Cambodia, Day 4

Okay, last day of Cambodia photos, with Christmas photos coming soon!  We saw two different temples this day.  Here's the first:

Finley sharing some of his wiki sticks with local kids.

Look at all these colors-- a combination of different types of stone, brick, weather over the centuries, and forest fire.

And on to the second temple:

The monastery at the temple.  (Many temples still have monasteries at them, so we saw lots of monks.)

Holiday decorations at our hotel, with Buddha in the back.

Cambodia, Day 3

The third day we drove farther out of town to visit another temple and a butterfly farm.  We were able to spend quite a bit of time in the car chatting (between trying to keep the kids reasonably happy and under control) with our guide just about everyday life in Cambodia, politics, health care, safety, etc.  Cambodia is by far the poorest and least developed country with have visited.  The majority of people do not have access to clean water, and people are still dying and being injured frequently (our guide said every couple of weeks) by land mines.  Quality of and access to heath care is very poor, and most people are illiterate.  Despite all this, we were amazed by how cheerful people are, and how strong the desire is to grow and improve the country.

The kids enjoyed all the wildlife in Cambodia-- chickens and chicks, ducks, cows, ox, wild dogs, monkeys, etc.

At the butterfly farm.

GIANT stick bug.

Around town for dinner and shopping each evening.

Cambodia, More Day 2

Oops, there was another temple on Day 2 that I forgot to include in the previous post!  

As our guide described it, this temple has "hundreds of smiling faces".  (You can see them starting in the fourth photo down.)

Zooming home in a tuk tuk after dinner.

Cambodia, Day 2

Day 2 of our Cambodia trip was spent visiting Ta Prohm, which is where Lara Croft Tomb Raider was filmed, though we haven't seen it yet.  This temple is especially cool because it has these amazing trees growing all through it-- and I mean literally through and all over the walls, floors, roofs, of the temple.

A downside to the trip was that our family was sometimes as much of a tourist attraction as the temples.  Here we are trying to take a family photo, and this Chinese woman just jumped right in with us so her friend could take a photo of us all.  (Personally, I wouldn't have the forwardness to do something like that!)  Most of the time we tried to laugh it off, but when strangers started trying to grab the children to take pictures with them, Mama Bear came out and had to draw the line!

One of Finley's favorite part of the trips (aside from suitcases and airplanes) was the tuk tuks.  We rode in them to get to and from town in the evenings for dinner.  They are attached to a motorcycle on the front, and Finley declared that he did not like how loud the motorcycles were, but he liked tuk tuks.  He spent all day everyday asking us when we would get to ride one again!