Day - 19 Railay Day Tour

Day 18 - railay beach exploration
  Today we woke up with the delivery of our groceries! Yes... We mainly ordered snacks of local fruits and some slabs of meat. Delicious!  After breakfast we met up with Nat at the bamboo bar whom I had to wake up because he had a long night of DJing. I asked him where he wanted to take us and he rambled off a bunch of names the last one ending in sunset. I didn't realize we were hanging out for the full day! Wow this was exciting. It was only four of us Phil, Nick, Chris, and myself because Nate wasn't feeling well today. 
  The first place we went to was the lagoon. We hiked up and down red clay walls which were surprisingly large making our trip slow and cautious. If you injured yourself here you would be SOL. We finally made it down in the lagoon which was filled with sea water from high tide. There were beautiful rock formations everywhere. We were literally inside the mountain, in a hole 100 feet in diameter and 200 meters high. Wow... We stayed down there for a while just enjoying this magical place. During our hike back we took an abrupt turn taking us out to see the expansive views of Railay West (the part of town with all the bars and restaraunts) at lookout point. While coming back down from the mountain Nat decided to climb into a tree and jump down like a jungle monkey which freaked me out! He loved joking with us and had a great time singing hooks of recient songs. Next we made it out to the diamond cave which was an actual cave with sparkling rock formations and pleanty of bats. We then picked up some large tortches back at the bamboo bar for our next location. This time we walked down to punang beach which was filled with all sorts of people. Some were nudists and others were Europeans who were way to comfortable sunbathing in their speedos. We turned off the beach and headed into the jungle, once again and found ourselves in a dark cave. This is what we had the tortches for. They revealed to us tiny bamboo ladders that we used to help us to scale to the top of the cave. Here we had expansive views of Railay East, that is where we are staying. We were so high up! We continued to thank Nat as for we wouldn't have known about any of these spots without him. We then made it back to the house after our adventurous day to relax. I showed Nat how to download new songs off the internet making him very excited. The whole trip he told me about Erin and how they met each other. I think he is in love! We then finished up our day on Railay East watching the sunset and relaxing in the sand. When we came back Nat brought his computer and gave us a dj set. The night ended after Chris and I ate at a hole in the wall thai food restaraunt where we both ate for 6 dollars... Not bad! We were joined at our table by a spider the size of our palms. It was crazy looking! We then made it back to the bars to hang out before making it through the town back to our mosquito net covered beds. Whew that was a big day!

Day - 15,16 Leaving Cambodia to our new home in Thailand

Railay
 The mission trip is over and now we have 10 days before we can get back home due to flight blackouts. We decided to make it out to Thailand since it sits adjacent to Cambodia. We  learned that we shouldn't wear any Cambodian clothing in Thailand because Cambodia is harboring their ex- prime minister right now. Nick had to buy some abercrombie polos before we left. 2 for 8 dollars! The treck to Thailand took a while. Before leaving Cambodia at 5 pm we one last time ate at Dr. Khauv's aunts house where she filled us up to the brim with a four course meal. It had soup, eggs, pickled veggies, stewed pork, and prawns (yes we were spoiled). I wanted to get some money before we left to Thailand so I walked out of the Aunts house where she had security guards and was told to get on the back of a motorcycle. SWEET! We zigzaged through town until we stopped at an ATM! I had never driven blindly through so many intersections before... What a rush. Once we said our goodbyes to Cambodia we boarded our plane to Bangkok (only an hour flight) where we saw one of the largest airports in the world! It was 4 stories high!! We then took another hour flight to Phucket; a small semi island on the coast of Thailand. Here we spent the night at a seaside cottage on the beach. It sounds nicer than it was... We were out in the boonies and slept in single room huts which barely fit a queensize bed on the floor. Oh yeah and we also had a fan that came in handy. I couldn't complain because we were on the beach!! 
  The next morning we woke up and strolled along the white sand beaches before meeting up with Nate in a taxi. Interesting story here... Nate flew from Seim Reap straight to Bangkok where he was unable to get a plane flight to Phucket. He was then unable to get a bus but he was able to get a rental car! This is peak season for Thailand because of new years where 80,000 people join together on an island for the full moon party... Don't think we are going to do that. So yes, after Nate drove 11 hours, he finally met us at the seaside cottage in a luxury van taxi.  From here we drove 2 hours to a coast town and then took a boat to Railay Beach. The ride was insane because they drive on the other side or the road here. That freaked us out at first!
  The views of Railay from the water taxi were breathtaking. This small town of 500 people is surrounded by 200m limestone cliffs which fall directly into the water. The only access point is by boat.  We were shocked and at a loss for words by the beauty of Railay as we pulled up to it's secluded beach.  We were met by a nice man who loaded all of our bags onto a dolly and wheeled us to our villa for the week. 
  Our villa has three separate huts about 12 feet off the ground surrounded by a large deck. Two huts are rooms with outdoor showers and bathrooms while the other hut is a kitchen and familyroom with two couches/beds. Every door opens up to let air draft through the villa. We are surrounded by monster cliffs and are only a few hundred feet from the beach.  There is a lot of wildlife here including the worlds smallest monkey! Yes MONKEY!
  It was 1pm here so we still had a full day of adventure ahead of us. Railay Beach is secluded which means sky high prices and no markets. So we paid someone to take a taxi to the closest city where they would then take a bus to a local market. They should drop off our order at 8am tommorrow morning. Railay also has no police in the town so the locals have some interesting rules here.  We decided that we would grab lunch which was delicious and then head straight to the beach! The beach was perfect. It's soft white sands led into the 80 degree water that had no waves, just smooth rolling water. It was like a gigantic swimming pool. Now we could finally relax. 
  I was told by Erin Jackson who was here a month ago for a teaching mission trip that I had to meet a man named Nat at the bamboo bar. So that night we headed there after dinner where we waited for him to show up. He was such a nice guy and sported dreads making him look black even though was Thai. He told me all about Erin and how they met and when he saw me and my smile it reminded him of her. He told me about island culture and how he was going to be a DJ at the full moon party for new years. He was only going to be here for a few days before he left but he wanted to take us around the island and show us the best spots. So we made plans to meet up around 10 the next morning. The rest of the night we went to the bars and relaxed as we saw Thai kickboxing and a woman walking with a large snake that we could play with. 
We met a lot of people out here from all over, even Sweeden and had a great time keeping up conversations. All and all I think we are going to have such a great time here in paradise. Oh and I forgot to mention that right now I'm laying in bed under mosquito nets trying to sleep. Kinda weird but fun nonetheless hahaha.

Days - 13,14 The Floating Fishing Town

Day - 13, 14

There was no break to rest after serving the orphanage. We adjusted 5 days in a row this week! The good thing is that my body is now able to take on a high volume of people without being sore. Our next stop on the trip was only about a 20 minute trip to a fishing village right outside of town. This village was very interesting because all the houses were built 20 or so feet off the ground to avoid the water from the floods. We didn't know where we were headed until our bus took an abrupt turn off the road and went down a steep decline. We came to a stop at a school which looked a little funny... Oh that might be because it was a floating school equipped with two small floating classrooms and a floating basketball court. It was an unbelievable sight! We set up our tables on the basketball court. It had a tin roof and was supported by a wire fence all around that let in a cool breeze. The basketball court had no lines and had a wooden floor that was close to raw wood. The greatest part was that the hoops were probably about 12 feet tall making the average 5'5" Cambodian look even smaller. The village head had promoted us to the town a few days earlier so we were expecting to see a lot of people. The first day we saw mainly school children and women. It felt a little slow even though we saw about 200 people the first day. Papa Khauv and Hungs father made a run to get a flyer printed up to promote us to more people. At one point I felt like we were running a children's daycare center because the kids would stick around and play with us after their adjustments. They only had school half day so the other half of the day they were free to run wild while their parents were at work.
The second day here we had a larger crowd of people. We saw 299 this day making it our busiest day of the trip. We had a few stroke patients today and one woman who had a piriformis injection which put her into so much pain that she couldn't walk or move her leg. Kim and Nate worked on her and managed to get some motion back in her leg. It took forever to get her onto her side to adjust her low back. This type of thing was hard to watch because she was hurting so badly... I think she was thankful that we took care of her. It was so much fun adjusting all the children. Personally I saw close to 20 kids each day. Some would laugh hysterically after there adjustments while others seemed stunned coming to the table not knowing exactly what to expect. Phil had the best child because he came to see us running in naked. We had to wrap him up like a taquito in a blanket before he was adjusted, but hey we didn't refuse anyone from getting checked. Kim really tried to connect with the girls giving a group of them French braids. Many of the girls had never combed their hair before so she worked really hard to get them ready for their braids. She became grossed out after we showed her that they all had a large amount of lice! Chris gave me some floss that he had in his bag and I taught the kids how to use it. They need some dentists out here badly to teach them simple hygene and donate toothbrushes and paste. Everyone was missing or had rotted teeth.
All and all this was a great place to end the trip. The weather was perfect here (mid 80's which is cold here so everyone came to see us in sweaters and pants) and we had a very friendly and responsive atmosphere.
After dinner both nights we all went out for ice cream at a gellato place called the blue pumpkin. Wow was it good. I picked out cinnamin the first night and coconut the second! I love ice cream. After dessert many of us decided to go shopping at the night market or out to pub street for some drinks. Both of these options were geared specifically for tourists and were nicely rennovated compared to the Russian market that was quite gross. It's funny here is Cambodia because they have the same items everywhere but everyone tries to convince you that theirs is real or better quality then their neighbors. So we laughed when we found shirts that said "same same but different". I haven't really bought anything yet because yes it's alllllll crap. Everything won't last and is made as cheaply as possible. I've been trying to find some decent items here but it's hard. On the streets of the night market there were food vendors selling interesting items. One was grilling partially hatched chicken eggs. Yuck!
Our last night here was a blast because we went out to celebrate Christmas. I'm not too into the whole Christmas thing but ill still go out and have a good time. A group of 6 of us went out dancing. Amy refused to dance so we picked her up in a chair and put her up on a raised platform in the middle of the dance floor. It was priceless! We all danced the night away and made it back by Tuk Tuk safely to get sleep for our 6 hour bus ride back to phnom penh. I'll be sad to leave this city but I know there is so much more to come...

Day - 10,11,12 At The Orphanage

Days 10, 11, and 12 serving at working for children.

These days were long but so much fun. We served over 600 villagers here. The orphanage was literally in the boonies. The ride there was about 90 minutes long and extremely bumpy because the road was small, filled with pot holes, and was made of red dirt. Sometimes our bus bottomed out and we had to reverse to continue on. Our first adventure out to the orphanage was longer since we got lost and completely passed the turnoff point by at least 30 minutes... we made it eventually.
My favorite part of the whole trip was adjusting this cute little girl. She looked like she was only 3 years old but in fact she was 8! Her mother said that she had problems walking but there was much more going on. She had a positive babinski reflex on both feet. She had almost no facial expression and her eyes were fixed and unable to track at all. If she wanted to see anything she would turn her whole head without any eye movement. The first time I adjusted her I lifted her body onto the table where she laid there limp and expressionless. I palpated her cervicals and was unable to really feel what was going on because she was so spasmed. I sat there and waited until she relaxed and I could get a grasp of where to put input into her nervous system. I only had a split second to deliver the adjustment so I waited patiently for the right moment. After adjusting her she laid there stunned, her toes fanned upwards once again showing the babinski reflex. Soon she started moving her legs around and smiled at me with her rotted teeth. I didn't expect anything to happen on her first visit and told her mother to bring her back the next day. When she showed up again her mother said that she was able to sleep a few hours through the night which was a first for her. I adjusted her once more this time, it was L5 with atlas and that really set things in motion. Hung got excited and started doing some therapy with her using a red squishy ball. We spent almost an hour playing catch. One thing that was odd is that her eyes still weren't tracking with the ball. She would blindly stick her hands out just hoping to find the ball in her hand. We told her mother to continue this therapy everyday to help her development. The last time that I was able to see her I once again adjusted L5 and atlas, this time she stayed there motionless on the table. I just sat and waited for some form of life to come through... That's when it happened, her eyes started moving side to side independantly of her head. I moved to the side and they followed me back and forth back and forth. I got her mother and showed her what was going on with her daughter and she was extremely excited. It was like a real person was released from inside of her. This was a moment that I will never forget. It just proves how when there is interference in the nervous system and the proper stimuli is given to that system, the body is able to function optimally.
The orphanage was well organized. There were 35 children who learned many skills there. On top of getting an education they learned music, volleyball, dance, and farming. The director has been able to make this orphanage self sustaining with food. They are able to grow everything themselves. This past year however they lost 200 chickens, all their fish, and most of their rice due to a flood during monsoon season. They have been working hard trying to make it back and luckily with donations they have been. The director is very young but very bright. He teaches English to the children of the people in the village in exchange for help on his farm. So when we were there the classroom would fill up throughout the day an upon exiting the children would come over and get adjusted. These kids were so tiny. No joke they looked 6 or 7 and when asked their age it would often be 7 years older then what we thought. The great part is that They were all so well behaved too. We not only adjusted the orphans but the villagers would also come by on their bicycles or scooters packed with their family. They were all so friendly and open to receiving care. We saw some interesting cases like a orphan with polio, a child who had a failed femur surgery, and a child with an arm about 10x's it's normal size.
During breaks we would play shuttlecock, a game much like hacky sack but with a birdy like object that you can kick or hit with your hands. Sometimes the orphans would join in. The orphanage also has baby kittens walking about and four week old puppies which were so fun to play with. Our last day at the orphanage the children put on a kmer show for us with music and dancing. They were really really good! We were all blown away by their talent which was close to matching the professional show that we had watched at dinner.
During these three days, we celebrated nicks birthday for two of them. Once on his Kmer birthday a day early and once on his American birthday. The girls found a chocolate cake and vanilla icecream which we devoured after dinner. The food here has been pretty good. One of the restaurants we ate at was disgusting because there were so many bugs. We then found out why...It was because the fans were on high and when the bugs would go up to the lights they would get hit out of the air landing in our mouths and on our faces... Yuck. Once we moved and turned off the fans our dinner was delicious... I'm glad we figured that out. These three days had a huge imput on all of our lives. I know in the future I will donate what I can to help the orphans at working for children orphanage. Who knows where these kids would be without help. Many of the girls are sold into the sex trade at ages as young as 8. It's quite gross. I know Dr. Khauv will post an amazon link that will have free shipping as well as a way to send money. I'll keep you posted.

Day 9 - Angkor Wat Sunrise Tour

Day 9 - Angkor Wat sunrise tour

This morning started off at 4am for those who wanted to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat. I slept in so once again I'll have a guest blogger, this time I'll have Kim write for me: "we woke early and began getting ready to head out for the sunrise. Reanna and I almost missed the bus because we are not morning people! We arrived at the checkpoint to show our tickets when it hit me, I left mine at home. I proceeded to pay an additional $20 to watch the sunrise that morning but it was soon worth it. We. Got there and began the trek along the water and accross the bridge in darkness. We made our way through the crowds of people to find the best spot to watch the sun come up. We stood there anxiously waiting for what seemed like forever and then it happened. The sun began to rise up over Angkor Wat and the sky turned from grey to pink to blue, it was beautiful but the description is best told by Phil: bright pinks and blues painted the skies behind the dark silhouette of Angkor Wat as if were God's cotton candy. The amazing spectacle of colors was only momentary for the sun rose too quickly and we began our journey back to the bus to start the rest of our day." Kim and Phil enjoyed being descriptive... I think they did a great job!


My morning started off at 7:30 when the bus left for a second time to go see yet another temple. It was about an hour drive to a deserted parking lot where we were dropped off at a trail head. Once we stepped foot out of the bus we were immediately surrounded by children. These are the children who are forced to sell books and scarfs by their parents. After I told them no I'm not interested they told me "mister when you come back you remember me, im candy and this is my sister pepsi". We all laughed at their obviously fake names. We started hiking up a mountain trail putting us in the middle of the jungle. The trees were unlike ones that I have ever seen before. Their branches reached the ground and then curled back up towards the sky forming what looked like a swing. They were a blast to swing from and were surprisingly strong. The trek was 1500 meters over rocky terrain reminding me of the time when I got lost camping in humbolt county with Nick and Phil except a lot less extreme. We finally made it up to a waterfall and looked down at the creek bed. There were ancient carvings under the water which were really neat to look at. Where is the temple I kept asking myself as we hiked through more forest? Funny enough we hiked a mile not to see a temple but sand stone carvings under water. Haha I was fooled. This hike however was excellent and a great way to find relaxation in Cambodia.
Our next stop was a buddist temple which was also made of sandstone. The cool thing about this temple was that the french discovered it while they were burning down the Forrest to make rubber trees. So yes this temple was completely burned yet still standing. It was the smallest temple yet but one of the coolest.
We returned back to the hotel for our usual banana shakes and chicken curry when a tuk tuk pulled up with Nate and Amy inside (two doctors both from the Seattle area of washington). I think they were pretty excited to arrive after over 20 hours of travel. We welcomed them with some beer and banana milkshakes. When we ran out of beer Amy made a beer run in a tuk tuk and insisted on going by herself. We had the afternoon off so Nate, Amy, Kim and I decided on getting 6 dollar/hour massages. When we arrived at the massage place they washed our feet and told us all to go into a room. The room was pretty tiny and this is where we were handed pjs and were told to get into them. We all looked at each other and laughed... They were serious. Once changed we all were told to lay down on little mats 4 in a row. 4 young ladies came in and started in uniform. It's almost like they learned th massage as a dance. All and all it was a very interesting experience as they stretched beat and massaged us into relaxation...Haha

Tomorrow will be the first of our 5 days of serving in Siem Reap. Three days will be at an orphanage and two will be on a floating... Yes floating village. We all can't wait.

Day 8 - Angkor Wat

Sunset Hike (picture through Phils glasses)

2) This is in front of Angkor Wat

3) Climbing 100 feet straight up to the top of a temple

4)Carvings at Angkor Thom in the sand stone

5) Group picture in front of where tomb Raider was filmed...



Day 8 - Angkor Wat Temples

It's been an interesting past few days as the bacterial flora of our stomachs changed to deal with the food here in Cambodia. There have been more frequent restroom stops and they seem to last a little longer. However we are all transitioning pretty well. Our hotel here is more jungle like. Which means more mosquitos, flies, geckos, and I even saw a frog! Our rooms have fans and ac which means they will cool off very quickly. I think we are all excited about this. Our hotel has its own restaurant where we have been going for breakfast and lunch. Today our breakfast was at 6:30 and our bus left at 7:30 for Ankor Tom to beat the heat. Luckily the weather was overcast for half the day. It was on this bus that we met out tour guide for the day Tea (he was only 25 dollars for the whole day!) Tea studied for 3 years to become a guide and he said it costs 3000 which is a LOT here. Tea also told us how everything costs money. He said that if you want a wife you have to pay the father for her. If you want a Dr. as your wife she will cost you a fortune. His quote was "no money no honey!" I asked what if you are the doctor? He responded: If you are the Dr. then your wife is free. I asked him how many wives can you get for free and he laughed saying only 1. 60% of marriages here are stil arranged. The best part about Tea is that he sounded like Stewie from family guy saying yes yes at the end of every sentence. We all couldn't stop laughing after we figured that out. Plus he also had a huge crush on Reanna!
  Our first temple was Angkor Thom. Wow was this thing huge! We walked along it's perimeter learning about the carvings in sand stone on it's sides. The carvings told stories of their lives showing love, war, power, sports, and their way of life. They were incredibly detailed. This place was a photographers dream. Everyone had their camera out snapping shots. By the end of today I took over 300 shots wow and completely drained my battery. The temple stood tall dwarfing all the people around it. We were told that the sand stone for the temple came from the ground 70 kms away where it was soft and easy to carve. These stones weighed tons. One of the students from our group remarked that it felt like an adult jungle gym because we were climbing all over the ruble. After visiting this temple we were led to another which was probably 100 feet high. We all climbed it not looking down because it was so steep. At the top we had expansive views of Angkor Thom and it's surrounding jungle. Next we went to the temple where tomb raidor was filmed. This temple was sweet because it had trees growing in it, out of it, through it, and on top of it. Yes a tree actually planted itself on top of a temple where it's roots then travelled down to the ground. I'll post a picture of this one! It even had a treasure room where at one point there was a plate of gold weighing over 500 kilograms! Most of the temples were partially destroyed due to wars over religion, land, or from being abandoned in the forest for hundreds of years. One of the coolest parts of the temples was that they all had moats around their perimeters. Some moats were small because their temples were small while others were HUGE like the moat of Angkor Wat. This moat was more like a lake. You could easily waterski comfortably in it. The most amazing part about this is that it was all built by hand. We soon learned from Tea that Angkor Wat was by far the largest temple. It took 50,000 workers 37 years to build and was never fully finished. It had 4 pools on the inside which Phil Jumped into to practice his freestyle. The sad part about this temple is that all of it's statues were stolen or taken by different museums. This temple was also filled with gold and jewels which "somehow" went missing. It took us a few hours to tour Angkor Wat and by this time we were all pooped. Thats when we started our trek up to the top of a mountain where we could watch the sunset. There were probably at least 500 people all with their cameras out pointed towards the sun. Phil actually said that this was his favorite part of the trip so far.  I took one picture of the sunset that turned out crazy! Phil gave me his glasses that I used as a lens to shoot thru producing wild colors. Chris somehow got the bright idea to try and climb on top of a sandstone tower and got yelled at when he was almost at the top. Haha it was hilarious. The night ended with a full on Buffett with khmer dancers putting on a show up on stage. This dancing was slow and a little boring to watch but cool nonetheless (yes Mom this was no so you think you can dance). At the end we all ran up on stage to have our pictures taken with the dancers. Today was quite the experience. Tomorrow we have another day off which includes an early morning wakeup call at 4am for a sunrise tour.  

Day 7 - A Long Ride

Day 7  

  First before I tell you about this wonderous ( that's a new blog word) day. I just had to remark on John Mayers new album Battle Studies. It's pretty disapponting that he switched back from playing blues to his earlier pop stuff. LAME. However I'm making the trip to Siem Reap right now by bus and this album is much better than the crap that they have blasting over the 15 speakers throughout the bus. It's like nails on a chalkboard, we actually pulled out ear plugs and passed them around to stop the pain. They didn't help :(
  Sadly not too much happened today so i'm able to keep my blog short and sweet... Finally! Some days I feel like I could write a complex novel with what happened but not today. Basically we woke up at 5, left at 6, borded a bus to Siem Reap at 7, bought a fried taratula at 9 which we used to torture the ladies with,  and arrived at 1. Siem reap is much smaller than Phnom Penh and more touristy. There are more 5 star hotels in this city than any other city in the world which means that it's whole economy is built off of tourism. The population here doubled from 2 to 4 million in 8 years. That's pretty amazing huh? The city only has a few main roads so it's much less likely to get lost here then in Phnom Penh. Also a bonus here is that everyone can speak a little English, even the kids trying to sell trinkets on the side of the road. (I'm writing this blog a day late and wanted to tell all the mothers that everyone is feeling better, including Laura. Hungs brother married the daughter of medical dr here in Siem Reap who donated her time here to get Laura better. She even brought home made curry... Yum it was sooo good). Tomorrow we will be touring the temples of Angor Wat all day and we are very excited about it.

Day 6 - A History Lesson

Day 6 - A history lesson
I was hoping that today we would be given the opportunity to sleep in... yeah that didn't happen because we were up and out at 7. We first stopped to see the Royal Palace which was built in 1866 and looked gigantic from the outside. Sadly it was closed so we were forced to see the silver pagoda instead. This was equally as impressive. It was adjacent to the royal palace and was a large square plot which yes you guessed it... Had a pagoda in the middle and many small pagoda's to the side. I decided that today I would shoot everything at a fixed 18mm on my camera adding a wide angle effect. It worked pretty well. We didn't have a tour guide so we made a loop around the grounds allowing our imaginations to run wild of what this place was like back in the day. It was so hot here that after about 30 minutes I had sweat through my shirt and wanted to leave. Reanna applied layers of sun screen and hid under her umbrella because she says she hates the sun. Upon exiting the silver pagoda we were surprised by the streets outside the royal palace. They were filled with no joke every school child in Cambodia lined up in organized rows. I believe they were welcoming some form of royalty back home. Soon enough we found out that it was the prime minister of Vietnam. We didn't stay long enough to see him due to the heat but that's ok.
Next we went to the genocide museum which was incredibly sad. We learned all about Pol Pots reign on Cambodia from 1975 - 1979 with the Khmer Rouge. At this time Pol Pot tricked the people of Cambodia into becoming communist. He got rid of the currency, burnt down Phnom Penh's buildings, and started moving everyone from the city out to the country to farm and do his dirty work. We were at S-21 an old highchool that was taken over by the Khmer Rouge and used for detention, interrogation, inhuman torture, and killing post confession. There were four three story school buildings all transformed into killing centers. The Kmer Rouge wanted to get rid of anyone with an education or mind of their own. They took in teachers, lawyers, doctors, business men, and tortured them until they divulged 10 names of those people who were against the communist takeover. We saw where they were tortured by water, weapons, and even electricity. Many people died during the interrogation. Others who broke down and gave names were still sent off to the killing fields and slaughtered. It was an extremely quiet tour because we were all in shock. Hung had her video camera and was able to catch it all on film. At the end we had many questions for Dr. Khauv because he was there during this time. He told us how the people of Phnom Penh were told propaganda that the Americans were going to bomb the city in three days. This is when the Khmer rouge arrived and were applauded being welcomed to the city as saviors They had no idea that the killing would begin three hours later. He said how his family was lucky as 2 out of the 7 million total Cambodians were slaughtered. The Khmer Rouge consisted mainly of children between the ages of 15 and 18 because they were so impressionable. Many of whom turned in their own families and were programed not to listen to their elders. They walked the streets with large assault rifles often 2/3rds their height. He told us how his father was forced to work in the fields (they survived on rice broth 2Xs a day and became extremely famished.) somehow they managed to escape to Vietnam by hiring a guide to take them through the jungle. When they arrived at the boarder they were thrown in jail because they had no papers. They remained there for 30 days until his father, papa khauv bribed his way out with a gold omega watch. They escaped to the jungle and took a boat to Thailand to be transferred to a rescue site. It was an inspiring story especially at the S-21 site.
Our next site was equally disturbing. It is called the killing fields. It is exactly what it sounded like; a field used for killing. This field was where those from S-21 were killed and put into mass graves. There were over 21,000 bodies buried here . Many of which were woman and children. Here they used no guns that way it was kept a secret. They played loud music over speakers so the screams of the murders were muffled from those who were soon to die. Many of the skulls seen here had been crushed due to blunt trauma to the head with assorted gardening tools. We even saw how they used palm trunks or plastic bags as weapons. Here we saw a large monument devoted to the lives lost during these 4 years. It was filled to the top with the skulls excavated from the burial site. The craziest part of this tour was that as we were looking at the mass grave sites we were literally walking on human bones sticking out of the ground. Clothes were also under our feet half buried, a reminder that this took place only 30 years ago. I think by this point of the day I was in the mood for a happier setting. But thus didn't happen quite yet. It was here at the killing fields where Phil started having bad stomach pains and kept having to make trips to the wash closet. Nick soon followed with similar symptoms. Chris and I were laughing about the whole process.
Dr. Khauv surprised us with a sunset cruise which was beautiful. We were out on the river once again, but this time with astonishing views of the city back lit by a sunset. We drove past towns made of boats tied together and saw many fisherman pulling fish out of their nets. Chris started feeling sick at this time passing out in a chair for most of the ride. I took some great sunset shots and can't wait to put them on a computer to see them. As the ship pulled back in to the dock/muddy bank we all exited the boat besides Chris because he was hanging over the side feeding to fish. We had to take him back to the hotel before dinner.
Dinner tonight was probably one of the best times I've had on the trip. Dr. Khauv's aunt invited us all over for dinner as long as we brought a table and adjusted more of her family. She lived on top of her watch store not to far from out hotel. It's a prime location in the city. We all piled into her house and sat at 2 tables made of wood with mother of pearl inlays covering the pieces. These tables were also surrounded by a set of 8 chairs and 2 love seats that matched. The set was probably valued close to 100,000 dollars! The food started flying in. We had chicken, pork with crispy skin, soup, and a veggie noodle dish. Rice we learned in Cambodian is called bye. More bye more bye we kept saying. Nick tricked me at the second nights dinner about hot peppers so I got him back when he asked me about how hot the pepper sauce was tonight. He poured it all over hahaha! It was delicious though. After dinner the food kept coming... We had coconut banana soup OMG so good. We also had some fruit I had never had before one called jack fruit and the other mangosteen... so good. Ok so this is where the night got crazy! Dr. Khauv convinced his cousin to come and join us and get adjusted. She is married to the princes son so yes that means she is royalty. She loved getting adjusted and after Hung taught her all about chiropractic and how it's all based off of the bodies neurology and nervous system. She became so fascinated by it that she insisted that Dr. Khauv come back to her palace and adjust her kids. While at the house we adjusted close to 25 people! For some reason they really liked me and made special requests for me to adjust them. They were so much fun because many of them spoke some English. I was taught how to say face down "cap mook" and face up "pnah". Nick and I talked later that night about how we had never felt more welcome in a strangers house before, it was great. After adjusting everyone including the maids we said our goodbyes as they loaded my arms with bundles of fruit. Even these tiny mangos that were super sweet. That night was fantastic but when we got home Nick got super sick. He was in and out of the bathroom all night. Poor guy I hope he feels better by the morning because we have a 7 hour bus ride tomorrow.

Day 5 - 2nd day of adjusting

Day 5 - 2nd day of adjusting.
  Once again we had a 7am start, it was hard to get up because our muscles hurt from all that adjusting the day before. We went to the same delicious restaraunt for our beef noodle breakfast and had two more students with us this time (Melody and Laura). Our next stop was the church from the day before. We set up shop and went back to serving after we adjusted each other of course. A line formed at the door and all the Cambodians were very happy to see us all again. Some were feeling so much better that they brought many of their friends for care as well. Melissa and Hung'a father a wonderful job organizing the patients as they walked in the door.   My first patient here was a woman in a wheel chair who complained of arm pain. She was a stroke patient so she wasn't moving to well (it was extremely difficult to move her on the table because only half of her body was working). After her adjustment she was very pleased with her results and gave me a friendly smile as i lifted her back into her wheelchair. Nothing compares to two of Nicks patients. (I can't do the stories justice so Nick will guest blog for me: well actually I tried to get him to write but her wasn't having it. I will paraphrase what he said... Haha) 
" the first was an ooold Cambodian woman who hobbled in with a main complaint of knee pain. Her left knee was very swollen when looking at it especially compared to the right. During palpation I heard clicking and it wasn't moving too well. I did alI that i knew to her knee to correct what i thought was a meniscus tear. After taking care of her knee i then adjusted the rest of her spine which was pretty knarly. As I was working on her she started praying outloud which made me feel very connected to her. I finished my treatment and she started moving her knee in disbelief because it felt so much better. She then proceeded to get up and jump around throwning her arms around me in a huge prolonged hug. She was crying and repeatedly said hakuun meaning thank you in Cambodian. Everyone around was watching this event transpire and many of the girls were even brought to tears. It definitely made my morning complete. The other patient that I had was a little girl who was pulled off the street. She had blood on her shirt and was in a lot of pain. I found out she had just been hit by a car seconds earlier. The first thing I did was check for fracture and she was clear! So I adjusted her hopeing that when she got off my table she would be back to new. This chiropractic stuff really works!" 
  After we finished up at the church we packed up our things and went back to the orphanage from the day before. The kids jumped for joy as we pulled back in. They offered us lunch which was very authentic ( i believe that this meal could have been the one that took out more of our group.) We enjoyed it with a large group of students from a university from Singapore. Chris and I decided to make conversation with one of them who made fun of me for holding my chopsticks so low. I never even noticed that the proper grip is all the way at the top. We learned about her life and she told us how she had visited  the U.S. (San Fran and Chicago). She then said that her sister went to some school that she couldn't remember the name of... Yeah it was Harvard haha. I asked why they all spoke English to each other and she told me that English is their first language! How crazy is that? Anyways... After lunch we set up our tables and started lining up the kids. This time they knew our routine and loved getting adjusted. We gave the kids stickers so that we knew they were accounted for and had been adjusted only once. We made a donation to the orphanage which included boxes of pens, paper, and NOODLES. They said their thanks and we headed out of their barbed wired gate to a school across the street. This school consisted of about 300 kids! We were only able to stay here for a little over an hour but saw many young children and their teachers. The line was consistantly getting longer but we had to shut down because there were people lined up at the generals house from the day before. So once again we drove back into the city and set up shop in the house. There was in fact a large line already formed in front of the house which was neat to see as we pulled put.. We had such a great time here because everyone was full of energy and truely appeciated what we were doing here in Cambodia for the people. We hit over 250 people today and man I could feel it. I had to take a break near the end of the day because my muscles weren't used to doing all this work. I think it was mainly all the extremity work because I had to remove adhesions from the muscles and wow there were a lot. The people of Cambodia were not whimps, I knew some of what I was doing was painful and they didn't flinch at all. It made all of us Americans look like pansies. We tried to pack up our equiptment multiple times but we would become swamped again and again with more people.. At points I thought the day would never come to an end, It was pretty sweet!
  That night we celebrated our hard work by having American food!! Hold on let me say that one more time AMERICAN FOOD. Mmm it was so good. We had pizza, miditernean salad ( not so American), and pizza! Oh yah baby. Once again we had a phenomonal day. I'm looking forward to tomorrow where we have a break to see the killing fields and the genocide museum. Thanks for reading and if you have any suggestions comments or questions I'm all ears!
( news flash: Laura was put back in the clinic again... She obvously has something that sounds horrible. Thankfully Melody is here taking care of her).  

Day 4 - first day of action!

Day 4 - first day of adjusting
  Today was a day that I will never forget. We started the day waking up at 6 to get ready for the days events. Brad and I taped up Nicks AC joint which he sprained about 5 weeks back. Sadly the tape job didn't really hold due to the humidity and only gave Nick a false sense of security which he took full advantage of.  Our group is 13 strong well kinda... We lost 2 yesterday due to food poisoning, parasite or something. Laura was throwing up for about 20 hours straight and had to go to a health clinic where she was put on an IV. The doctors here took blood from her to look for infection or virus and were waiting on a stool sample to check for parasites. I believe she spent the night in the clinic but they seemed to take good care of her (update: she stayed for 12 hours and it was only 200 dollars). Good thing i've been taking digestive enzymes and liver support to protect myself! Thank you supplements :) let's hope that I'm good for the rest of the trip.
  As the day started our transportation arrived... We knew we would be stylin' as two mercedes vans pulled up to our hotel. These vans will be our transportation for the next 2 weeks. Our first stop was for breakfast where we all slurped up beef noodle soup and ate these lightly fried bread logs with dipping sauce. Not a bad way to start the day!
  We all piled into the vans not truely knowing what to expect for the rest of the day. Our destination was 1 hour away and was definitely out of the major city. We finally pulled off the main road and onto a small single lane dirt road full of bumps and pot holes. The butterflies at this point started to hit our stomachs. It wasn't exactly that we were nervous but that we were excited! The vans finally stopped at a church which was a perfect setup. It was covered, had ceiling fans, and even a stage with lights. Nick jumped up on the stage and busted out some beats on the drums (he even was wearing a bandana and to complete his rocker look... However I thought he looked like one of the basher brothers from the mighty ducks. I wasn't any better because I looked like Steve Erwin with my safari like shirt and shorts. But hey we were comfortable! 
  we set up our tables in a line on the far wall and watched in awe as people started flying thru the door in the first hour we saw about 50 Cambodians... In that time I saw my first patient being wheeled through the door. She was in a wheel chair and was in her 80's. Her helper lifted her out of the chair and put her on my table. For her I decided it would be wise to use an adjusting instrument that is low force and extemely high velocity known as an activator. When I was done adjusting her I saw her eyes light up as she bowed to me with her hands in a prayer like position. It was her way of saying thanks. I mainly had elderly patients and some farm workers. I also had a woman  who was from Singapore and guess what she spoke English! The hardest part about working with the people of Cambodian is the language barrier... It's difficult to move them around the table. We were even given grammar cheat sheets to help but our Cambodian accents were horrible so I used sign language. 
Next we headed back down the road to an orphanage with 60 kids. They were so excited to see us and had huge smiles on all there faces! We set up our tables and went off to work. This was so much fun! They giggled after being adjusted and responded so well. Many of them stuck around to help their friends get adjusted telling them what position they should lay in. At this point we had adjusted over 100 people. When we left all the children at the orphanage they waved goodbye smiling looking forward to the next day when we came back to check them. Our next adventure was to the generals house... That's right the generals house. He volunteered to have us there to treat his whole family and friends. We showed up and there were a ton of people! We were in the middle of phnom penh so it was a much nicer venue. Half of us adjusted in his living room which was more like a garage. His nextdoor neighbor and aunt who was a baller was also kind enough to do the same. The other half set up outside. We saw over 100 here as well making our first day total 204 people. Holy crap I was so sore after I could hardly move and we are going to do the same thing again tomorrow. Hopefully I will survive! 
  we ended the day with a wonderful dinner which was comped by the generals aunt! She LOVED her adjustment. 

P.s. Sorry I know my grammer is horrible but I don't have spell check and try to type in the van. Thank you for dealing with me! Plus feel free to comment on my posts. 

Day 3

<--- Phil and Chris in their new stunna shades!


Day 3 - the arrival of the graduates and Dr. Khauv


This morning was an interesting one. At 3am I was up... And when I say up I mean fully awake. Nick who is my roommate for the first week also was wide awake or at least that's what he whispered across the room. I took this time to write about the previous days so that later I could easily transfer my blog to the Internet. I was somehow able to fall back asleep for a few more hours before waking up to the honking of scooters and the humidity beginning to creep into the room...yuck. I think it makes Nick feel like he's back in Iowa. Haha
  Now ready to go, we recieved a phone call from a cambodian man saying "room 204 wants to meet with you," it was a little creepy but that was actually a call from Chris and Phil who were just too lazy to walk up the steep stairs to our room. We laughed pretty hard about that later. Today we went back to the large market by our house and we all bought sunglasses from a vendor. I got some diesel knockoffs, Nick was styling in his new oakleys, and the best part is that Phil and chris picked up some euro raybans and didn't realize that they both got the same glasses until 1 hour later. After shopping we went out to a little place to eat which was filled with locals. The food costs about 1 us dollar per plate! what a deal! I hoped that I wouldn't regret this meal later but so far I've been strong in that department. From there we took a tuk tuk which is a little cart hooked to 1/2 a motorcycle to the Russian market. He somehow guided us through town without having an accident which wasn't like our ride back where we clipped a woman pushing a wagon (she screamed but we didn't stop). Upon ariving to the Russian market we were introduced to another heat wave but this time in a closed market filled with everything and anything you could ever dream of.. In its fake or cheap form of course! They had anything from bracelets to mufflers and they tried to push it all on you. It was a lot of fun but I don't think we would ever want to make it back to that sweaty place. 
  Upon returning back to our hotel we rested and met up with the new comers at dinner: Dr. khauv, masahito, Huong, and Kim. Somehow Nick convinced me to eat a hot dried red thai chili instantly giving me the hiccups. My mouth was on fire! Nick was laughing because he had tried one earlier and knew it was an oral killer. Dr. Khauv told us about the plan for tomorrow consisting of being picked up at 7am by bus, grabbing breakfast and a sack lunch and then driving out of the city to a little village where we will serve the people. We will be visited by one orphanage with about 250 children and another with 120. Then there is a village near by which we are told is also coming and is all HIV positive families. We were given the option if we weren't comfortable with adjusting them to choose not to.  I'm sure none of us are truely ready for what we are about to partake in. Ever since Dr. Khauv graduated from chiropractic school 10 years ago this has been his dream to come back to Cambodia and serve his native people with chiropractic care. I'm  so excited to help him now make his dream a reality. After dinner, 6 of us once again piled into the back of the generals pickup truck. Huong who is originally from Cambodia told us the inspiring story of her family. Her father escaped Cambodia leaving her mother to care for her 5 children. They were living close to the boarder and after being blessed by a shawman they left at night to cross into Thailand through the mine fields to a refugee camp. There they stayed for 1 year before coming to America with their father. She explained how they left everything and that her mother sewed gold into her shirt sleeves so they wouldn't be robbed along the way. Huong came on the flight with us to Cambodia on Thursday with her parents but had been visiting with family since we got back. She seemed happy to now be back in a hotel as she was staying in a hut on stilts over water. She slept on wood with mosquito nets that didn't help one bit. They also didn't have real toilets ac or hot water... Not fun. But she did say that they had rotten coconuts which is a cheap way of making fruit alcohol.
  Dr. Khauv wants us in bed around 9 so we can serve tomorrow at 100% so i'm going to head to bed to get ready for the morning. Each day is getting better and better! 
    
I've been trying to upload my photos but the upload speed is only about 4 kb/sec. I'll figure out a way.  

Day 2

Day 2
  It was nice finally getting a full night sleep in a real bed since the last was either on an airport chair or bench! Today we started off the day in a cafe that served breakfast for under 2 dollars and had free wifi. The wifi was great because it gave me access to my iPod which is what I am using to write this blog. Luckily I had another bowl of soup for breakfasr because it was even better than the one from the day before as Nick went for a cheese sandwhich because he was already missing american food. Our plan was to go back to the 8 story mall again and do a little shopping.
   After breakfast we stopped by the general's watch store on the way to the mall and once again were put back in the pickup for another adventure. This time we had 2 cars and the rest of the crew, totaling 11 for now.  I grabbed my camera and sat in the bed of the truck where I could get the best shots. I didn't know this trip involved going to "the mountain" around 90 minutes away. I definately got some sun and long stares from the cambodians as we drove by. (Btw driving is an experience in itself as we weaved back and forth as if we were racing). Some were eager to wave and smile while others were probably wondering... why is that white boy in the back of that truck? We were all surprised at how the Cambodian locals actually lived outside the major city. It was quite sad and jaw dropping to see their huts and extremely simple way of life. Yet, they all seemed happy besides the cows which looked literally like skin and bones. 
  Once my butt was numb from the dirt roads we finally came to the bottom of the mountain where we were bombarded by children who all seemed eager to practice their English with us. We got out of the car and were given sub sandwhiches filled with some weird meat and possibly some cheese... we couldn't really tell. All that mattered is that it went down to fill our bellies. We didn't know that these children would soon turn into our own personal little tour guides. I was kindly approached by a child named Sotuk who explained to me that he was a student and this was his holiday just like every Sunday. He said that his school was 9 hours a day and he wanted to become a teacher. The tour was pretty funny as i tried to connect with sotuk because his English was mediocre. His stories about the mountain and the temples were well scripted bit still didn't make any sense. Chris and nick had raced their tour guides to the top of the first set of stairs (160) and won, however the two of them felt sick and out of breath at the top. I was lead to budda after budda and was explained that Chinese buddas faced north and kmer budda's faced east. At one part of the mountain we saw orange monks who chanted in a deep tune. Chris and I were told to take off our shoes by some little Cambodian tourists because they didn't want us to be disrespectful. They had large smiles and commented on our teeth because they liked how white they were. Chris then took off his shirt and our tour guides giggled and pointed as they said "white" and commented how we liked their tan skin and they like our white skin. When the tour came to an end and we descended the mountain we were all surprised by cute little monkeys. One even pissed on the head of one of the girls as they headed down to the bottom... It was priceless to see. When we neared the bottom sotuk explained that it costs him 20 dollars a month to learn English and asked if I would pay for one month of school. I thought wow this kid drives a hard bargin as he was very direct and then asked if he could get it now because he was hungry. I gave him a couple bucks and he still wanted more. This was obviously a scam they use to suck you in. At the bottom of "the mountain" we all cooled off with some beer and cola before hopping back into the truck. This time I stayed inside the cab because I had enough sun for the day. Nick, Chris, and Phil this time wanted to be in the back and had the time of their lives as we passed more locals who now thought, "why are there three shirtless white boys in the back of that truck"? We couldn't stop laughing at them. Next we pulled up to these amazing wat's. They were only 10 years old and were spread out nicely across the land. We saw the monks walking about and there were only about 20 but yet they had multiple large temples to pray in... It didn't really make any sense to us. After seeing a few more wats we found one that had a market outside and decided to check it out. Papa Khauv stated sucking down a coconut which looked wonderfully refreshing. Phil, Chris and I split one and I carefully explained to them that the coconut milk is good for constipation since this was their first coconut experience. Next we walked over to the general and saw that he was eating something. That something was FROG and guess what? It was delicious! we noticed all the other food but wasn't ready to try it as frog was enough for today. 
  Now back in the truck we headed back to Phnom Penh. This time we couldn't go so fast as it was market time and everyone was out in the streets shopping. The market was a few miles long and was spread tightly across the road. Before we knew it papa Khauv and the general had another adventure up their sleve as we pulled into a restaurant and ordered food to go. While we waited Nick and Chris fished in a pond because Phil said he would eat one of the fish if they caught one. Well... They caught 2 and down the hatch they went haha! We soon learned that we were going to eat our food on a boat cruise on the river which turned out to be a relaxing way to end the night. I caught up and talked with brad and melissa as we sat inches above the merky waters of the river. We had nice views of the towns colorful lights and of the new developments under construction on an island... Very cool. Chris spotted that our boat captain was falling asleep at the wheel and went to save us. He found out that the caption was actually just texting... Haha ( shouldn't that be a ticket?) As the night came to a close we hopped back into the bed of the pickup and made it back to the Tin Tin and once again climbed the stairs to shower for karaoke. We came into our room and jumped on the bed to rest but once our heads hit the pillows it was lights out. Wow what a day!  

Chris and I at the budda on the mountain!

Petrolium barrels that I saw on the ride to the mountain in the back of the truck.

Monks at the Wak in orange

 
Our tour guides on the mountain... can you believe that they are 15 years old?

First time in Cambodia

Eating our glorious breakfast in taipai... it was soooo good.

I'm so happy about my neck pillow. We all ended up buying them so we could get some quality sleep on the plane

Phil went for a morning jog up the down escalator in Taiwan
Now after traveling almost 24 hours I have made it from sfo to taipia which was a phenomonal airport and then all the way to Cambodia. In taipai we had a 4 hour layover where we sampled taiwanese food including dim sum, dumplings, some authentic soups and rice milk. The flavor was unlike anything I have ever tasted... It was god enough that I ate evrything besides the rice milk which was too rich and it looked like chocolate milk. Another interesting thing was that the airport had themed gates. The one for hong kong was a full blown hello kitty center which caught me off guard.
When we landed in Cambodia I noticed right away that I was in a third world country as the airport was tiny and very simple. I was so excited to finally make it but a little nervous of what was to come. To get to our hotel called the tin tin we were met by two fevers who were relatives of dr. Khauv. They were very nice but didn't speak a word of English. On our way to the hotel we noticed one thing that was very different, everyone drives mopeds or toyotas I mean everyone! Also the lane dividers are there but people here don't care about them. During our ride we were probably inches away from other cars and bikers.
Once we made it somehow back to our hotel known as the tin tin we decided to get adventurous and walk about the town. There was constant action in the street due to the racing mopeds, toyotas and the tiny family owned shops that lined its sides. Each shop snuggly fit into a slot that rivaled that  of a single car garage and was packed full ofaterials waiting to be sold. We ended up walking around an outside mall where we met up with dr. Khauvs father (papa khauv) who brought us to an adjacent 8 story mall which we somehow previously missed. It was filled with everything you could possibly imagine. After reahing the top Our stomachs drove us onto the floor that the food court was on. We were grossed out by the selection of food since it had been sitting out raw for at least a day. Somehow I was convinced to eat some soup which looked like pho. It tasted pretty darn good and luckily we were treated to froyo by Nick... Yum!
  Upon returning back to the tin tin our night was directed in a whole new direction when papa khauv and his cousin ( a 2 star general) decided to drive us in his truck for a night tour of the city. The weather was perfect as was the night life. Everyone was out dancing or walking on the street this Saturday night. We were brought to some statues, new developments, and some large hotels all along the river. This car ride lasted about 2 hours and yes even though we were excited to see the city, we were extemely tired and somehow fell asleep in the back of the pickup.  We thought our ride was going back to our hotel but we pulled over off the side of the road for dinner. 
  We walked down an alleyway and entered the restaurant. It was very exciting because the walls were filled with aquariums swimming and squirming with crabs, jumbo shrimp, eels, and all sorts of funny looking fish... Yum. When we sat down we were greeted by a waitress who filled our glasses with a gigantic ice cube and then unlimited beer (no joke it was hard to finish without being refilled). The beer was a necesity due to the flamming hot dipping sauce which went with our pig stomach (house specialty), calamari, soup, spicy vegetables, and these thick noodles with chicken that rocked my world. What a great way to end our first night in Phnom Penh. We made it back to our hotel so full from dinner that we were hardly able to climb the four floors to our room where we crashed. Day one finally came to an end.