Teehee! I took advantage of the blank wipe board in the office to wish everyone a Happy Canada Day. I'll have to get pictures from Tony to show you guys how we spent the night of the thirtieth, and I'll describe it in more detail with the pictures but a short synopsis = met a Mountie, the Canadian ambassador to Phnom Penh, drank champagne and ice wine (and normal wine) and saw an inukshuk carved from ice. It's the biggest Canada Day party to have happened yet in Phnom Penh. Very enjoyable :)
Piseth, Tony, Danica and Dr. Ngiep. Piseth and Dr. Ngiep were super nice and volunteered to take us on a tour of Phnom Penh on Canada Day! We started off at Wat Phnom, which you can see up in the background. It's in the middle of a roundabout, which makes it a bit of a challenge to get to. It's really popular on the Khmer New Year and supposedely it's impossible to move around cuz there are so many people.
At the top there were some pretty decorations. This Wat was pretty modest and there's a larger more elaborate one in the old capital of Cambodia, which I'm hoping to get to next weekend.
Buddhas lined up with donations of money and lotus flowers.
Recruiting more Canadians for Canada Day! Tony had brought some stickers from back home and the kids (and Meghan) were going nuts over them!
There are these cages full of birds all over the touristy parts of the city and the story goes that for a small fee the tourist can set a bird free. However, the birds have been trained to come back to the cages, which I think is hilarious!
Meet Sambo the elephant. He's often down by the river when I go jogging in the morning and then he'll make his way over to Wat Phnom to take the tourists for a ride.
Piseth and Tony having a chat while they wait for....
Mr Popular.
And again, in true Meghan-style, why have a normal hammack when you could have a broken hammack that needs duct tape?! This is the photo of my second attempt to keep the damn thing together. I've fallen twice so far but I'm hopeful that this one's a keeper :)
Shrimp vendor taking a snooze at Central Market.
Crickets. Deep fried crickets. Tony and Danica, upon the suggestion from Dr. Ngiep gave these a try and found them to be quite good (though Danica was still chewing 5 min later, as there were wings stuck in her teeth!)
An example of one of the older colonial-style buildings around the city.
Eggs at the Old Market. I love how they're in baggies.
I went to a Wat near my apartment with a friend and it was all closed up, being mid-Sunday afternoon and all...but then this guy saw us and beckoned us over to a smaller building which he unlocked and brought us into. Within a small room was this Buddha, which he lit up for us, and then gave us each an incense and we knealt down. The room was really smoky, from all the incense that had burned there over the days as there was no ventilation. But it was a nice smell and a cool atmosphere. Then the guy started chanting and sprinkling us with lotus water. It was such a neat experience but then I started to giggle. So much water was being splashed on me that it was getting in my ear and I could see my friend wiping his face in the corner of my eye and I lost it. Embarassing, but I couldn't stop once I'd started. Sigh.