7 Day 6 Night at Cambodia
- Valerie Lee Tong
- Sep 13, 2017
- 9 min read
Vacation & Volunteer Work
Yes, this trip was not totally a vacation, the main purpose of going to Cambodia this time is to join the Colors of Cambodia (COC) project. COC is a NGO located at the bustling heart of Pub Street, open to offer free art education and materials to the children of Siem Reap. Not only that, the students from the gallery do mural painting at the Angkor Children Hospital, giving free art education and distribute donated items at schools that are located in rural village. Because my teacher/boss is the project manager of this project, she asked me to join and help out during the 1 week of primary school holiday.
For more info, do click the image for their website
http://colorsofcambodia.org/
This was my second time visiting Cambodia and I decided to join this project to see the different parts and places of this country. My companion? My bf Des, so this is our first vacation trip and also a volunteer project at the same time, which is quite interesting actually.
DAY 1 - Colors of Cambodia & Angkor Children Hospital
After reaching the Siem Reap International airport, we took a van and travel to COC Gallery before going to our hotel.
The gallery was actually quite simple, simple yet bringing this joyful and cheerful spirit because of the friendly worker and teacher. The first thing that attracted my attention was definitely those pretty postcards <3 I love postcards that were specially illustrated by designers or painters, I usually buy some for my postcards collection and some as souvenirs for my friends. We stayed there for about 30 minutes (to choose postcards) and walked to Viva Hotel to check-in. After taking a short break, we continued our day at the Angkor Children Hospital where we did mural painting on the walls of the hospital.
One thing I highly recommend was their Ice Cream Rolls! Just outside the gallery there was a stall selling Ice Cream Rolls for 2.5 USD. We bought one to give it a try and it was YUMMY! The owner recommended us to try the combination of coconut, mango and. . . and. . . I've forgotten what was the last favor with Oreo toppings, it turns out really delicious and refreshing at the same time!
It was about a 5-10 minutes ride to Angkor Children Hospital. Our mission for Day 1 and 2 will be doing mural paintings for the hospital, together with other volunteers, students and teachers of COC. I'm not sure where we were painting but it was outside, at the back of a construction area. Children were running around the place, some with wheelchair sitting at the side, watching us painting. I noticed some children with severe injuries, one which had her whole head fully bandaged . . . I wondered what had happened to her and ended up in this situation . . . I really hope she'll be fully recover soon . . .
Rain started to fall whenwe were painting halfway, as the rain became heavy, we decided to stop and continue the rest of the wall tomorrow. We went back to COC, had our dinner at a restaurant next door, and ended our day walking back to our hotel under the rainy night . . .
DAY 2 - Pub Street & Angkor Night Market
Before starting our night adventure, we did some admin works at the COC Gallery. Des and I became "Post Officers", stamping few hundreds of postcards while 2 other volunteers (teenage kids) spent most of their time folding papers. I got envy when Des could stamp fast and perfectly while I couldn't get a perfect one all the time. With that he gave me a little stress honestly! We stooped our works at lunchtime and had our breaks
Our day continued with mural painting at the Angkor Night Hospital. This time, the spot had changed to the Premature Baby Room. Inside the room there were mothers with their newborn child, many of the baby were small in size, their hands looked tiny and fragile to even hold. Some of the babies were connected with a tube so a machine would pumped in milks regularly. While painting, we need to wear a huge outerwear, it's like a huge pink pajamas for me . . . like really really huge. . .
We finished our work at evening and walked back to the hotel. After having a quick bath, Des and I had dinner and began our night adventure! As I said before, the Pub Street was located just near by the gallery. Although it wasn't the peak season for tourist, the streets were filled with people walking around, laughing and having fun with musics playing loudly from the pubs. We're not really a fan of club pubs and alcohol so we just walked through the street and look around.
We continued our way towards the Angkor Night Market, just another 10 minutes walk from the Pub Street. Many similar souvenirs were sold, fake branded shoes, t-shirts, and typical key chains and stuff, almost every stalls have the same items. There were a few stalls that were quite special though, some sell shadow puppets, rice art and artist were doing oil paint on the spot and selling them. One thing that caught our attention? FOOD of course! We bought coconut milk ice cream, eating them with pleasure while walking around the night market. We walked back to the hotel after buying some souvenirs, ending our night with sweaty bodies and foods in our tummy . . .
DAY 3 - Artisans Angkor & Angkor National Museum
YES! It's a free day for today, no work until 7pm briefing section at COC. We woke up late at 10am since we won't be rushing around for today. We planned to visit the Artisan Angkor and Angkor National Museum which both were highly recommended to visit based on the internet. I've been to Artisan Angkor before during my last trip, I just thought it would be nice to visit there again together with Des this time.
There's similarities between COC and Angkor Artisan though, Angkor Artisan is also a center for underprivileged local people to learn handicraft and art for free. It was open in 1990 and soon the company grew and many places are selling their products and handcrafts. This company is also a place to help young people from rural village to find jobs.
We walked 15 minutes from our hotel, what a way to start and lose some fats after our breakfast. I couldn't really remember how the place looked like, so I was quite happy to see the place was designed in a garden-like. Starting from the stone carving section and slowly walking towards the wood carving, silver making, silk cloth and painting. All the artist there were enjoying and doing their work as tourist were guided by a worker when they explain the process and material used. I guess I was the one who was guiding Des since I've studies Fine Arts and knew the basics about sculpture and stuff.
Let me introduce to you a tuk-tuk driver that we met!
We took a tuk-tuk towards Angkor National Museum as it was quite a distance to walk and we didn't rent a bike as we planed. But guess what? We met a new friend which was the tuk-tuk driver! On our way towards the Angkor National Museum, we didn't know we need to buy tickets first before going there, he was kind to fetch us to a tourist center to buy the ticket. Des and I thought there was commission fees or what, but it turned out not, the price were original! He even explained few of the places that we passed through during the journey, like a mini tour guide. After paying him for the ride at the Museum, he didn't mind waiting for us to fetch us back to our hotel and told us how long we should stay in the Museum, about 1 and a half - 2 and a half hour would be highly recommended.
Going back, he purposely took a different way to show us the Royal Queen's palace and the garden, asking us whether we would like to take a picture there. Reaching our hotel he said it was up to us to pay how much we want as he was happy to meet us as a new friend. We pay a little extra of course as tips and we were really happy to have him as a tour guide for the pass few hours. It was sad that we have to declined his offer to fetch us around Angkor Wat on Friday because there was already a Van and tour guide booked for us by Teacher Honey . . . it would be fun to have him as our tour guide and driver for the day though. . .
So if you ever saw him, do hopped into his tuk-tuk and he'll definitely brighten up your mood by his positivism and passion
Now back to the Museum of course, there were no photography allowed so I only managed to take a picture outside of the building. It would be great o visit this museum before you start your tour at Angkor Wat. Not only it was well maintain and fully air-conditioned, the museum was filled with information and sculptures that were used to be from Angkor Wat temples. From there you would understand The History of Angkor Wat and the Khemer Art History.
The rest of the day were just pizza for dinner, a briefing and packing section for our next day's school visit with another batch of volunteer worker who just came today. Samaki School and Thai Zo School visit for the next 2 days. . .
DAY 4 - Samaki School Visit
We sat on tuk-tuk to travel towards a rural village, to visit a school in this village call Samaki School. It's a really small area and the classrooms are small, there were no electricity so there were no fans or light, just air and sunlight that came in from the opened window. Most of the students were young students, probably from 7 to 13 or 14 years old. They were lining up with teachers guiding them. The uniform that they wore were yellowish instead of white, we learnt that there were not a lot of water supplies in the village so usually they wash their clothes at the river.
We started our work, distributing donated items, taking portrait pictures for their sponsors, free hair cut for those who needed, and giving free art education to create a thank you cards for their sponsors. I was the photographer of the day while Des was taking portraits for the students.
The most exiting part would be presents were given to each of them and extra prizes for those who perform well in their studies. Last year was bicycle, this year they have umbrellas, rain coats and etc, this is to encourage others to study hard during their next exam.
We ended our event with a group photo and appreciation speech in class and waved them goodbye, seeing them happily taking their gifts home to share with their family. The cutest part was seeing a little boy cycling back with his super huge bicycle that he got last year!
Going back to town, we took bath after we continued some work at COC and went to "Jungle Burger" for our dinner. Both Des and I order a set of burger which was huge enough for us to share! After finishing packing items for school visit for the next day, we took a short walk towards Siem Reap Art Center Night Market which sold typical tourist items as well like Angkor Night Market, but it was a nice calming walk, holding hands with Des and eating our chocolate banana pancake. . .
DAY 5 - Thai Zo School Visit & Kompong Phluk Floating Village
Same as yesterday, we're going to another village for school visit. This time we sat on van as the destination was further away from town. The school was in better condition than Samaki School because the school was here longer. Not only there were young students, there were also teenagers up till 17 years old. Most the older students wore their housing clothes instead of school uniforms.
We continued our afternoon at a near by restaurant where we get to have our lunch in a hut which was build on top of a river. It was a great experience and to be honest, the price is reasonable if you ordered the food and shared it as a group. After our lunch, we continued our journey towards Kampong Phluk's bay by sitting the tuk-tuk, definitely our face was covered with dust and sands.
We reached the bay, going through thrilling bumpy roads of the village. We were a little disappointed with the price that were given as it was a lot expensive than the one that Teacher Honoey told us! We even need to top up with another amount of money if we wanted a tour though the mangrove forest which was not that reasonable as well. We decided to stick without the mangrove forest ride and just riding through the Floating Village. Villagers were sitting and relaxing at their homes on top of the water, children running around and fisherman were riding their boat, passing by our boats . . .
We were already super exhausted from the rides, our face were covered with dust and sands, Des and I even covered our face with a towels to see how dirty is it! At night all of us had a little small party at COC, to end our second last day with drawing and writing appreciation letter. Des and I did and exchange our letters . . . another memorable moment to remember . . .
DAY 6 - Angkor Wat
To be continue
Comments