We are now safely arrived in Thailand, currently staying somewhere outside of Bangkok. For those of you keeping track of the political news, we are far away from the unrest that is happening in the financial district. Pray that it does not spread, and that people have wisdom on how to deal with it all.
As for wrapping up Cambodia… we spent our last week helping fix a widow’s house. We replaced the flooring with bamboo floorboards, and built new sides and a new roof. It was definitely an experience trying to get everything in place and making it work, especially with the language barrier and the utter lack of experience in third world construction for most of us on our team. Our hammer was a hatchet, and pliers served as a nail stabilizer, nail remover, and wire cutter. We used leftover wood as a work table, and our feet as measuring tools. It was an adventure, and I pray the roof stays on and the house stays together!
We left for Siem Reap and Angkor Wat on Thursday morning. After a four hour bus ride, we arrived at an amazing guesthouse, complete with airconditioning, satellite television, wifi, real mattresses and beds, and western style toilets! I about fainted and just kept thanking the Lord for his provision. We left soon after for Angkor Wat, to buy our tickets for the next day and watch the sunset. It was weird and cool-we climbed to the top of a 1200 year old temple to watch the sunset. There were monks intermixed with heaps of tourists, and it was pretty crowded. It was a nice sunset.
After that, we went to an all you can eat buffet with a mix of traditional Khmer food and some more generic Asian food. I especially enjoyed the fried bananas. The dinner also included a show of cultural dancing, which was cool to see.
We went back to our lovely rooms and went to sleep, preparing for an early start the next day. We wanted to beat the majority of the tourists, so we left our hotel at 7am. At this point, I was already kind of sick, but praying I would get better so I could enjoy Angkor Wat, especially since I had already paid for my ticket.
We headed to Angkor Wat first, but I started to feel a little gross. We stopped to hear about the building from our tour guide, and in a matter of seconds I was on the ground, expelling the little water and pepto I had recently consumed. So, in essence, I threw up on Angkor Wat. Oops. And then threw up in another part…oops I did it again.
Long story short, I ended up spending the day in the hotel room, sick as a dog but praising the Lord for air conditioning and a clean bathroom to be sick in. I didn’t get to see much of Angkor Wat, though my teammates used my camera to capture some awesome shots.
The next day, we took a shuttle to a bus stuffed with our squadmates and our stuff, and traveled to Poipet, at the border of Cambodia and Thailand. This took about 4.5 hours. We walked across the border into Thailand and then got onto another, much nicer bus, which took us to where we are presently. That ride was around 4-5 hours as well. It was a long day of travel, but now we are here in Thailand. We made it! We are having a short debrief and then we will say good bye to our original squad leaders and begin ministry.
Blessings!
