Alright I’m still trying to play catch up so bare with me. I skipped China. I’ll have to get back to it. For now Im going to write about Cambodia and Vietnam. You will probably get this in chunks. Let’s start with day 1 at Vietnam port (which I actually spent in Cambodia!)
I was in Vietnam for a good 2 or 3 hours before I split for Cambodia. Oh Cambodia. Our first stop was Phnom Penh. When we landed at the airport after a 40 minute flight, it was a mad house trying to fill out my Cambodian Visa application. Yeah, picture 60 people grabbing applications and passing around like 2 pens. I didn’t even get my pen back from whoever borrowed it! Which is quite upsetting because now I’m pen-less. But I guess I was the smart one that brought one pen on the ship with me. Okay anyway, so I filled out my application when I realized I completely forgot to bring my passport pictures with me. I had like 6 extras made just for Cambodia too!! Definitely felt like an idiot for a good 2 minutes. They didn’t even need my picture apparently. Alright so I made it safely into Cambodia. I got to breathe the fresh Cambodian humidity. Yeah, it was about a thousand degrees out. I stuck to my clothes instantly. After loading up on the bus, we headed to the National Museum. I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t a huge fan of the museum just because it was like every other museum. You have to stand at a statue and read the book taped to the wall next to it so you can understand what you are looking at. I’m really just not a huge fan of museums in general. I felt like most of the statues in this museum were the same anyway. It is to my understanding that this museum is an important attraction in Phnom Penh, and I can respect that. It was kind of a boring start to our Cambodia trip. The garden was beautiful though!!
After that, we headed to the port where we took a sunset cruise on the Mekong River. It was gorgeous. I know I’m always on a boat, so it shouldn’t have been anything special, but it definitely was. First of all, the walk from the bus to board the boat was so fascinating. We had to take some steps down an embankment lined with trash and mud. There were a couple bare-footed children walking along next to us. I can’t recall any of them begging for money, but they were so cute waving at us and saying hello. It smelled horrid along that staircase. Reaching the bottom of the staircase we had to walk across a wood plank from the mud to the wooden boat. The captain kindly helped each of us on so we wouldn’t fall into the brown water of the river. The boat had 2 floors to it, and everywhere I stepped I felt I was going to fall through. We all sat on the top deck of course. The best sunset view was from up there. The seats on the top deck were super sketchy though. They were bar stools that sat taller than the railing. I felt like I could have easily fallen in. Cruising the river was way cool. We passed a number of people fishing with nets and many people just hanging out on their boats. The tour guide told us that many people live right there on their boats. We also passed many cargo ships carrying piles of sand. I later found out that the sand was being transferred so they could make concrete. There was a lot of trash floating down the Mekong River. Mainly plastic bottles and rappers, but I even saw huge garbage bags floating by. Continuing down the river, we passed by a floating village. Most of the houses looked like they were one room, and many of them were missing walls. Blankets (very dirty blankets... more like rags actually) were hung up on some of them, but mainly they were just open. Up on the embankment behind this floating village were stilt houses. They were vaulted up so there could be two stories. The bottom floor didn’t have a wall facing the river. These houses were made from scrap wood. Laundry lines were hung up along the sides of the houses. And there were many families hanging out watching the sunset. It was so incredibly hot out that none of the men and children wore shirts. They were hanging out on their hammocks shirtless just looking out at the River. It was very interesting cruising by the floating village. Apparently the other Semester at sea group that went to Cambodia got to go talk with these people living on the river. I was so jealous! That would have been absolutely amazing. Alright, so we cruised back to the port. When I say port, I really mean embankment. There are no docks. The boats just pull up to the mud lining the brown river, and they put plank out so you can get off the boat. We climbed the stairs through the stench and back to the top where there were about 20 women and young children doing jazz-ercise right there on the street. They were playing some sweet Cambodian Jazz pop music and were dancing to exercise. Of course, I (and some others) jumped in there and followed the locals’ lead. It was so much fun! We definitely got laughed at by the locals. After our quick exercise session we all jumped back on the bus and headed to the Palm Tree Orphanage. It was an adventure walking there from where the bus dropped us off. We had to walk down this dark dirt alley way (at this point it was about 7pm) and dodge mopeds and motorcycles left and right. There were families sitting outside of their small shops lining the street. Children yelled hello to us and waved, while their mothers’ laughed at them. Soon as we walked into the orphanage, I felt like I had been adopted, which is silly. There are 94 children living at this orphanage, so you can imagine it was a mad house in there! Two adorable girls came up to me and my friend Dani (Danielle) and introduced themselves. They were both 16 years old and spoke really good English! These girls were so incredibly affectionate! They grabbed our hands and showed us their home. Their classroom walls are covered in English posters of the alphabet and numbers and maps. There are no chairs in the room. They have a music room with an electric guitar and a drum set. Apparently they are starting a rock band in that little room on the 3rd floor. We were then shown their bedrooms. A couple flights up this concrete building there are 2 or 3 big empty rooms with lockers lining the walls. Each child has a locker where they can keep their belongings. When we asked where their beds were they pulled out these smalls mats and thin blankets and pointed to the ground. It was very shocking. I don’t know what I expected though. Maybe I was picturing an orphanage like from the movie “Annie”. Pff stupid me. I asked the girls about their families and if they had any pictures of them that I could see. One of the girls said she didn’t have any pictures of family, but of some of her friends yeah. She also told me that she has an older brother and he also lives at the orphanage. I didn’t get to meet him though. After seeing their bedroom, we all went and hung out in the courtyard where the children were playing games with all the SAS students. There was one little girl (maybe 4 years old) running around (really fast!!) being chased by one of the students. I swear he chased her around for like 20 minutes. It was the cutest thing ever. Looking around, I saw almost all of the children holding hands with the SAS students. One of my professors (she’s an older lady) sitting on a bench with her arms around these two little boys, and she was just talking their ears off. Another faculty member was pushing a child on the swing in the courtyard. It was just so amazing to see these children have the time of their lives hanging out with us. It was beautiful. The children are absolutely amazing, and it was so incredibly sad to say good bye to them! I wanted so much to give something to the two girls that I walked around with, but unfortunately I had nothing on me at all. So, I simply wrote down my name and email. I can’t imagine they will be able to email me, but maybe someday they will find me.
After the orphanage we headed to dinner. Semester at Sea spoiled us so much. I felt horrible going from an orphanage to this high class restaurant followed by a gorgeous hotel with incredibly comfortable beds. I don’t understand the world.
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