Cambodia, our home away from home

It's been 4 days since my last post but it feels more like 4 weeks. Everyday in Cambodia is filled with surprise and adventure (both good and bad) but one thing that remains constant is the welcoming feel we've received from the family we never knew we had. When I meet a, new to me relative, they tell me his or her Cambodian name and relation which I invariably forget before they finish their sentence. One day I'll get my wife to sit down and map them all out on a family tree but for now I just nod and smile. They always seem happy to see us, especially Sophie because at 5 she's still cute as a button, and they always give us delicious food to eat. That being said, our initial moments on Cambodian soil did not start well. As we greeted Kung Kung at the airport, our initial excitment quickly wore off as we realized we were waiting for a suitcase that would never arrive. That's right, the airline lost Juliette's suitcase. On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the best case scenerio), losing Juliette's suitcase is a 3. She's big for a 10 year old but by Cambodian standards she's still adult size. Our initial impressions of Cambodia were from the back of a car/truck stuck in rush hour traffic for over an hour. The road was crawling with hundreds of bikes and mopeds with the odd car/truck thrown into the mix to make things just a little extra scary. Driving in this country is a sport that requires maximum attention at all times to ensure you don't hit a family of 4 on their way home from the market. That night we ate seafood in a nice restaurant. The food was great except the kids had issues taking their own heads off the shrimps and rock lobsters (which looked like giant shrimp). We were also introduced to the darker side of Cambodia when a squad of kids, 4-7 years old, came in to beg for money. They were kept in bare feet wore dirty old clothes and were trained to look sad. When they left, it was by moped, 4 to a seat along with their "guadian". I don't know if they were well treated or where the money they received went to but all I could think of were the child beggards in Slumdog millionaire. The next day we had an amazing breakfast which included Chinese, Cambodian and Western food before taking off in a air conditioned private van for the Northern Hub of Battambang. The highlight of the 5 hour treck was a visit to a country market. The market occupied the space of a football field and contained roughly 200 stalls attended by 1000 people. This wasn't even the biggest market in the province all 3 kids were intimidated by the sheer numbers of stange food (raw and cooked), people and goods for sale down the kilometers of dark and dirty alleys. We later arrived at another family house which was located behind their store that sold alters for homes. Again they fed us and found us a hotel for the night. The kids are getting used to the look and feel of the stores, markets and new family members. When they are in the car, they are either looking out the window or playing games/watching movies on the iTouch. We spent the next day at a family engagement party where two young people (I guess we were related to the girl) were celebrating their upcoming nuptuals with a big family banquet behind their modest house. Considering the length of the event, I was a bid worried by how long the kids would last but then we discovered a fenced off slab of concrete and a thriving rollerblade rental business next door to the party location. What a score! Juliette, Nick and I all tried it for a bit but Nick was the only one that lasted for hours in the heat and the imperfectly fitting over-used blades. Nick was exhausted from the exertion and I'm sure the exercise contributed to his short but scary as hell middle of the night asthma attack. The next day started off badly and quickly got much worse (at least for me). I was incredibly ill (we suspect it was palm juice) and I spent the entire day, weak as a baby, on a bed in an air conditioned room. The kids spent some of their time keeping me company either because they love me or because they loved the air conditioned room I was layed up in (it was the only one in the house). Luckily for everyone in our party, my illness, as bad as it felt, was a 24hr thing and I quickly rebouded for a boat ride on a man made lake filled with water lilies, a ride up a mountain to visit a temple with a killing hole used during the reign of terror by the Kmer Rouge, a trip to a Crocodile farm that contained over three hundred crocs in the space of a hotel swimming pool and trip to a cetury old temple site (a preview to the real deal at Angkor Wat). The kids are taking everything in stride and are being good sports about the boring walks and family visits but truth be told they are enjoying the hotel pool the most.