Phnom Penh - Day 4

I'm a little behind on posting!

Monday we headed out to see the King's Palace and Silver Wat (temple), but our tuk tuk driver dropped us at a different wat because the King's Palace wasn't open, yet. Immediately we spied some puppies. Ceci began a campaign to keep the puppy while in Cambodia, but my "0% chance" pretty much shut it down.

We got talking to a monk who studied in the US and spoke English. He seemed to have quite a bit of seniority, as he teaches at nearby universities, oversees funerals and travels to train/teach, but he was totally present with us.

We asked him about meditation and, if he hadn't been on his way somewhere, he would have taken us under a tree and led us in our own meditation session, but instead he took ten minutes to teach us some basic techniques, most of which are familiar to us, but hearing them from him added a little richness. "Meditation is when your mind and body are in the same place." He meditates FOUR hours a day!

This monastery has 400 rural kids that come to get an education and be fed. They live there among the monks and are cared for until they are old enough to be on their own. In addition to puppies and kittens...

These beautiful butterflies are everywhere.

Our monk friend told us of a really good place to eat lunch, so we ventured out for another lunch adventure.

Let me pause here to say how much we love our Cotopaxi backpacks! Well, Cotopaxi in general. Geoff's good friend started Cotopaxi and hooked us up with some good deals on gear for our travels. These backpacks are SO comfortable while holding a bucketload of STUFF. Each one is uniquely designed by its factory worker in the Philippines out of spare fabric scraps.

Yesterday we saw someone walking down the sidewalk with a Cotopaxi backpack and we hollered from the tuk tuk, holding up OUR backpacks. There were happy, thumbs up and waves. It was a fun connection with a stranger. Shout out to Cotopaxi! Woot Woot!

Ok, back to lunch. What would you choose?



I cook dishes from all over the world at home, but I've discovered I am not a very adventurous eater. We went to Thai food the day before this, and it wasn't the same kind of Thai food we eat at home. I wish I would have taken pictures of the other pages of this menu, this was one of the better ones. To our delight there was a plump, roasted chicken option! The picture looked like it could have been a poster at Whole Foods! We ordered the whole chicken to share, with sides of rice. Geoff and Ceci also ordered frogs, in honor of a video our brother-in-law Davey made Geoff for Christmas, showing foods common in Cambodia.



We all gave them a try. Adele took a little self-convincing, but she did it!

Not bad, actually! 

And then our chicken came.

Wait! That is NOT what it looked like in the picture! For starters, the picture didn't include the head. Try as we might we couldn't find meat on that starving bird, and what little we did find was rubbery and chewy! I never thought I would say this, but I preferred frog to chicken! And was filled up more by it! We all left hungry.

The king's palace and grounds were beautiful.

The king doesn't have any power here, but he sure lives in style! This is his reception building, with a long carpet, lined with columns, down to a royal throne. No pictures were allowed, but it looked like what you would imagine a movie-set to look like.

The Khmer people love the lotus flower because it grows up out of dark waters into the most unbelievably beautiful flower. They have seen their own darkness in recent history, and they believe they too will blossom like the lotus. This flower at the palace reminded me of similar triumph.

The palace had buildings with old warrior gear, royal outfits and household goods, as well as their elephant seats.

Adele and I don't seem to process heat very well, and this particular day was humid and hot! Aside from nearly melting into a puddle on the pavement, it was an amazing explore.

The Thurstons picked us up from the palace and took us to an orphanage run by a Mormon woman and her grown children. They have 29 children they consider their own and run the place like a large family and home. They teach the gospel of Jesus Christ, studying the scriptures, praying and attending church. She allows them to meet with the missionaries and get baptized once they are 12-years-old, fully aware of their own choices. ALL of the children over the age of 12 have eagerly joined the church. One served a mission and is now at BYU Hawaii. Two are currently serving missions in Cambodia. The older ones are chomping at the bits to go, saving money to serve by making little handicrafts and selling them.

Children attend public school from 7-11:00 here. It is not a robust education. The children in this orphanage come home and continue their schooling in English, computers, seminary (a scripture curriculum) and other personal pursuits.

Most came from off of the streets, some came from a call saying, for example, a step-mother is going to sell her step-daughter into sex slavery, can you please take her?

We were visiting to join them for Family Home Evening, a night, once a week, set aside for the family to spend together in teaching, playing, singing and eating treats.



After going around the room introducing ourselves, a fifteen-year-old boy stood up and led the FHE (Family Home Evening). We sang a song, said a prayer together, and then three of the children shared a scripture and their thoughts about it. I was already in disbelief. These children were happy, like all Khmer children seem to be, but they were also like harmonious siblings in how they interacted, they were helpful in picking up a broom and sweeping up a mess, if needed, they were polite, confident and well-spoken, their English was quite good, their knowledge and testimony of the scriptures was incredible, and they were so full of love and light it was hard to really absorb and communicate what we were feeling in this humble little place. This was not a show for the visitors. It is just what this willing family has created. We truly felt we were standing in a holy place. If this is the future of the church in Cambodia, Cambodia is in good hands and truly will blossom as a lotus.

Here is Ya Ya (I'm sure that is not how you spell her name, but phonetically that is how it sounds). She is a daughter of the founder, and she and her husband are running the show while the mother is in the US fundraising.

The mother who started the orphanage survived the Khmer Rouge. She wants all of these children to grow and become and blossom, AND she wants them to remember their heritage, so they all learn traditional dance. They performed several numbers for us and did an amazing job!

At the end they called us up for a chicken dance.

We were quite good.

This little spot of heaven is located in a very poor area (like most areas in this country). I wondered what the neighbors think as they hear angelic singing and see how wonderful these children are. During the chicken dance many of them were standing and watching at the entrance. I'm sure it was because they thought we Americans were famous dancers...

Geoff felt a special connection to this little girl on his right, and she felt it too. She followed him around everywhere.

The Thurstons have been so hospitable. They have shown us the HEART of Phnom Penh. We got to peek into their daily life of service, which is pretty amazing. It wouldn't have been the same without them.