Reward

These last couple of days have been really cool. On Saturday we got to sleep in a little because we had all been up late friday, and we went to a Khmer cooking class. At the cooking class we made fried spring rolls and fish amok. I liked the spring rolls and now have a new appreciation for them seeing how much work goes into them. The fish amok was fun to make but I personally was not a huge fan of the taste. The whole thing was really cool. After that we went to see the Royal Palace, which was incredible. It is really well built and has many amazing things inside. There is a big Buddha statue made out of over 90 kilo's of solid gold and massive diamonds.

Then we were instructed that due to the group's hard work we were getting the privilege of going to Angkor Wat! So we packed up and drove the 5 hours to the Siem Riep province. We got there late with just enough time to eat and head to the Night Market to buy souvenirs.

Monday we woke up at 4:00 am to go see the sunrise over Angkor Wat, unfortunatly it was a little cloudy so the sunrise wasn't that great, but I'm glad we did it because it is cool to watch the whole structure start to wake up in the sun light. We came back to the hotel for some breakfast then headed off to another temple, Angkor Tom. This one is one of my  favorites as it has 54 massive Buddha faces that face the coordinates, north, west, east, and south. It's incredible to see what these people did using only wood and rocks. We saw most of the temples in the city of Angkor Tom, which were all cool. Then we headed off to another temple which is the one that Angelina Jolie used in her movie Tomb Raider. This is also crazy. It has 200 feet tall trees that have grown into the structure. The roots are out in the open and they have completely consumed entire structures. Then we were headed to one of the original 7 wonders of the world, Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat is the tallest building in Siem Riep, the largest temple in Cambodia and one of the biggest in the world. Every square foot has something spectacular about it and it was great to get a refresher and pick up the little things that I missed when I went last year.

I do not think that any of us went through the weekend without having the kids in our minds several times. But we did our job and got an amazing treat of going to Angkor Wat, and changing our lives as well as the orphans at CPO. We did it. We completed the mission, and we did it as a team. It would not have been possible without all of your help and support, thank you!