Caleb goes to the market!

Lydia has been helping Caleb the last few weeks. One of their favorite things to do together is visit the market - there is so much to see!

Fresh fish still wiggling on the table.

Lots of fruit!

Women sewing with push petal sewing machines.

Caleb's new favorite drink - fresh sugar cane juice!

This press makes the juice.

Thank you Lydia for showing Caleb around the market!

Hockey Tickets!

For Any of you who are NHL fans, Asian Hope has partnered with the Colorado Avalanche. There are a limited amount of highly discounted tickets for sale as a fundraiser. If you would like to get more info click the link.

https://www.pepsicenter.com/groups/default.aspx?tn=avalanche&ln=asianhope

If you end up going I would be very interested to here about it.

Big "Moto's"

The the term "moto" is a term for anything with two wheels and a motor. Moped, motor-scooter, motorcycle, dirt-bike, and crotch-rocket would all be called a moto.

I was finally free to take one of the missionary guys here up on going dirt-biking out in the province. It sounded like it could be fun. Some of the other guys heard about it and warned me that the lead guy can get a bit technical for inexperienced riders. Being on a handful of outings, I believe I fall into that category. So being in the same boat on most of my other experiences I decided to take it easy so I wouldn't come back injured or broken. It just so happened that the lead guy had to cancel the morning of due to his kids being sick.
So there I was with two other guys trying to figure out what to do with the bikes we had already rented. One of the guys had been out once before and it just so happened to be where we were going. The last time the other had ridden he was 14. So of course we had to go.

Left-Right: Joe Hansen, Dean Weiss, Gregg Dawson

Gregg Dawson

Road Block

Rice patty

Dean Weiss

Hmmm... Bush or tree?

Rice Patty again (I thought it was a cool shot)

Rice Patty yet again...(I thought it was another cool shot)

click on the picture to enlarge it

Me (Joe) in front a typical wood construction Khmer house. This one was pretty unique because it was painted. For this area it is the nicest house by far.

ME! (yet another COOL shot) ;)

I was glad to see the provincial life style a bit more and get a more rounded perspective of the province and Cambodia. I didn't take many of the more "normal" stuff. I will have to remember that is may not be so normal to those who have not been here. You are getting the better parts here because I thought they were pleasant or fun. It turned out to be an easy going and beautiful trip. I think the we all liked the slower pace we were able to have. We had the bikes for 24 hours and didn't go through half the gas we purchased. All things considered $28.00 and 5 hours well spent. I plan to do it again... Eventually.

Monumental

Now that we know Phnom Penh a lot better I thought it would be fun to give you a monument/sculpture tour. So here we go...This is "Independence Monument". It signifies Cambodian independence from the French. It sits in the middle of a large round-about in the south east of the city.

This golden monk is in the middle of a large round-about is less than a half mile east of Independence Monument. It always reminds me of the huge budist population here. I haven't been able to get any details on the significance of this statue. It might be easier if I read Khmer.

This is the "Vietnamese/Cambodian friendship Monument" it memorializes the Vietnamese forces freeing Cambodia from the khmerouge. It is about 70 feet tall. It is about a half mile North of the golden monk.
This is commonly referred to as the "Twisted Gun". I'm sure that the idea is communicated clearly. Peace. There is more to it but I can't read the Khmer on the monument. It is only 15 feet tall but is in a very busy round-about in the north east of the city.

There are more statues that I wanted to get pictures of. I will post a few every now and again. I will also be doing a few blogs on the major tourist "stuff". That will be coming mixed in with real life