was dark we relied on candles and card games to keep us entertained.

The next day we went zipping through the forest! The highest zip was 100m; the longest was 400m; and the highest tree house was 45m. After zipping around for the majority of the morning, which was an exhilerating experience, we did a 2 hour hike to tree house #5 (there are 6 in total - with the completion of the project they are hoping to have 12). At treehouse #5 we hung out with the local guides, ate dinner, and then played more games to amuse ourselves in the dark (our last candle ran out about an hour after sunset!).

In the morning we began the 7 hour trek back to Huay Xai. Needless to say, we were all exhausted when we got back. It had been a day of mud, rain, and leeches! However, in the three days we had known each other we'd all become good friends and we celebrated our adventure by having a few Laos beer (the Laos are very proud of their beer!) and some potent Laos Laos (a really nasty, local moonshine!)

The following morning we all went our separate ways. I took a 12 hour local bus ride from Huay Xai to a town called Pak Mong. What a journey that was, I tell ya! The bus itself looked like it would fall to shambles if it hit too big of a bump, and the number of occupants definately exceeded capacity! Just when you thought they couldnt' possible fit another person on, 5 more piled in along with another 10 sacks of rice. There wasn't even an aisle to walk down - it was all bags of rice and nuts with people sitting on top. And the music - oh god the music! A mixture of local and international, but at full volume! I was definatley regretting not having a set of earplugs.

I stayed overnight in Pak Mong and took a tuk -tuk (local transport) the next morning to a town called Nong Khiaw, and then on to another village (by boat) called Muang Ngoi Neua. Set on the banks of the Nam Ou river, Muang Ngoi Neua was absolutly stunning. The village itself is small and - being accessible only by river- there are no vehicles to be seen. There is also only electricty, run by generators, from 7-9pm. I had a little bungalow on the river with a hammock on the balcony, and it was the perfect place to unwind. Besides relaxing and wandering around the village and surrounding area, I did an afternoon of fishing with a local fisherman, which was quite enjoyable.

From Muang Ngoi Neua I headed on to Luang Prbang, which is as my guidebook describes, "...a dream location for any travel photographer. It's incredible collection of French colonial architecture, dotted with delicately decorated Buddhist wat and surrounded with emerald green mountains, is the postcard-perfect illustration of historic Indochina." My guide book didn't lie. Placed on the World Heritage list in 1995, Luang Prabang was absolutely stunning, as was the surrounding area. I ended up spending 4 days there, and during that time got to take in a local boat festival as well as 2 outstanding waterfalls. Besides stunning architecture and surrounding landscapes, Luang Prabang is also known for its night markets, which I spent every single night wandering at! All in all it was a beautiful place, and I had a hard time leaving it.

From Luang Prabang, it was another bus ride to Vang Vieng, a small town famous for it's river tubing. Unfortunately I was feeling a bit under the weather, so there was no tubing for me. That was yesterday - today I rode a bus from Vang Vieng to the capital, Vietiane, where I fly out to Siem Reap tomorrow at 4am. I'm starting to feel a bit exhausted from all the travel - I calculated that just over 30 hours out of my 12 days here have been spent on a bus or on a boat. I'm really excited to start my volunteer work in Siem Reap on Monday, and also to be settled for a few weeks - it'll be a nice treat. I'm still not exactly sure what my volunteering entails - working with children is all that I know - but I'll update you as soon as I have something to update you on!