Peace on Earth

It's been a 'chill' couple of weeks in Phnom Penh. We've arranged a house-swap so have a place where we can cook our own food, settle in and not have to unpack and pack every other day, and just pretty much relax and recharge after months on the road. The house is a French colonial (actually), with high ceilings, doors and windows and a spacious yard right in the center of town. We can walk to the Mekong River, take took-tuks to the market, and get delicious noodle soup for breakfast right across the street ($0.65 a bowl). Last week we dragged a potted plant from the deck into the living room and went to a local shop where we bought Christmas ornaments and decorated our 'tree'. Santa came last night and the kids were excited to find gifts under the tree and their stockings filled with candy (much to Mama's dismay).

The highlight of our time here has been the arrival of our good friends Matt and Sheila from Hawaii. Matt and Sheila have visited us in Zimbabwe, Jordan, the Matt to the UAE, and Mexico. It's so nice to be able to spend the holidays together. Matt and Sheila took a Khmer cooking class the other day with Maya and Mira and then after a long shop to the local market yesterday morning, reproduced their masterpiece (Amok - chicken, lemon grass, chilis, celery, etc) for Christmas Eve dinner last night - delicious. 

Other highlights of our time together in Cambodia's capital include a 35km bike ride through rural villages where we learned/saw how people raise silk worms and produce silk. We also visited the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide Crimes. Ahhh - what a somber and heavy experience. The site is actually a high school that was converted into a torture site during the rule of the Khmer Rouge between 1975-79 where they tortured and killed 12,000. Only 7 people who entered the doors of the school survived.

On a more positive note, tomorrow we'll take a 6-hour bus trip to Siem Reap where we'll do a 3 day bike tour of Angkor Wat and other Angkor ruins.

Today is Christmas day so on behalf of all of us - I would like to wish everyone reading this blog a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Cheers, Rob

 Fresh silk on the loam

 Getting on basic ferry across Tonle Sap

 Ferry captain

 Not a care in the world

 Nadia on way to river

 Great smile

 Beautiful Nadia relaxing after long bike ride

 Huts for rent riverside

 Child eating

 Delicious dinner "Amok" prepared by Matt

The gang

Eating is Life

Eating is life! When u take a bite of a great food, its like discovering a new universe and exploring it! Or discovering a new species. But food is best when u share with others. It brings people closer and it makes you happy. Taking Matt & Sheila for really great meals is so fun because usually at the end of every meal there is a funny fight about who pays and when Matt gets full, he gets funny!

2 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!! 

-Mira

The Important Things in Life

Friends and family.  They are the most important things in life.

Food and travel.  Those are the two things on which I will happily invest time and money.

This holiday season I am blessed and very thankful to have family, friends, food, and travel - all at the same time!

Nadia

Breakfast with Matt and Sheila, who flew from Hawaii to Cambodia to travel with us for the holidays

Lunch at the Tuol Tom-Poung Market in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Novicane

"Thanks," I mumbled, with what felt like an enormasly swollen upper lip.
I don't usually get cavities, and this was my first in atleast six years. I first noticed it one morning when I woke up in Varkala. Suddenly, there was a large hole in one of my molars. I could have sworn that my teeth were perfectly healthy the day before. Had it just happened overnight? Well, anway, that's beside the point.
This was my second dentist appointment. The first one was just for a cleaning. My first appointment was scheduled for 9:30am Monday morning. At noon, I finally sat down in the chair, and the dentist started prodding around my mouth. At the second appointment I didn't have to wait nearly as long. I think I only waited for about an hour, which is still much longer than I would have liked. The dentist pried open my mouth, and said he was going to give me a small injection, because my cavity was too close to my gums. First I felt a sharp pain just above my holy tooth, and then the needle poked into the gum bellow the tooth. As the dentist started filling in my tooth, I realized the syringe wasn't in my gum anymore. It took ages for the feeling of a shot to leave my gum.
It's impossible to describe how I felt when I left his office. How do you describe the feeling of half your face being dead, with skin hanging off the bones? The weirdest part of it all was how lopsided I felt, and how normal I really looked. I felt like my face was incredibly swollen, but it was infact the same as it always was. It felt like the whole left side of my face was hanging down, but really only my lip was slightly lower than it would usually would have been. Getting novicane at the dentist was definately one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced. As far as I know, having a numb face is the strangest sensation in the world.

Maya

Myanmar

For many years I've wanted to visit Myanmar and our recent visit to this beautiful country didn't disappoint. Yangon is a pleasant capital city with plenty of good street food, a mix of colonial architecture and Buddhist temples, lots of trees planted along the streets, and very friendly and peaceful people. We spent a couple of days in the capital before flying north to Mandalay where we took a boat trip to Mingun and climbed to the top of the massive base of a pagoda built in the 11th century. We also visited a temple with the second largest functioning bell in the world (90 tons) where the girls made friends with a couple of monks.

After Mandalay we took an all day bus to Bagan, a former center of Buddhist culture and scholarship and where hundreds or thousands of stupas and temples were built roughly 1000 years ago. The first day there, Maya and I made it to a large temple we climbed to view the sunset and to marvel at the late afternoon light reflecting off hundreds of temples spread across our view. The next day we all rented bikes and road on dirt tracks from temple to temple visiting both massive and small sites, many of which had monks praying or walking around.

From Bagan we traveled to a town in the mountains to start a 3 day trek. After a night in the town where we would start or trek (Kalaw), we awoke to pouring rain and very cold weather. Fortunately, our guide was more than happy to postpone the trek to the next day. So, we relaxed in the hill town for the day before setting out for what was now would be a two day trek. We walked through beautiful farmland and hills watching women harvest rice and chilies and men plow their fields with water buffalo. At night we sleep in a hill tribe village, only accessible by footpath through the hills, staying with a local family and well attended to by our guild Pooqua. On the second day we hiked to Inle Lake where we took a narrow wooden boat through canals and viewed the wooden houses and everyday life of people living on the lake. Amazingly, people create floating fields of crops on top of the lake by growing vegetables in soil placed on top of water hyacinth, which is very buoyant. Also, fisherman have a unique way of paddling their boat oar with their legs and use large cone shaped fishing nets/traps to catch fish. The views from the lake were impressive.

Once back in Yangon we hooked up with old friends from Amman, Jill and Rony who were ever so gracious to let us stay with them at their beautiful new apartment. It was nice to see old friend and to catch up. We also had the chance to go out to dinner in Yangon with Mira's former 5th grade teacher, Josh and his family. 

All in all, a great trip to Myanmar.  We're now just arrived in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia and equally look forward to exploring what this country has to offer.

Cheers, Rob 

With monks we met at full moon festival, Yangon

Shwedagon Pagoda

Boat trip to Mingun, Mandalay

Enjoying the cruise

Maya at massive 1000 year old monument in Mingun

Beautiful child

Unloading firewood

Stunningly beautiful Bagan

Handmade umbrellas

Monks at ancient temple

Nadia, Maya and Mira enjoying Bagan

Harvesting rice, a common sight during our trek

Farmer plowing his field

Enjoying a great day of hiking

Kids playing in village we stayed in during trek

Village woman

Long-necked hill tribe woman

Fisherman on Inle Lake