Anneke and I went to the orphnage yesterday and we loved it. It's about a half hour tuk tuk ride from phnom penh when we got there all there was was a gate with two cement pillars with SCAO spray painted on it which stands from save the poor children of asia organization. We walked in and we saw a classroom made out of a tarp and some wooden poles that could hold about 25 students. We met a man who took us down the road to where about 16 orphans stay. This is where we met the founder of the organization he gave us a little run down of how it works. The organization it's self is only about 14 months old. It still has no sponsors and relys souly on donations. Which is pretty tough for them. Once we got our little tour and spele we were told that we were teaching an english class of 25 kids in about an hour. So as you can imagine anneke and I were kinda stressed. We had no idea where these kids were with their english or even how old they were. They gave us an english learning book and told us roughly what page they were on, and we just went from there. When it came down to teaching the kids, it turns out that they were much smarter than we thought, which was nice. They're also all very eager to learn.
The way that the organization works is there is an orphanage with about 16 children, whom they care for. The organization also offers four english classes a day for free to the people in the surrounding village. Each class has anywhere from 25 to 40 students. Anneke and I are teaching the 5:30 class now for the rest of the week. The kids are anywhere from 9-13 years old. Tommorow we are also going to move into the orphanage for the week and sleep in the same house as the children. We're also taking part in a fundraiser tommorow in phnom penh. The whole organizaton is currently run by about 4 or 5 regular volunteers. So on saturday 4 or 5 of us are going to the river front where me and some other guys will possibly play guitar, while the the others sell hand made post cards to raise money for the organization. We're pretty much winging it, but we'll see how it goes.
We'de like to ask you for your prayers and pray for this organization as well. They're doing good things, but they don't have really any funding. We may not be able to keep in too much contact because there's not too much internet in the area, but if we find some we'll tell you. It's going to be an interesting week.

Happy in Cambodia

Our experience in Cambodia so far has been amazing! We are currently in Phnom Penh, which is the capital of Cambodia. We were in Kratie for about two days. Our first day in Kratie was fantasic. After break fast we rented a motor bike and decided to go to some rapids we heared about, which are about 30 minutes outside of Kratie. It was a beautiful drive through the Cambodian country side. It was also pretty interesting because niether of us had ever really driven a motor bike before. We decided that I would drive first sinse I used to drive a big cargo van (which is completely different than a motor bike). It took me a while to figure out the shifting, and after alot of jerking forward and sudden stops I got the hang of it. What took the most getting used to was the traffic. In Cambodia there aren't really any rules, which means that one ways are two ways and roundabouts are just circles full of people doing whatever they want. Once we go out of town it was smooth sailing all the way to the rapids. When we got to the rapids there were two or three rows of beach huts along the banks of the rapids. After not even being there for 5 minutes we were invited over by 11 young men celebrating a 24th birthday. So we sat around and ate fish with them and celebrated witht them for a good three or four hours. When they had to go we said goodbye and saw them to there motor bikes, when we got back we were invited to swim with five other young locals in rapids, which was a great time.
The next day we rented motor a motor bike again and headed out to see the Irrawady dolphins that reside in the Mekong. We had to sneak behind a construction zone to see them, so as to avoid paying 14 dollars, but it was worth it.
After that we made our way here. We've settled into the tat guesthouse and are spending our first day here getting to know the city. At the guest house we found a brochure advertising possible volunteer positions in an orphanage about 7 kms outside of Phnom Pehn, so we phoned them and we're going to check it out tommorow and see what there is to do. So we'll keep you updated further and we hope to keep hearing from you.

Hi everyone,
Anneke and I have just arrived in a town in the north east of Cambodia called Kratie. Yesterday we were in another town called Kompong Cham. Both places are located right on the beautiful Mekong River. About three days ago we visited Angkor Wat, which was absolutly fantastic. We rented bikes from Siem Reap the day before to bike the 9 kms to Angkor Ruins. But the day before we left my bike got a flat tire. And since we left for Angkor around 5:00 in the morning the bike shop to exchange the bike. So I hopped on Annekes bike and peddled while she sat on the rack in the back. It also happened to be pitch black once we got out of siem reap and were on the main road to Angkor Wat there were no lights and the road was full of pot holes so we decided to just walk with the bike. To make a long story short a very kind police man ended up driving behind us on his motor cycle to give us light while we rode our bike for the rest of the way to angkor. On the way back from Angkor the locals seemed to get a kick out of us. As they drove by they would wave and chuckle while we rode our bike looking like losers. The rest of our stay was great. We stayed in a place called the winter guest house which ironically had no air conditioning. We met lots of fellow travellers and ate very well. The average plate at a local restaurant in Cambodia is about $3 dollars U.S. Our stay in Kampong cham was also very pleasant. We walked over the Mekong on a bamboo bridge and dipped our feet in it and we saw our first thunder storm. Now that we're in Kratie we hope to stay here for few days. There are some rare Irrawady dolphins in the Mekong about 30 minutes north of here so we hope to rent some motor cycles tommorow and go check them out. Thats pretty much all that's going on with us right now. Thanks alot to all who have sent us e mails. We love to here from you and hope to keep maintaining contact. So far Cambodia is strikingly beautiful and we can't wait to see what other amazing things there are here.

Cambodia!

Hey Everyone!
After two days of continious travel and lack of sleep, we have arrived in Siem Riep, Cambodia. It has been very eventful so far and we have so many stories. Cory almost got kicked off the bus coming here, because he "lost" his sticker that indicated we were payed for and with the group, the northren landscape of Cambodia is very similar to Manitoba's (very flat!), we met our first Winnipeger and he lives on Wellington Cresecent (if he's not travelling), we rented bicycles and have now become one with the insane traffic of Asian streets, it rained for the first time during our travells, a popular breakfast item is rice with pork/chicken and the people here are genuienly friendly with the most smiley faces!!!
Tomorrow we plan to bike to Angkor Watt to experience some of the most magnificent temples in the world! (says the winnipeger who has been travelling for ages). Were going to go just as the sun is rising to beat the crowd. We are both very excited and it will be a bit of a different view, since we've been doing the more nature-side of things lately. We plan to do this for two days or so then head out to Phnom Penh and Kratie, where we'll see dolphins!!
We've tried at several different places to upload photos for you all to see but they haven't had the right downloading programs on these computers. We will keep trying and get those visuals for you ASAP!
We hope all is well in Winnipeg and that the weather is being a little bit more cooperative. Good-bye until next time! :D

Khao Sok National Park

We are back from Kho Chang and things are continuing to meet our standards of excellence! After a short bus ride from Ranong, we arrived in Khao Sok National Park. We are currenctly staying in a "tree house" and there are monkeys running around everywhere! We chilled out with one on our porch this afternoon!
During the day we went for a 6 hour hike up to an amazing 11-tiered waterfall through a thick bamboo forest. We climbed up the entire thing and swam through the pool at the bottom! Words can't explain its beauty!
Tomorrow were planning on seeing three more waterfall sites and swim through a gorge! Altogether it will be around a 14km hike!
More pictures will be posted on facebook in the near future! Hope all is well back home!

Koh Chang Beautiful

friends,
We have so much to tell you! The past four days have been absolutly amazing! It started off by catching a bus from bangkok to ranong (which we were more than happy to do). The bus ride was about 10 hours long, but it was very scenic. We got to see the country side of thailand and saw our first elephants and monkeys. The bus was full of mostly locals, because not alot of foreigners go to ranong except for a few back packers, so that was a great way to experience the culture. When we arrived in the town of ranong we hopped on two motorcycle taxis which took us to our hotel for the night. It was nice, our hotel was only about 8 dollars. The next morning we went for a walk to the town market and had some fantastic deep fried pastry and some tea with a couple from belgium who gave us great travel tips. Afterwards we made our way back to the hotel where the same motorcycle taxis picked us up and took us to the pier to catch our boat to koh chang. Koh Chang is a small island about 5 km off the west coast of thailand in the anaman sea. After about an hour long boat ride of sitting on rice bags we arrived at koh chang. When we got there the boat drove around the island and stopped on certain beaches to deliver goods, when we saw a beach that interested us we got off and walked to the nearest bungalows. Our home away from home sooon became Mama's Bungalows. Where we got a very modest bungalow with a bed and a toilet with no electricity. On the up side we had a beautiful view of the ocean and not even a minute walk down to the beach. All for only 5 dollars a night. Mama's also had a wonderful little restaurant where we ate like kings for only 3 dollars per person per meal. Two days ago we decided to go for a hike around the island. The trek was very beautiful, we walked through dense jungles and mangrove forest and even stumbled across a coconut farm where the farmer and his three sons got coconuts down from the trees for us, taught us how to open them and fed us fresh coconut milk. Cory tried climbing a tree and opening up a coconut, but they just laughed at his attempts. They also fed us cashew fruits with salt (that we thought was sugar), which caught us by surprise. As a token of our appreciation we tried to give them some money, but they refused. We were very grateful for these refreshments and we went on our way. When we got back to Mama's we got traditional thai massages for an hour and a half for about 8 dollars each. Anneke also played a thai game with the kids of the family who run the bungalows. Besides the Language barrier there was alot of laughter in common, which made us feel right at home. We're going to have trouble leaving tommorow, but it's definelty a place we want to come back to. So far we have learned that the people here are as beautiful as the scenery and are excited to see the rest of thailand. We miss you and want to hear from all of you.

Hi everyone,
it's 7:30 am here in bangkok, and we already had showers and eaten breakfast, which means we are still slightly jet lagged. But, we're both pretty stoked that we got to pet tigers yesterday, and we got some solid pictures to prove it. it was kind of weird because it was called the tiger temple, but there wasn't really a temple, and i'm pretty sure that one of the monks tried to rip us off because when we showed up at this platform thing he was just sitting there reading the paper, and when he saw us he quickly ran over to the statue of buddah and called us over. he m
lit some insense and made us put it in some sand, then made us bow three times, and after he said we had to put money in the pot...we were slightly pissed.
So today anneke and I are heading to the remote province of Ranong and going to the Island of Ko chang to just lay low and rest for a little bit. But the thing is that there is no garuntee that there will be internet so we might not be able to update you for a few days, but if there is internet we will for sure keep you in touch. We're hoping to get a beach hut and just mellow. We're pretty tired of sitting in moving vehicles on end. Yesterday it took us 6 hours in total to get to the temple and back.

We're in Bangkok!

Hello friends,
After a long day (25 hours of straight sunlight) of flying and waiting for flights we finally arrived in Bangkok. We took the advice of taking the taxi from the airport instead of a shuttle and managed to cut the price to our hotel by half! YES! We are currently staying at a hotel called "Nice Palace" and have a beautiful balcony view of downtown Bangkok. There are trees evreywhere and woke up to the sound of tropical birds! In about an hour, we are heading to a Tiger Temple to you guessed it, pet tigers in a temple! Were very excited and if we can figure it out we will send some pictures along in the near future. After tomorrow our plans consist of heading to Ranong to lay low on a nice beach. Were also thinking of hitting up the Khao Sak National Park where we can stay in tree houses and swim in Waterfalls. For all you at Security Decorating, Cory found a Dulux Paint Advertisement in Thai and will try to send the picture later! We hope all is going well in Winnipeg and please let us know about your excitments back home! We miss you all, Love Cory and Anneke.