The last few days I have been in Battambang, Cambodia. I wanted to come here after meeting a woman in northeast Thailand about two months ago. Jenny works for a school in Battambang for children who are very poor, and many have parents with AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) or are orphans. I met Jenny in Thailand and she said the kids would really like it if I came to visit. So before leaving Cambodia, we decided to visit Jenny in Battambang.

On our drive to Battambang from Siem Reap, which is a five-hour drive, our driver was crazy. He was about 19 years old. The roads were dirt and unpaved and there were potholes all over the road and he was speeding right over them. There were no seatbelts in the car. I thought I was going to die. When we got to Battambang we checked in to our hotel and went to sleep. We were happy to be alive.

The next morning we woke up and met Jenny, her sister Giulia, and their friend Andrew for breakfast. Jenny and Giulia are part American and part Italian, and were born and raised in Switzerland. Andrew is from New York.

At 10:30 a.m. we went for a motorcycle ride. It lasted about 7 hours. It was super fun. We were driving through the countryside where there was no traffic. We went to an eleventh century wat (Buddhist temple), and saw a tree full of bats. We also learned about this seed that pops and explodes into tinier seeds when you put it in your hands with a little bit of water. It was really cool.

When we finished our motorbike ride we took a bamboo train back to Battambang. The bamboo train was kind of scary but it was fun. It wasn’t really a train it was a platform made of bamboo. It had something like a small boat motor on the back and was going crazy fast, about 40 miles an hour and there were no sides, just a bottom. Also every so often another train would appear going the opposite direction as you so whoever had less people would get off and take apart the train so the other train could get through. It happened twice to us.

The next day we visited the school and the AIDS patients. We visited about half a dozen homes. There are adults and children who have AIDS and who are HIV positive. The first house we went to we saw a three-year-old child. She looked like she was a new born. The mom left and the dad isn’t well enough to take care of himself so he can’t take care of his little girl. I felt really bad for the child. I can’t even imagine what it is like. It makes me mad that people at home have plenty of money for food and don’t eat it because they want to be skinny when the kids here would do anything for food and they don’t have it. We saw the same thing in all the other houses we went to. With all kids it takes so little to make them happy. To put a smile on their face all you have to do is take their picture and then show them. It is amazing. They love it so much.

At the school there was only one sick child who was HIVS positive. It isn’t a school for every subject, just English. I was amazed at how good their English was. It is a whole lot better than my Spanish. There are three classes a day, a morning class, an afternoon class, and an evening class. They all last two hours. We stayed for all three. All the kids were really cute. I enjoyed the day a lot and I am really glad I went to Battambang. I had a lot of fun.

Ellie

We are in Cambodia now. We spent one day in Phnom Phen, the capital. My mom and I visited the royal palace. We saw the throne room, and the Buddha shrine. A shrine is something people worship. The next day we flew to Siem Reap.

In Siem Reap we are staying at a nice quiet guesthouse. Siem Reap is a very popular part of Cambodia for tourists because there are lots of temples. Some of the ones we went to are Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Banteay Kdei, Ta Prohm, and maybe some more. We also saw the elephant terrace, which has carvings of elephants on the stone, and the terrace of the leper king. Angkor Wat is a very famous temple. It is extremely old. It seemed more like ruins then a temple to me. There is one actual temple in Angkor Wat, although, there are four gates that look like buildings.

Yesterday when we were walking to one of the gates to get in to Angkor Wat we saw a monkey in front of it. When we got up closer a dozen or more monkeys started to jump down all the trees. It was really cool. Almost all the monkeys were eating something that looked like corn. Some were eating cabbage. One monkeys very strangely was holding a box full of whitening strips. There was a statue in front of the gate and it was pretty tall. Two monkeys were playing king of the mountain on top of it chasing each other and pushing them down. We took lots of pictures.

Two American movies were filmed around the Angkor Wat temple sites. One of the movies is Tomb Raider; the other one is Two Brothers. Today we saw the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed. It was really cool. There were a lot of trees and the roots were coming down on top of the buildings because they grew off the rocks, not the ground. They could do this with the moss or bird poop on the rocks. There were lots of carvings on the wall. The carvings were called bas-reliefs. The carvings on the wall would go on a long time and show what people did during their life. There were also carvings of Buddha. People have stolen his head off the wall. They sold the heads for money.

Tomorrow we are going to Battambang.

Ellie

I just finished my trip in Laos. I visited four places. The first was Vientiane. We just spent one night there because we had a plane to catch the next morning. Though we did get a chance to walk around. There were a lot of little boutiques. We also went to a grocery store to buy snacks. I bought a jar of Skippy Peanut-butter for our trek, which I have already told you about in a different post.

   The next day we took a plane ride to Oudomxai. From there we went took a three hour (very bumpy) car ride to Luang NamTha. We spent one week there. Our hotel was right on the Nam Ha River. So the restaurant was looking over it. It was a beautiful sight.  We took a six-hour bike ride our second day there around the town and through the villages. We saw a lot of Black Thai villages. All the Black Thai women I saw weaved silk. We also saw a Lanten family weave cotton. On our bike ride we also stopped at a waterfall. For lunch our guide arranged for us to have a Black Thai woman prepare lunch. My mom loved the food. There was a sauce the woman served that my mom loved so much she asked for the recipe. It was too spicy for me. It was made of four clovers of garlic, ginger, chili, 2 or 3 tomatoes, parsley, and green onions. Two days later we went on the brutal hike.

  The next place we stayed was Nong Kiau. We spent two and a half days there. We really only did one thing which was see the caves where the communist government of Laos hid during the war. They were very cool. They were pretty high though so it was hard for me to climb the steps because I’m afraid of heights. During the war they only had bamboo ladders. There were a bunch of little different sections, some higher, some lower. In the cave there was even a lookout area. This hotel, same as the last one, was looking over a river. But this time it was the Nam Kahn River. At the hotel they had chocolate pancakes coated with sugar, which made it for me.

   The last place we stayed in Laos was Laung Prabang. We spent eight days there. Our first two days at 6:00 am we woke up to see the monks march and receive food from people so that the monks can bless them, also the monks can’t eat later than noon. We celebrated my mom’s birthday there! We mostly just walked around town. We got to see almost all of it because it is so small. There were a lot of shops, most of which were either clothes, or jewelry shops. For two days we also went to an elephant park and got to ride elephants. The first day we rode on a bench on the back of the elephant. We then went to have lunch. Afterwards we went back out and were supposed to ride bareback on the neck. My mom did. I was too scared though. I bet if you were up against an elephant you would be too. The next day we bathed the elephants in the river. Then we kayaked back to town. It took about four hours. While we were in town we also went to two temples. All of them had so much gold it was amazing. We also visited the King’s house before he was exiled. That also looked like it was made of all gold. His house was very big. We got to see his old room, the queen’s old room, the children’s old room, the entertainment room, the thrown room, his old paintings, clothes, silverware, everything. Our last night there we went to a restaurant that served traditional Lao food in the traditional way. We were seated at the table with a bunch of other people we didn’t know. They just served us food and put it in the middle of the table. We took what we wanted by balling up the sticky rice with our hand and dipping it in the other foods.

  My total impression of Lao was amazing. I loved it. It is so much different than America in so many ways. I thought it was fantastic. My favorite part of Lao was being with elephants. That was so cool, even though I didn’t ride them bare back.  Just the experience of being with them is amazing.  

Ellie  

I have been in Laos about a week. During my stay here I went on a 2-day trek in a rain forest to the Akha hill village of Ban Nam Lai. We were hiking in the national Nam Ha Protected Area. Our guide was about four feet six inches tall. Shorter than me! His name was Anic. He pointed out a lot of different trees and plants along our hike, but I’m not sure I understood him. These are some of the names of trees I thought I heard: I saw a fruit tree that I think is called an “Elephant Fruit” tree. Elephant fruit has only two inside parts you can eat. But the bark of the tree is good for medicinal purposes. We also saw a HUGE tree, which sounded like it was called a “Pong” Tree. A smaller tree we saw I think is called a “Husk” tree. It is long and skinny. My favorite tree we saw is supposedly called a “Blood” tree. It is called this because the wood is soft and when you crack it, red juice comes out. When we were climbing in the forest we had to cross about 20 or more wooden logs crossing over streams. All the streams were picturesque. We had to climb up a mountain to get to the Akha village where we stayed for the night.

There are many different ethnic groups in this part of the Laos with many different traditions. For example, the Akha and Khmu villages do not have written languages. In Lanten villages, when the parents die everything is passed down to the son, not the daughter. For that reason, only boys learn the Lanten written language. I learned most about the Akha Hill ethnic group because that is where I spent the night.

In the winter, which is this time of year, Akha children don’t bathe at all because it is too cold for them. That means for half of November, all of December, all of January, and half of February, they don’t bathe. When they do bathe it is in the river so they never have hot water. There is no electricity what so ever. All the beds are made out of wood. I slept on one. They are not comfortable. It is also very cold at night in the winter months. I wore long underwear and four thick blankets. I was still freezing.

Akha villagers live deep in the forest, which they have cut to build houses. Every time they want to sell something they have to walk a six-hour trail to the market. When a boy turns 14 he has to move out of his parents house and into a tiny, 2 feet by 5 feet house on stilts, two stories high, which his parents built for him. The boy must then choose a woman he loves to move in with him. If the woman accepts, they sleep in the tiny house together until the woman becomes pregnant. Then they are married.

I think it would be very hard to live in this village. I wonder what happened that made my life so different from theirs.

Ellie

My time is done in Thailand and tomorrow I am going to Laos. We are taking a 5-hour bus ride. Unlike in Thailand we will not be at someone else’s house, which means that we won’t have a translator. UH OH!

In our 5-day adventure in Thailand my mom and I went to the market, where my mom tried a common food there, ants! She said they were good. We also learned how to make silk. We watched ladies make rice into noodles. Well I watched while my mom tried to make them.

We went food foraging for scorpions and crabs. That was our dinner for the night but I just had rice. While of course my mom was nibbling away on scorpion meat.

Last night we went looking to catch frogs with flashlights on our heads. We caught about 12 that could have been for dinner but they come out after dark. By that time we already had dinner. Whew! Frogs are my favorite animals!

Ellie

I am in Thailand right now and first I would just like to say thanks for reading my waltz, and hi to all my friends and family. When my mom first told me I was going on a three-month trip with her I was really scared and frightened. When we got our shots — all 8 of them — I was really scared and frightened. When we were in the airport leaving the rest of our family behind, I was sad. During are longest plane ride, for 14 hours, I was queasy. During all these hard events, I kept thinking it was going to be worth it when I was in South-East Asia with my mom. I was right! It is my first day here and I’m having a great time. All my worries and fears have suddenly gone away. Although I do miss everyone back home. Thanks for reading my waltz.

Ellie