A Very Special Meal

This morning, our friend Chanra picked us up at 10AM and took us to visit his parents. It was a very special meeting. I'm sure that very few American tourists are invited for lunch at the home of a Cambodian family. Now we have done it twice in two days.

The Sim family lives about 1 km off a main road in a house sitting on a 5 meter by 30 meter plot of land that they own. Chanra's father was injured in a bicycle accident in Phnom Penh about 3 months ago. He has a rod and several screws inserted in his thigh, so he is still on crutches.

We had our hotel prepare a big fruit and sweets basket that we brought them as a gift.

Chanra looks like his father. We also met his younger sister (he has two older sisters) who looks like his mother.

We had a very good meeting exchanging stories about life in our respective countries. They asked a lot of questions about life in the U.S. They see programs on television, meet people from the U.S., and have some acquaintances that have moved to the U.S., so it is of great interest to them to learn about our country. In a similar vein, we asked a lot of questions about their background and how they live. Caren and I kept thinking how our friend Ed M. would have enjoyed this meeting - he asks a lot of questions to people he meets.

Chanra's mother cooked a very delicious meal. They grilled two catfish on a charcoal grill - one fish we ate with rice and a spicy mango salad, and the other they cut up and put into a soup. The sour soup was very similar to a Thai soup we've eaten in the U.S.. They also prepared a plate of unbelievably tasty sauteed vegetables. And sliced pineapple for dessert.

After the meal, we sat around and enjoyed sitting outside and talking.

Then Chanra took us in a tuk-tuk to Tonle Sap - The Great Lake. This time of year, the volume of water in the Mekong River makes it "back up" into Cambodia and fill the lake to 3-4 times its size in the dry season.

Hundreds of people live in houses that they move with the receding of the shoreline over the months. You don't like your house location, wait a few weeks and tow it to another place. We saw schools, churches, and government buildings being towed. The people make a living fishing the huge variety and quantity of fish in the lake.

This was the first day we really encountered a lot of rain. It poured on our way to the lake, most of the time we took a boat trip on the lake, and on our way back to town. Not bad for a 2+ week trip. The B&R bicycle trip in Vietnam at the same time we were in Thailand, encountered a typhoon hitting the coast, their hotel flooded in another city, and a third city they couldn't reach at all. I think we were very fortunate with the weather on this trip.

Tomorrow, Chanra is taking us to a set of Khmer empire temples we have not visited before - they are located about 80 miles away and very few tourists go there. But they are in their original state and supposedly more beautiful than many temples in the busy Angkor Thom area (where Angkor Wat it located). After our trip in the countryside, we have a very special meeting arranged. More about it tomorrow.