ORPHANAGE AND VILLAGE VISIT

This morning we left the floating hotel for a tour of the Twin Holy Mountains. Here if there is a hill that is higher than a termite mound…they call it a mountain. We saw many statues of Buddha including the great reclining Buddha – at least a replica the original is in Siem Reap.  We were told there were 60 steps – and I immediately thought oh sh** not again.  But to my utter delight – they were going down.,..thank you Buddha!   The highlight of this temple for me were all the monkeys.  What a treat - there were adults, babies and juveniles.  How wonderful to see them.  I took so many pictures.

Soon we were off to an orphanage.  We were each paired with a child who took us around to show us the area where they do some paintings for sale and make handicrafts for sale.  Basically they nourish the children, teach them to make handicrafts, educate them and then if they are good enough, they can earn 100% scholarship to collage.  The children come to this orphanage in a few different ways.  Their parents are both deceased; they only have 1 parent due to death, divorce, or abandonment; parent or parents cannot afford to care for them – perhaps due to illness.  The children seem very happy, clean and polite.  It is interesting that our guide for this part of  the journey said that the first pencil and papers he had to write with came from Unicef.  So the little Hallowe’en boxes did help.  I bought several paintings and some of the handmade sewn purses and bags.  I was able to get a photo of the child who make the item holding it.  A lovely and wonderful experience.

We returned to the ship for lunch and set sail for Chong Koh – a small village where we will have an opportunity to have a walking tour purchase some of the locally woven silks and cottons.  So as soon as we got ashore, we were bombarded by the local craftspeople wanting us to come to their display to purchase their goods.  Mostly they were all the same, but of course crafted by different households.  Every family was as deserving.  Finally I had about 4 people following me around.  Helping me navigate the muddy gumbo (we just had a heavy rainfall moments before), answering their questions about my family and my children.  Just trying to keep my attention during the walkabout in the village so that I would purchase something on the way out. 

We were able to go inside of one of the stilted houses.  It was fascinating – hardly any furniture, but a television et.  There were two kitchens one under the house and one up in the house.  During the dry season, they use the kitchen under the house, but when the waters are high, they are using the kitchen in the house.   During the day, the families spend there time living outside and under the house because it is too hot upstairs, however they do go up there to sleep.  Bathing is done in a big clay pot outside and sometimes they have an outdoor outhouse, otherwise it is …. just outdoors! 

So after our walkabout, our feet were covered in mud and now it was time to buy some wares.  I managed to buy something from each of the 4 followers and then finally gave a few $1 away to the other children.  Then back on the ship to journey down the Mekong to Phnom Penhm.