Day 2: Caring For Cambodia to Angkor Artisans to Silk Worms

We ventured out before the sun rose this morning to take a short bus ride to a school to serve the children breakfast.  It was an organization called Food for Thought with CFC (Caring For Cambodia).  The school is for local Cambodian children and CFC is one of the many NGO (non-governmental organizations) in Cambodia.  We spooned many bowls filled with soup with rice to these children and tried to interact with them during breakfast.  We were supposed to be spread between 3 different schools but 2 of them were closed due to the floods.  After breakfast we played with the children and had a tour of the school.  Megan, a woman from Texas, told us about how the school operated and the basic needs of the students and teachers.

For the rest of the day we had a free day to wander around town.  Dorthe, Janice, Eric, Jenny and I hired 2 tuk-tuks to see the sights.  We first went to Artisans Angkor and had a tour of craftsmen/women at work. Artisans d’Angkor trains Cambodians in making traditional Cambodian products.  In this workshop there were many deaf people working on copying paintings.  So although the products are reproduced, they are reproduced one-by-one.  The main focus is ornamental sculpture from soap stone and sandstone, lacquer ware, silk weaving and silk painting.  And of course there was a lovely gift shop which I happily supported!

Next we toured the main garden/park near the palace (which wasn’t very impressive) but in the tall trees in the park they were packed with hundreds of bats!

Then we rode in our tuk-tuks out of town to a silk worm farm. This farm was also connected to Artisans d’Angkor.  It was very interesting.  We saw the mulberry bushes in which the worms feed upon.  A cocoon life cycle takes 47 days!  We saw all stages of the larva, worm, cocoon and then how the people boiled the cocoon to extract the silk thread.  No wonder silk is so expensive!

Jenny and I enjoyed a nice cold beer on our way home in our tuk-tuk. We all had dinner at a Mexican restaurant and ended the day with a foot massage!

Thought of the day:

~One single balloon can open the language barrier into a room full of fun and no barriers!~