I'm home! This is the end of the trip and this blog. Thanks for following :)

I'm going to make the most of my last week in SE Asia

Not a lot has happened since I last updated. I wish I had pictures to share, but my camera is not water proof.
Lately, we have all been eating weird. So last night, Jacquie got really hungry, and made pasta in our hot water thing, and ate it with chopsticks from a coffee mug. I ate crackers and jam, spreading it with a coffee stir. First day back at the university. We're learning Thai writing now, which seems kind of pointless...but whatever. Luckily, we haven't forgotten our Thai language. Sometimes I insert some Vietnamese, but for the most part I've been able to get around.
Yesterday we went to the Thai/Burmese border and it was creepy. There was a ravine, some bamboo fencing, and land mines, and on the other side, a Burmese soldier.

We went up to a nauvice monk training center that was really cool. They grow all their own food, build their own mud huts, and generally are self sufficient. We had a tour, talked to some people, and ate really good organic food. :)
Bob also had us stop at a unofficial Burmese refugee camp, and we sat and talked with the director for awhile. He said the droughts were making their water supply almost non existent, and the crops weren't growing very well. I didn't meet many people, just got stared at a lot there.

Home in 8 days



I've bartered in thai with a song tao driver at 2 am in Chiang Mai.
I've climbed a mountainous waterfall in Laos, and been blessed by a 100 year old Lao lady.
I've been in a taxi when it hit a motorcycle on the dangerous streets of Hanoi, Vietnam.
I've pattered through ancient ruins in Cambodia, and old Sukothai ruins in Thailand.
I've had the walking stomach in 3 of the 4 countries in SE Asia.
I've sailed on a Junk and explored caves in Halong Bay, and sang karaoke with a group of cute university students in Hanoi.
I've saw in pools in Thailand and Cambodia, and seen 3D Alice in Wonderland in Vietnam.
I've been catcalled in Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and stayed home sick in Laos.
I've meditated and been silent for 2 days in Thailand, and sang English songs with Khmer kids in Cambodia.
I've walked across the city at 4am in Chiang Mai, and watched in sun rise in Phnom Penh.
I've studied for a Thai midterm with a Thai university boy, and watched Whip It instead of studying for a Vietnamese final.
I've ridden through the mountains of Chiang Mai on a bus, and ridden through the quiet streets of Hanoi on the back of a boy's motorcycle.
I've ate too much bread in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and too much fruit in Thailand.
I've listened to Super Mash Brothers in a bus in 3 of the 4 countries, and Death Cab in 2.
I've bought 5 bracelets for a dollar from a Khmer orphan, and 1 bracelet for two dollars from a boutique in Thailand.
I've had a breakdown in Thailand and Vietnam, and missed my dog in all 4.
I've lain on the roof of a guesthouse in Thailand and stared at the mountains; ridden through caves by boat in northern Vietnam.
I've received colored pictures from a 14 year old Khmer boy in Cambodia, and prayer beads from a 18 year old Vietnamese girl in Hanoi.
...and now I'm ready to go home :)

Time stops during Songkran

It's been awhile....
Since my last post, I've come back to Thailand, via Bangkok (which went fine minus my confiscated scissors). We were here for a day or two before Songkran really got started. It's the water festival to celebrate the new year. Officially three days, in Chiang Mai, it's famous for going on for almost a week. The day before it officially began, we decided to start the festivities. We went to the Old City, bought water guns and got soaked. We quickly realized that buckets were the way to go, because there is a moat around the Old City. Thus, buy a bucket, and have a constant water supply (gross, dirty, and murky...but constant). The streets had a layer of water in them, and the cars that went around the moat moved at about 5 mph max. We met some Swiss guys who were really having fun, and teamed up with them. We threw buckets of water on everyone, and targeted the people who looked dry. It sounds mean, but it's not. Everyone's doing it, and no one is dry. People carry their money and phones in plastic bags, and stay inside if they don't want to get wet. I dropped my bucket in the moat a couple times, and Jacquie jumped in to save it, and later on Ben (one of the Swiss), saved it. The guys also had a garbage can they would fill with water and a huge super soaker. Awesome.
The downside? Moat water smells horrible, and you get hit in the face with ice cold water...a lot.
We spent five hours throwing water into song taos (red trucks people use to get around), and at motorcycles and pedestrians.
It was 5:30pm, and Hailey was like "can we go?"
I think we had left around 11am, and I wasn't even ready to go home.
At night, we go out dancing, and there is a huge influx of tourists during Songkran. We met a lot of people, and had a blast.
Unfortunately, now it's time to work on papers, and get things done. Songkran is officially over.

last day in CAMBODIA

Hailey and I with the boys we taught English. :D


Today, we went to an orphanage outside of Phnom Penh and played with orphans that have HIV/AIDS. It was a ton of fun, and a great way to spend the last day in Cambodia. Yesterday we did a little bit of shopping, and I bought a travel case made from a purple rice bag (it's really cool). Tonight, Bob is taking us to a Khmer restaurant for our last supper. Tomorrow morning, we go back to Chiang Mai, Thailand.
I come home in 17 days!

Siem Reap, Cambodia

With cool carvings inside Angkor Thom (Hailey and I)
At one of the random old temples we went to on the last day. Everyone climbed on the elephant, I took pictures from down below :D
This one is along the walkway into Angkor Thom.

I wish I could upload a ton of cool pictures...unfortunately, blogspot is difficult. (If you have facebook, check for cool Cambodia pictures in a couple days). I spent three days exploring Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm, and various other super cool places that ridiculously old. The movie Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie was shot in Ta Prohm and I have cool pictures from there. It's the temple that the French decided to leave the way they found, so it has hundred year old trees growing on top of, inside, and next to it.
Before that, we taught English to Cambodian children in Phnom Penh for four days. It was super fun. The kids were adorable, and really eager to learn. We taught them songs like "You Are My Sunshine," the "Hokey Pokey," and "If You're Happy and You Know It." :) That was one of the best parts of Cambodia. The boy I worked with the most showed up with drawings for everyone, and he gave me a super cool colored picture that he drew :D
We're back in Phnom Penh, and we leave to go back to Chiang Mai, Thailand on Sunday. In Thailand, there is a festival called "Songkran" that is a three day holiday. During those three days (and the day before and the day after), people throw water at each other. I'm not talking about the occasional water gun. Bob said that you can't go anywhere without getting soaked, and schools shut down for the festival because it's just mass chaos. I'm really excited :D I'm going to get a water gun. So we have Songkran, and then we have three days of Thai writing classes, and then we go to the beach! It's going to be awesome. I come home in 18 days!
But first, tomorrow we are playing with Cambodian orphans for a couple hours at an orphanage outside the city.

Geonocide Museum- Tuol Sleng

The brochure said:
Genocide Museum
TUOL SLENG
Former Office S.21
"Kampuchea Democratic"
19-75-1979




Hailey, walking through one of the old classrooms they divided into tiny individual cells.




2 million people were killed during that time. This was a torture and detention center.




Part of the compound in the sunlight of 2010






Afterward, we all needed alone time.The building was a school before they made it into a prison. Those tiled hallways used to have kids walking through them.
One of the prisoners painted pictures of what happened while he was there.



It used to be a school....


This was one of the hardest parts for me. Tourists wrote on the walls in the stairwells all sorts of things. None of it seemed good enough...and all of it seemed too late.
There were walls and walls of pictures of the prisoners they killed. They kept records of everything.


The worst parts I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of. But we walked into the cells where they tortured the prisoners, saw the blood stains on the tile. The compound went on forever.
Emotionally, going through that was...overwhelming. After the first five minutes I just had the Lord's prayer on repeat in my head. How else do you deal with that?



The brochure said:
Genocide Museum
TUOL SLENG
Former Office S.21
"Kampuchea Democratic"
19-75-1979





For greater things have yet to come
and greater things are still to be done here.