Kim vs. The World!

By week 2, we had settled into the village and our teaching schedule. We were slowly learning some Khmer words ("Stop fighting" and "Very Good" being the most used phrases) and also beginning to learn the children's often difficult Khmer names. (By the end of our stay, not only had we learned every single name, but also found that they were actually easy for us to say and understand!). I also started playing semi-regular volleyball games with the male staff members in the evening. Yes, that's right, after all of the many MANY beaches I visited since I left home in January, a SMALL VILLAGE IN CAMBODIA was where I finally found beach volleyball!!! Shockingly, most boys in Cambodia play volleyball, and there are nets up all over the rural areas. The staff were actually quite good and the level of play was fantastic. They all laughed when I played, as girls generally don't join them. It was fantastic... except for the fact that in the dead heat they all go...

There were so many amazing memories and experiences that we had at "The Centre", that I cannot possibly list them all here. It was a truly unique experience that we will both never forget. So that this doesn't turn into the longest blog of all time, I am going to try to list some highlights from each of the 4 weeks we were at the centre. Will try to be brief, but that's not usually my style :) As we got into the van and left Phnom Penh , we really had no idea what to expect. We drove for a while into a rural area and then found ourselves at the gates of the centre. Some curious kids ran up to the van to see us, but we got a good look around the place led by one child, Dara, who had escaped from Kindergarten class to be our personal tour guide! We were told that due to high winds, the rooms we were supposed to be in aren't available because they now had no roof! So we were shown to another building that we had all to ourselves that had 2 rooms, AC (surprisingly...

We arrived today in Phnom Penh today... so nice to be back in a " familiar "city... One that has too many people, too many motorbikes, and high pitched never ending horn honking! Like kids about to start a new grade, or adults on the eve of a new job, we are cautiously optimistic and a little apprehensive. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we start our month of volunteering at the orphanage. The driver from the orphanage was kind enough to pick us up at the airport (sign and all!) and we met Miss Yee , the director. She met us near the city office and helped us find a guest house to stay in tonight. We appreciated the help, but would have preferred a room where the window DIDN'T look out onto the reception area. haha ! After we dropped off our stuff, we went to Miss Yee's restaurant (busy lady!) for lunch. We finished off the day with Mars putting in a very impressive effort to work with the local teens at the phone shop to get a Cambodian SIM card working (if ...

Very reluctantly, we left our tubes and our ultimate chilled out days behind and headed for the "capital"of Laos, Vientiane . Now this city actually is the capital of the country, but I used quotes here because this is, by a large margin, the quietest capital city on earth. With just 600,000 people in a fairly spread out area, we arrived in Vientiane and it felt like the Laos version of, say, downtown Oakville . On a very quiet day. Alas, with a little imagination, a Lonely Planet guide, and some much needed hours of sleeping in (on horrible beds with the springs sticking out! You get what you pay for for $8/night!) we found ways to occupy ourselves for a few days. On the first night we went out for surprisingly good French food (Laos was occupied by the French) and just wandered around. On Friday, we went to the "market", which was actually an insane cluster of make shift stalls and stores crammed into a 3 level shopping plaza. I have never, in all the China To...

With our Vietnam days almost behind us, we had one last preparation to make before we head to Laos - we need US dollars. However, with the shadow of Communism still looming large in Vietnam, we quickly learned that it was against the law for any bank to change dong to dollars. Our problem was semi-solved when we were approached by 2 Japanese "business men" who needed to change their dollars into dong (also an illegal exchange). So, after meeting them on a bench across the street, we each had $100US, which we hoped was not fake. (ah, the chances one takes with bench side money transfers..) Not wanting to go into a country with few ATMs that empty handed, we wandered over to a "tourist info hut" (aka a girl talking on her cell phone near a rack of postcards and one map) by the lake in downtown Hanoi. She circled a small street on our map and sent us on our way. We assumed that there was a money exchange somewhere there not associated with a bank. Given what I wrote...

The capital city of Vietnam, Hanoi, should also be called "Hotter than the surface of the #&%^$@# sun!" Humidity is at 80% and I have never sweat so much in my life. 10 minutes outside and it looks like I just jumped in a pool! haha . Anyway, enough about that... am not complaining, simply stating the facts. Would still take traveling in the heat over the rainy TO summer any day :) After a 5am wake up call to get off the train, we went to breakfast at a place called KOTO (Know One, Teach One) that takes in street kids and trains them to be chefs or hospitality workers. The food was great! Next it was off to the tomb of Ho Chi Minh . Dress code was in full effect, and the guards " shhh'd " anyone talking inside. It was really eerie to see "Uncle Ho"... he has been preserved in his shrine and it looks like it is a live man sleeping in a glass box. Creepy!!! Although, to be honest, everyone tried to stay in there with the dead guy as long as possibl...

Be still my beating heart. Run like hell, my poor visa card. After the madness of Saigon, we traveled north to a small fishing town called Hoi An. The three square kms of the "downtown area" are world heritage listed and are known for only one thing: tailoring. Endless rows of "cloth shops" line the streets. Inside, the tailors can make you almost anything your closet desires, to your exact measurements, in any fabric you can think of, and very cheap! I had to seriously restrain myself, and given that I've still got 5 months of traveling left, I didn't really do a good job of that! With the looming, yet thankfully still distant, knowledge that at some point I will be forced to brush my hair and return to the working world... I set out to get some work "staples" made. I got the most beautiful pieces - matching pant/vest suit, 3 work tops, a pencil skirt, and a dress (ok, that one isn't for work)... all for less than $200! They fit me perfectly, ...