This past weekend I celebrated my 28th birthday. It was my golden birthday as some would call it. This was the first birthday I've spent out of the country. And the only birthday so far that I've spent exploring a wonder of the world. The five of us woke up at 4:30am to go watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. I've always been interested in old, historical stuff, especially when I've got a camera in hand, so I was excited to enjoy 12th century temple ruins on my birthday. It was such a beautiful place. I can't imagine the time and effort that it took for something like that to be built. It was a fun morning of exploring.
After having our fill of Angkor Wat, my team had an afternoon of surprises for me. They know me way too well and had dessert planned for not just before dinner, but also after. First dessert was ice cream from Blue Pumpkin, a great little cafe we've been enjoying in Cambodia that has amazing ice cream. Then we headed off to our dinner reservations. I knew that dinner was in the plan, but I had no clue that we'd be cooking our own dinner. Upon arriving, we were given aprons and hats and put to work chopping, peeling, and sauteeing. We got to pick whatever we wanted to cook off the menu, all traditional Khmer food. I wanted to try something exotic, but not so over the top that I wouldn't like it. So I chose banana flower salad and Khmer chicken with coconut milk, palm sugar, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, peanuts, and bok choy. It was delicious! I enjoyed sampling what everyone else cooked too (I've got a team of great chefs!), like spring rolls, soup, stir fries, and grilled crocodile and ostrich. We ended up having to give food away because we had made so much!
It wouldn't be a birthday without cake, and my team went all out even with that. Although, this happened to be the first cake that couldn't fit the right amount of candles on it….I'm going to say it was the size of the cake and not my age, haha. They made me a sweet birthday video too, with pictures from the months we've spent together on the race.
My birthday was just another reminder of how blessed my life is. More blessed than I could have ever imagined it to be.
