The beginning in Cambodia by Mia

Little guys wrestleing on the rice.

We took the MRT to the airport in Singapore with all or our luggage, which was easy because we left our winter stuff at Mingdeap's house. All of our luggage was really easy to carry. The ride took about an hour and when we got to the airport we met Mingdeap there who looked really tired because she had just spent like a whole day on a plane! We checked in and went through security and then hung out for a little while by the gate, waiting. After a little while we went to the gate which was closed off and had security on the way in, too. We boarded without incident and that was really nice because usually something gets confiscated or I get singled out for one of those random explosive tests, which I don't think are really that random because I have had so many of them! The plane ride was a bit uncomfortable because there was zero leg space, but it was only a few hours long so it wasn't that bad. Daddy dug into his airplane 'happy cooler' and everyone was happy.

Little boy at the orphanage drawing a picture. He's so cute! Mingdeap took this
one, it is her camera after all...

            When we got to Siam Reap the visa people let us all in for free because we are part Cambodian except for daddy because he is white. It took a while because they asked for a marriage certificate for some reason and daddy had to get out his laptop to show them and everything. It was worth it though because we only had to pay $20 total to get in, and now we all (except daddy) can come back whenever we want. We went through and met Ma and our uncle (I think he is our uncle, the family is too big to keep track of) and rode to the hotel in the van/bus Ma had hired with a driver. It was really nice to have everyone else taking care of things because mommy and daddy get really stressed when they have to do it! The roads we similar to Bali with the scooters and the insanity, but they were bigger because it was a bigger city (and some of them even had a curb in the middle so people couldn't cross lanes). There weren't that many roadside stands either for the same reason. It was really cool and you could tell mommy was really happy because she was being really weird and laughing a lot, which is not normal. The people at the hotel were really nice and they gave us orange juice and cold washcloths to cool off with. It was way more than any of us expected with a $15 room! After we decided who was sleeping where, we walked to a restaurant for dinner which was really yummy! Good food makes everything better!

 WORK OF ART!!! Picture by Mia, of the shirt
Mingdeap bought me. I was just sitting in the car... that's how good
Mingdeap's camera is! The one or Kayley is better though!

            The next morning we ate breakfast at the restaurant at the hotel and then went to a market for some large amounts of food for the orphans we were going to visit. There was a big box of instant noodles, a 5 kg bag of rice, and a few other things. We drove for a few hours to the little orphanage that Mingdeap goes to sometimes and played with her camera on the way. It’s a really nice camera! When we got there all the kids swarmed Mingdeap and gave her hugs. They were all really cute and energetic and happy. There were about 20 kids ranging from like 4 to about 11 years old. The youngest was the only girl and she was really cute and the bigger boys didn't beat her up like they did to each other. The orphanage was really small and very open. There was a little class room area with desks and some books and a few posters on the wall. In the dining area there was a table and on the walls there was a bunch of pictures of then with visitors playing games and stuff.

A WORK OF ART! (II)  by Mia Rolph (picture of Kayley)
Man, I just love Mingdeap's camera!

            The kids were really adorable and extremely energetic and happy. They weren’t shy at all and within a few minutes they were bouncing all over the place and having daddy throw them up in the air because he was so big. He was like a jungle gym for them! The one little girl was jumping all over the tables and yelling at the top of her lungs and a few boys started wrestling on top of the bag of rice which was on top of the table. It was adorable chaos! This one really cute little boy kept bringing me books to read to him even though he didn’t speak English so we ended up just looking at pictures. Mommy was going through numbers and animals with them in English and a few of the older boys were actually really good. After they got bored with that we played a game that involved a lot of running and tagging and stuff. The ones whose legs were long enough to run were really fast and they all were really tough. They were rolling around in the dirt and tripping each other a ton and even the tiny ones would get up laughing! It was really fun and we played until we had to leave, because that game would only end when they got tired and they never got tired!

Mommy reading to some little boys... don't think they understood, but they kept
coming back anyways!

After the orphanage we drove for a while longer to Aunt Sopha’s apartment and met some cousins that were staying there. They are really nice and smiley J. Everyone except Ma went for a walk then and we got some sort of green mangos that were pretty good even though they weren’t ripe. Then, we all went out to dinner at a nice restaurant, which was really yummy. I really like Cambodia, especially all the orange everywhere which is really pretty. Even the dirt is orange sometimes and it covers all the plants near the road with orange dust so everything is orange! I didn’t think I liked orange that much but it is actually really pretty. Cambodia definitely is different from Singapore, but I’m pretty used to different right now!