11/30/2009

Cambodia

I spent my Thanksgiving Holiday in Cambodia with three of my friends from my class (Maggie, Eliza and Alaina). It was an amazing four days. We flew out on Thursday and had a huge Khmer feast in honor of the holiday full of Amok, Khmer Curry and Luc Lac, three traditional Khmer dishes. It was amazing and then we went to bed and woke up the next morning at 4:30am to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat. It was amazing. The colors were beautiful and I even made a stop motion picture movie of the sun rising, which I will share with all of you. We then went all over Ankor Thom and Angkor Wat. I have always wanted to see the temples and they were even more amazing it person. The detail of the carvings and the size of the structures is really truly amazing. I even went in search of the elusive 5 headed horse and found it carved into a hidden wall on the Elephant Terrace. One of the coolest parts of our day was that we got to see the Temple that they shot Laura Croft Tomb Raider at which, had all of these amazing trees growing all over the temple and the feeling of the place was as if it were still in the jungle or still wild and it was really different and amazing. The second day we went to the temples we got a chance to see Banteay Srei which had a different architecture than the other places we went to, but it also had the most ornate carvings of any of the temples we saw. Angkor had some huge beautiful cravings, but the ones at Banteay Srei were better preserved and unique. I feel like I always had all these expectations about what seeing famous ancient structures like these would feel like. I always assumed that just by seeing these places I would feel enlightened or experienced, but for the most part I feel the same maybe a little improved, but the same. I have a lot more patience here, which will hopefully transfer to the the states and maybe I will also have more appreciation for my amazing life.

Also while we were in Siem Reap we were able to see a few graduates students from Union. Two of which I had never met before and one guy I had known briefly at Union. All of them work at a school in Cambodia called the Global Child. The school has a relationship with Union and every year Union sponsors a few graduates to go over to Cambodia for a year and teach at this school and one of the people we hung out with Jon Hill spent one year after graduation there sponsored by Union, but now he has been hired on for three years to help with the school. The concept is to take kids who work with and for their families and give them an education. The problem is that these kids have to work to support their families so the school pays them a salary to attend school. It is a great program that has 20 something students, some of which who were street children some of which just come from poor families and it takes the children who want to learn and are smart enough to learn, but can no longer continue school because there families need them. It is an amazing idea and hearing the amazing success that the school has had with some of these students warms my heart and I was thrilled to get to see what they do. The program is really giving these kids a fighting chance and several of the original group of kids have even received scholarships and gone on to the best universities in Cambodia. It was all really impressive. If anyone wants to learn more check out the website or email me. Anyway I hope to post pictures soon.

So I have 16 days left in Vietnam and then I am headed to Singapore, Bali and then get to take the most ridiculous journey home. On the 22nd I am flying from Bali to Singapore, then Singapore to Hanoi, then I have a 16 hour lay over in Hanoi before I fly to Hong Kong, then Los Angeles, then Denver and then finally on the 23rd of December I should arrive in Aspen at like 10pm. I think I worked it out to be something like 48 hours of traveling or something crazy like that. It should be fun. Anyway I love you all and I will see most of you pretty soon!!