Author: jwerba

As we are coming to the end of our trip, we had to say goodbye to Siem Reap this morning, and head off to our final destination of Phnom Penh. The trip was due to take about 8 hours (over 300km), giving everyone plenty of time to catch up on sleep or complete our Journey.docs.

Our first stop was at alongside a river that feeds into the large Tong Le Sap lake. As per usual, our large group was split up across a few tables; however, this time, each table was in its own bungalow complete with a couple of hammocks on either side of the table and great views. It was really nice to lounge in the hammocks and take in the beautiful riverside views, while we were served a large array of delicious dishes. We hopped back onto the bus after everyone had restocked their Oreo and snack supplies, and settled in for another few hours on the bus.

Our second pit stop, was the much awaited and just as much feared, Skuon spider market. It had many Cambodian delicacies for us to try: scorpions, cockroaches, crickets, and the main attraction, deep-fried spiders. There were buckets of these huge spiders in every stall and a few tourists walking around with live ones on their bellies and shoulders. It is thought that during the time of the Khmer Rouge, the locals began eating them out of desperation in their struggle to survive. Some group members were more willing than others to try them; with some trying a leg or two, others eating half, and some who ate the entire thing plus the other people’s leftovers.

After a few more hours, we finally made our destination, The Ohana Hotel in Phnom Penh. Once we were settled into our rooms and had some swim/chill time, we headed down the street along the waterfront to dinner. Dinner was a combination of Thai and Cambodian cuisines, and was very delicious. After dinner, we made our way back to the hotel where we were met by an army of tuk tuks, ready to take us for an hour long ride around the streets of Phnom Penh, the first capital city that we have stopped in on our trip! We were able to see the monuments and beautiful scenery that Phnom Penn has to offer, all lit up with lots of neon and fairy lights. 

After a breathtaking tour of the city, we made our way back to the hotel to prepare for our big day tomorrow learning all about the Khmer Rouge and the recent history of this country.

By Shelby and Molly

Today was one of the biggest, most memorable days of this entire experience. We began the day in the bus relaxing while Yousa taught us about the differences between the Australian and Khmer education systems. In Australia, most kids begin school at around 5 or 6 and continue through 12 years of schooling and then university (as you probably know). We are taught for 6 or so hours, 5 days a week for most of the year. However, because of the effect of the Khmer Rouge, their schooling system is severely scarred. This is because of the fact that most of the educated people were killed during the Khmer Rouge’s reign, as they were seen as a threat. Nowadays the Khmer children are only taught 2 or 3 half days a week. The teachers are usually only paid about US$50 a month which isn’t enough to sustain much of a life or a family. As a result, most teachers seek other jobs to get enough money in areas like tourism or sometimes private tutoring. 

Because of all these problems in their education system, Yousa opened his own school where kids can go to get extra education. The school helps with maintaining their culture through music and dance lessons as well as teaching them English and Chinese. Before we arrived at this school we bought some school supplies with our fundraised money with the guidance of Yousa himself. We brought a collection of writing books, pens, pencils, art supplies and English and Chinese text books which will facilitate the children’s education. We arrived with a welcoming honour guard which instantly made us feel special and appreciated. Students that were involved in the dance class performed a traditional welcome dance and a coconut dance. The performance truly showcased and highlighted the aim of the school and how they are preserving their culture. Next we split up into small groups and assisted in various places around the school. This included playing sports and teaching English, maths and spelling. There was a certain happy and excited vibe emanating from the school. After two hours of spending time with the students we had to say goodbye. The time was short but the memories will be everlasting. 

The next stop was Kampuchea House. This incredible facility is a home for orphaned and deserted children. As soon as we arrived we couldn’t help but notice the family like bond between the housemothers and the kids. Belinda, the Vice President of the orphanage, explained why there was a need for Kampuchea House and how it began. A committee noticed that there was a high need for a home for children who had deceased or absent parents in small villages. With legal certifications from governments, Kampuchea House began! The village elder would would tell them what children were in need of not only a home but a family and a thorough education. Ultimately the decision to live at Kampuchea House and be under their legal care was up to the child. When we arrived we were greeted with smiles and hugs and immediately formed bonds with the kids. We spent hours playing ball games with lots of laughter. It’s seems odd that these kids are orphans and have so little but yet they are some of the happiest people we have met on this trip. They all had such rough starts to their lives but this place is able to turn it around and give them a chance to have a bright future as well as a family to support them on their journey. We also found it surprising how good their English was. This is because of an Australian volunteer named Sean. He originally volunteered for three months but has ended up staying for three years. 

This memorable day was complemented by a trip to the night market and B.Y.O.Dinner from the selection down “Pub street”. 

By Elias and Jasmine.

Today, we visited one of man’s greatest structures, the intricate Angkor temple complex, which includes Angkor Wat – one of the 7 wonders in the world. After a lovely buffet breakfast, we set off to see our first temple of the day, the Bayon temple in the ancient city of Angkor Thom. Built from 1181 to 1221, this elaborate temple was constructed using stones from a nearby quarry. The design includes faces showing different human traits – representing kindness, sympathy, equality and compassion. Religious beliefs such as the myth of the First Lady in the world, Absara, coming from a lotus flower are also incorporated into the building. Walking through the temple grounds, feelings of awe washed over us as we took in the history and wonder surrounding this ancient structure; it was hard to believe that this magnificent site was built by hand over 800 years ago. 

The second temple we visited was the Ta Phrom temple. After getting off the mini bus, our tour guide, the crazy but loveable Yousa, took us off the beaten track and led us through the jungle to avoid the crowds at the main entrance. After trekking for a few minutes; and watching in horror yet amusement as Yousa ate his morning snack of a scorpion, we arrived at the eerily beautiful temple. Massive trees weaved through the buildings, acting as cement to keep the design together, but also slowly tearing it apart – if even one tree was cut down, the temple would collapse. Hidden in the forest, a sense of serenity came over us as we wandered throughout the grounds. When we walked over the spot where Angelina Jolie ran during the filming of the famous ‘tomb raider’, it was funny to think that a famous celebrity had trodden in the very same place we were standing. In some parts of the temple, shrines had been constructed to worship the Buddha, and we listened to the echo of our voices and lit inscence sticks to bring us good fortune. Navigating the maze of the grounds, it was easy to get lost but was also a new and exciting challenge that proved a memorable experience. We found this temple really interesting, with it’s location in a more remote area and lots of different stories behind it. 

After a quick lunch stop within the temple complex, we made our way to the last and most intimidating temple – Angkor Wat. With high expectations we climbed through the first entrance to see the distant figure of the unbelievably large and amazing temple. As the gap between us and it closed, the group became progressively more eager to see the interior design of the wondrous structure. Fending off monkeys along the way, once inside our preconceptions of what it might look like were shattered as we tried to take in our new and elaborate surroundings. Built by millions of slaves captured by the Khmer people, volunteers and elephants over the span of 42 years, Angkor Wat was more incredible than any of us had ever imagined. Once again, religious influence could be seen heavily throughout the temple. Angkor Wat was first a Hindu and then a Buddhist temple. It is home to many golden Buddha statues but the carvings in the stone use Hindu story telling techniques to illustrate the history of the Khmer empire and its temples. The walls are covered with images of the Apsara, with only one Apsara in the whole MCG-sized temples smiling to reveal her teeth. Climbing up the scarily steep stairs to the top of the temple, we were met with mind-blowing views of the entire city as well as more evidence of the magnificent infrastructure. Angkor Wat truly lived up to its name as one of the greatest architectural designs ever created, and automatically became a highlight for many in the group. 

Even though it was hot and sticky, and everyone was sweating more then we could have imagined, we feel extremely lucky that we were able to experience the temples hands on, and take in the beautiful sites. We were able to escape the heat by jumping in the hotel pool when we returned. This was followed by a BYOD (“buy your own dinner”) and another dash to the night market.

By Tessa and Daniel

Today, we said goodbye to our Laos and our tour guide, Joy, and made our way to Cambodia. We took a very small plane from Luang Prabang to Siem Reap, with the TLC Temples filling most of the plane! We flew for a bit over an hour and then stopped in Pakse, a small city in Southern Laos, before continuing on to Siem Reap. From the plane, we could see many big hills and mountain, rich with jungles and lots of valleys dotted with farms and rice paddies. These seemed to have carved a quilt-like pattern on the landscape. 

When we arrived in Cambodia, the climate was noticeably different; both the temperature and humidity were a lot higher than that in Laos and Thailand.  

We were greeted at the airport by our tour guide, Yousa. He was extremely friendly and made us all laugh on our bus ride from the airport. When we arrived in our hotel, Somadevi Angkor Hotel, most people hopped into the large pool. It was extremely relaxing to swim in the pool as the weather was very hot. While most of us were in the pool it started to rain quite heavily, causing everyone to have to head back indoors. 

We then made our made to dinner later on in the night, in the pink party bus assigned to our group. We had dinner at The Soup Dragon, on the Infamous “Pub Street”; however, we weren’t actually given any soup. Our dinner tonight was quite different to the cuisines we experiences in the previous two countries. There was a variety of different westernised meat dishes with unique sides of pineapple and eggplant.

We finished off the night by attending the famous Siem Reap night market. We shopped around the night market with everyone on the lookout for shoes, wallets, etc as the style of product here was very different to what could be found at the market in Luang Prabang. Many people were very eager to sell us their goods. One store in particular, Project Y, offered us all free samples of frozen yoghurt. Project Y was run by students who were raising money for scholarships and education. Delicious dessert and donations combined!

Today has been a big day, with lots of traveling; however, we are excited for what is to come here in Siem Reap.

By Georgia and Tom.

Today, we started off with another drive up into the hills.This time, we went to visit the Luang Prabang Elephant Camp. Here, we learnt about the elephants in Laos from our guide Joy. There were once over 4,000,000 elephants in Laos; however, this number has been rapidly declining. Today, there are only a few thousand left in the wild. We all felt very fortunate to have the opportunity to spend time with these amazing creatures. We were able to ride, feed and wash some of the elephants that had been rescued, including a 4 year old baby elephant. The elephant handlers were extremely enthusiastic, especially when it came to taking photos of us riding the elephants. Many of us now have as many photos from the elephant ride as we had from the last ten days! 

On the way back from the Elephant Camp, we visited a Hmong Village. This village holds as many as 400 people with approximately 80 families all up. Many of these families will be made up of eight or more people, but there is only one house per family. Many of these children within the village haven’t had the opportunity like we do to have a proper education and have to work from a very young age. To see so many children trying to sell things to us was quite confronting. 

After venturing back to the hotel we were split into groups of 5 for the Great Race around Luang Prabang. We were staggered 15 minutes apart in our departure time. In the race, we became well acquainted with the steep stairs of Mount Phousi. We climbed up into the clouds to take a selfie only to descend back down the other side to continue our journey. Apologies to anyone who will receive a postcard from a very rushed and pressured student. This was one of the many tasks that we were faced with in our race the finish line. 

This evening, we went to a traditional Baci ceremony, in a nearby restaurant. When we entered, we were asked to sit on a mat before some elders from villages near Luang Prabang, who performed a number of blessings on our group for good fortune and health. Next, the elders tied bracelet blessings around our wrists, moving from student to student while 2 local boys played traditional Laos music. It felt very special to have been able to participate in this ceremony. Then, a dance troupe performed a series of traditional dances for us. The dancers were all about the same age as us, and they wore various traditional costumes for each dance.

Tonight we also came celebrated two birthdays – Jackson’s and a belated birthday for Molly. The two birthday cakes were a welcome burst of sugar for us all. 

Once we returned from dinner we all participated in a circle time. This gave us time to reflect on what we had each learned/taken from the trip. It took a while to go around such a big circle, but it was nice to hear everyone’s thoughts on the trip so far.

Tomorrow we leave Laos for Cambodia, and while we’re all excited, it is hard to accept that we are heading towards our final trip destination.

By Hannah and Josh.

We started with a 9 o’clock departure time to travel to the Royal Palace Museum. We looked through countless rooms, artefacts, framed pictures of members of the former Royal family, and gifts donated by countries like USA, Australia, Russia and Britain. One room was particularly memorable, as every surface of the walls and ceiling were covered in gold leaf and mosaics. 

Next we began our bike ride. While the morning got hotter, we set out to tour the city and country side. Managing the streets of Luang Prabang on a bike was tough. We can definitely say that we were relieved to reach our first stop, which was a Buddhist temple. Up to 35 monks can live in one temple, and if others came them they would need to relocate and find another temple to live in. In one of the buildings, which was a Buddhist chapel, lay an enormous golden Buddha statue. Our guide Joy also told us a lot about his life in the temple as child.

After that, we got back on our bikes and rode towards to country side. We headed towards a handicrafts centre out of the city, where we learned how the local people produce a paper called ‘sha’ paper. This paper has a rougher, bumpier texture than normal paper at home. Some sheets even had petals and leaves dried into the paper. Hunter helped decorate a sheet of paper which was being worked on as we walked through. 

The temperature continued to rise and we were all starting to feel progressively more tired as the morning went on, but that didn’t stop us from having to ride another 7km to lunch. Luckily the road we were on was fairly quiet, but it was not paved and and the potholes made our bike ride difficult. The roundabouts were also quite challenging! Everyone was really proud of themselves when we were done and our lunch in an air conditioned restaurant was much needed.

After lunch, we headed to some mini vans for an hour trip towards a beautiful Krungi waterfalls. The waterfall was a popular spot to take photos. There were many tourists doing the same thing as all of us kids.. taking photos. It was a relief to get a break from the heat as the the mist from the base of waterfall hit us a gave us some cool relief. As we progressed further down the waterfall, we came across many tourists swimming in rock pools at the base of the waterfall. At the end of the trail, we came across a brown bear sanctuary which was home to about 10 brown bears, several of which had missing limbs. These bears had been rescued from places that were keeping them for their bike. Just before the sanctuary, our group discovered a huge spider hanging from a web above our heads. Sent so many of the group running, screaming in the other direction! After our trip at the waterfall was over, we got back in the mini vans, greatly anticipating our clean laundry that we were about to go and collect from the laundromats.
We finished our day having dinner in groups of four or more, with some people taking the opportunity to pig out on hamburgers. Near the end of the journey of the night market, we bumped into the other TLC group and were greeted with hugs and screams as we shared stories, but it did not last long as we had to head home to our own hotels. 

Overall a very action packed day! We are excited for what else is to come on our slowly ending trip that we wish would last forever. 

By Zach and Jade