This morning we woke up, took our laundry to the cleaners, and walked to breakfast. Everyone's favorite is the Pho Restaurant about 3 blocks from the hotel. The broth is amazing and it's poured over noodles, thinly sliced beef, and fish balls (non-fishy tasting fish sausage balls). It's the best. We order the small bowls and I'm rarely hungry when lunch time comes around.
After breakfast the group went to the Tuol Sleng Museum. While not a fun place to visit, it is an important place to visit when you want a deeper understanding of the people and culture of this country. Once an elementary school, Tuol Sleng was converted into a prison, place of torture and mass murder by the Khmer Rouge. It reminded me of visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. The final handful of prisoners were released in 1979; I was five years old. The uprising of the Khmer Rouge directly impacts most of Cambodia's population as an entire generation of its people we're subjected to concentration camps, torture and death.
We grabbed a really amazing lunch at an Indian restaurant today. We've been ordering everything family style which has been a great way to try lots of new foods. Excellent lunch. Aside from the insects eaten yesterday, everyone's been pretty eager to try everything.
Carson was feeling a bit better today but he really wanted to go back to the hotel after lunch so John, Jackie and I explored the Russian Market. It reminded me greatly of some of the shanty town markets we used to visit in Mexico. What a cool place. They had everything from fresh produce and milk to clothing, tools, electronics, and a massive selection of scooter parts--no Vespa parts unfortunately. The motos here are mostly Honda Cubs and the amount of parts available for them is astonishing. This bike is available in the US but they are sold sold under the name "Symba" and built by Sym." Loads of bootleg videos for sale along with knock off brand name shoes, bags and clothing. The coolest stuff was made by local crafts people. I picked up a few gifts for the family. We will definitely be going back.
This evening we grabbed dinner at an unusual place, an Italian brick oven pizza joint where they play vintage American country music and the wait staff wears cowboy hats. Oh and I forgot to mention the swimming pool. If we had gotten there earlier we could have eaten and gone swimming. We packed our swim trunks but they closed the pool 30 minutes before we got there. The food was very good. Seeing a pattern here? Teddy hasn't let us down yet.
Tomorrow we plan to meet the kids at Prek Eng 2 and go to church with them. We plan on staying afterwards and spending a good chunk of the day playing. I really missed seeing them today and really look forward to spending time together tomorrow.
Up next: Church and playtime at Prek Eng 2