Moving On

I was up early this morning, which is probably a good thing. I have to pack up and transfer to the ‘CCC Hotel’ , where I will meet up with the rest of my team later this afternoon. Taai is due to pick me up at 8 o’clock so that he and I can go to Richard‘s hotel and enjoy breakfast together. We will then spend the morning at the Odyssey Market wandering through while it is still somewhat cool. Well, theoretically 😂😂. The sun was out in force yesterday until early afternoon when monsoon rains moved in. I was both grateful and amazed at how much it brought the temperature down! But then we were all soggy.😂

It was a melancholy moment for me when the guys dropped me off in front of the National Museum to wait for my food tour. I somehow felt less safe without my security team around me. I’ve been so blessed to be in their presence the past two days, It made me feel a bit bolder and more adventurous somehow. But not adventurous enough to try the fried bugs last night on the food tour🤢😂😂😂. My host, Jackson, kept sliding a cricket onto my plate, and I kept sliding it back onto his. They even had fried mini-frogs on the pile! I was with a plucky young lady, and so I photographed her being adventurous for me. I think after 60 years of life, fried insects are some of the things I can gladly pass on💕.

As I hear the children gathering next-door for another day of school, I can’t help but think about the amazing immersion experiences we’ve had in Phnom Penh with Taai, the kind, gentle soul that took us under his care. Every time he would drop us at a museum, or memorial site, he would always point out where he would be waiting for us when we through. He never knew how long we would be, but the moment we walked out, we saw his happy, smiling face and his eager hand waving us over. What an incredible blessing he has been.

Yesterday we made a visit to the Killing Fields Museum…only one of the multiple, tragic sites of the genocide at the hand of the Khmer Rouge, which wreaked a reign of terror from 1975 to 1979. The people here have all been affected by it, and very few elderly people are in this place. Some of the team is going to go tomorrow, but it is something I wanted to do in the absence of a large group. It is difficult to comprehend the atrocities committed against other human beings. Pure evil. I was grateful that Richard was ready to leave when I was. Beyond brutal, and so very sad.

I will post a few pictures from the happier part of the day.💕Taai’s new ‘do 🤓

Street Noodles. Taai said…’make you sick, but not me.’ We passed on those😂.

National Museum.

First stop on the food tour ! I was surprised to hear that they do not use wheat here. It is not native to Cambodia, and so all of their bread items and noodles are made with either rice flour or cassava flour. Which leads to an incredibly chewy and different texture!

My phone is heating up just now, so I must be asking too much of it. I will publish this for now and post later on this evening!