Had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. There was the usual fruit and toast with tea or coffee along with an array of hot cambodian food that all looked a bit dodgy. That didn't stop me from having the watery rice and loaded it up with chilli pickles. Mmm great way to get the metabolism going - although my mouth was burning.
Today we did some sightseeing. Our tour guide's name is Thy (pronounced Tea). We called him Mr T. He is a lovely man , very knowledgable and spoke english well. Mr T guided us through The Royal Palace. HE told us we would have tea with the King. Some of us believed this joke. The Royal Palace has traditional Khmer architecture with european influence. We weren't allowed to take photos inside the Throne Hall but it was pretty impressive. The gardens were maginificent too.
It was scorching hot, even at 8am in the morning.
By the time we went next door to the National Museum, many of us were bored. The museum was filled with hundreds of statues of buddha and the tour guide for this was difficult to understand and it took alot of effort to stand there in the heat and listen intently. A few of us branched off and found a seat and cool drink. Billy made a short appearance among the cracks of a large sandstone wall and scared one of the ladies nearby thinking he was a little rodent. Very funny !
Next sight to see was Wat Phnom, is a temple on a hill. It was featured on the Amazing Race the week before we were there. I was excited to see an elephant outside the temple. It was one i could ride but i decided to purchase banana's to feed the elephant instead. I was a bit frightened. I couldn't understand how the elephant, my friend since i was 2 years old would scare me. He was enormous and i couldn't understand how he would eat the bananas without taking my hand with it. the man with the elephant showed me where to place the bananas in the elephants trunk. Very cool....I fed an elephant bananas !!!!
We had a buffet lunch at a very big restaurant. Vicky and I had coconut milk drink - mmmm yum ! There was some confusion over the vegetarian meal. There was another girl who doesn't eat met called Kristianne (aka KA). We both decided to pick our own meal. We hadn't realised that Nak had organised something special. So fater i had a belly full of vegie noodles, the waiter brought out a smorgasboard of vegie food and put it in front of KA & I. We just looked at each other and laughed. How on earth are we going to eat all this food ? They had preepared is specially and we would offend if we didn't accept it. So we tried a little of each dish then asked the other girls to eat up. It seemed like we had been in Cambodia for a week already, But it was only day 1 of sightseeing.
In the afternoon, we visited Sunrise Chilren's Village. Tristanne from Inspired Adventures gave us the news that Geraldine Cox - Big Mum of Sunrise is diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Gerdaldine is leaving Cambodia on sunday to go to Adelaide for a double masectomy. This was devastating news and put a dampener on things. But we were told that Geraldine wants us to focus on the positive. we weren't sure if the children had been told. This meant that when we arrived, I really had to hold back the tears. I have read Geraldine's book about her life. She had so many struggles and achievemennts and is an awe inspiring woman. To know what her next challenge was just left me in admiration of her courage and determination.
Upon meeting Geraldine, I just wanted to cuddle up to those big bosoms of hers, but soon realised that she knew nothing of us but we knew intimate details of her personal life. I felt instantly as if i knew her.
It was really exciting as the bus drove through the gates to Surnise. Children were there to greet us. From the moment we got off the bus, the kids were crawling all over us, grabbing our hands, leading us the way, hugging us. It was chaotic and emotional. I'm sure i just kept smiling so that no tears would come out because it was an overwhelming welcome. Geraldine raced us around showing us the library, the children's bedrooms, the dining hall/kitchen and the sewing room.
Gerealdine told us that some of the kids have parents but can't afford to keep them. She told us of a girl who had acid burns over her body as is severely disfigured. A woman had thought that the girls mother was having an affair with her husband, and one night went to their house and while they were sleeping in the bed, threw acid over the mother and the girl. She is now a teenager.
We met a young girl called Chivorn who i'm not sure whether its brittle bones or polio that she has. Eitherway she was in crutches when we arrive but is a spritely girl that was eager to participate with us. She has thick dark curly hair, big brown eyes and huge cambodian smile. You could see she has already had many operations on her legs. Geraldine told us that when Chivorn reaches the age of 16, she has to decide of whether or not to have her legs amputated. I think is about 10 years old now and i can't imagine what is would be like to make a decision like that.
A ten year old girl named Nam grabbed hold of my hand and was not letting go as we walked from building to building. She occasionally looked at the sweat gathered between our hands and then wiped it on her clothes but continued to hold my hand. I was rather sweaty as it was so hot.
We were shuffled into the performance hall where there was a beautiful stage. The kids performed for us just as they did at the Sydney Opera House. They did the coconut dance, fishing dance, goldfish dance, peacock dance, the Tell My Why song and their national anthem. Again, i held back tears when the little boy sang the Tell My Why song. Its a powerful song designed i'm sure for marketing purposes to get into our hearts and pull those emotional strings.
We then broke off into groups to do different activities with the kids. I played tennis on their brand new tennis court. Have you ever been on a tennis court with over 40 people all with tennis racquet in hand, 200 balls flying every which way. It was crazy fun. I had Nam at my side, who had performed in the dance performance. It was clear that her strength was in dance and not sport as she missed virtually every ball. In contrast, a girl named Sreynoch was fantastic at hitting the ball. The both competed for my attention, along with some of the boys playing on the court. When i saw their behaviour, i realised that Nam had claimed me as hers. It was so hot that sweat was dripping from me just like in the Lynx ad.
Balls were flying everywhere but everyone was having fun. A little boy came up to me and took the tennis racquet out of me hands and gave me another one. When i looked down, I realised he had swapped the new tennis racquet for a crappy old one. Something as simple as a tennis racquet made me realised that i really have lived of a life of privilege. I was happy for him to have the brand new tennis racquet. It began to rain and we hoped that it would cool us off. Instead it just became hotter, more humid and stickier.
All of the Business Chicks were exhausted after only being there for a few hours, due to a combination of excitement, emotions, heat and our dreams of meeting Geraldine and the kids finally coming to fruition.
Geraldine was supposed to have dinner with us, But 3 of her best male friends and arrived from around the world to support her. She opted for a quiet night in with them. We went back to the Diamond hotel, showered and were ready for dinner at Geraldine's favourite exquisite restaurant - The Khmer Surin Restaurant. This was the best food we had so far and was a combo of curries, vegies and some crispy rice cakes with a special sauce was my favourite.
