It's Party Time! ... 14.4.11

After Ratinakiri Chloie and I came back to help celebrate the orphans birthday party! It was so much fun!!!

Starting bright and early at 7am we decked out Sala Chan (A little open building next to the church) with streamers and balloons. A couple of the older boys put on music, the house dads and Caleb organised games and I did balloon animals!

Meanwhile Wendy, Tim, the house mums and some of the older girls were slaving away making enough pizzas to feed nearly 200 people!

5 hours later and lunch was ready. The kids sat down in lines, as if they were at two very long tables, and the house dads handed out the plates of fruit, cups for the once a year special treat of fizzy drink, boxes of sultanas, bags of cookies, pizza and last, but not least, the birthday candle stuck right into the middle of each kids slice of mango!

It was a sight to behold! Smiles on everyone’s faces and excitement ringing through the air, well, excitement and the bangs and screams caused by Tim’s firecrackers!

I thoroughly enjoyed the party! The pizza was vegan and delicious, Wendy had made a coconut-based sort of cheese and it’s even better than the real thing!

After food everyone had a break, the kids took away their leftovers to enjoy later while the house parents and volunteers cleaned up. After a couple hours we came back to play some more games and then Tim and Wendy handed out presents to all the kids and all the house parents got some new pillow cases each!

It was so nice to see the kids so happy and the very obvious love that Tim and Wendy have for each and every one of those precious children. Their excitement almost out weighed the kids!

I know that I saw Jesus today! 

Ratinakiri ... 10-13.4.11

It's school holidays for two weeks and Chloie and I decided to go see another part of Cambodia ... if you look at the map below you'll see that it should have been a simple direct trip that would have taken maybe 3 hours max ... instead it took us pretty much the whole way around Cambodia and 15 hours to get us from Siem Reap to Bunlang in Ratinakiri Province! Ridiculous!

The Ecolodge

Our friendly Ecolodge staff

Our Cabin

Anyway, so after an extremely long bus ride (which was so full they put seats in the aisles!) we arrived at the ecolodge where the very nice staff cooked us dinner and kept the power on an hour later than usual so that we would have time to settle in.

One way bridge!

The bus was so packed that people had to sit on plastic chairs in the aisle!

Let me explain about the ecolodge ... firstly it is awesome! about 2km from the centre of town and set in the bush. Everything is ecologically friendly, hence why it's called an ecolodge! It's very clean, hot water is only from 6-9pm when the electricity is on ... for the rest of the day there's no power except by the solar powered batteries that run little lights in each room. But they ask you not to use it unless absolutely necessary, so as to conserve energy. 

I really enjoyed it! In fact it was pretty much just like our place in Siem Reap, except that we didn't have to pump water or wash dishes! lol

We spent 2 full days in Ratinakiri. Ratnakiri has a very big rubber trade so there are rubber trees everywhere!

This is how they get rubber from the rubber trees!

Me with my Motto driver! First experience on a Motto in Cambodia! Very scary at first!!!

Some friendly kids we met at one of the waterfalls! All they wanted was their moment of fame in front of the camera! :D

The first day we went to see some waterfalls and the reclining buddah and then we went swimming in the crater lake. It was supposed to be a 20-30min walk from our lodge, up a mountain, through a garden and to the lake, but an hour later we were no where near it and completely lost!!! At least we found the mountain and garden! But the map wasn't very clear and the signs were virtually non-existant and everyone we asked pointed us in a different direction!! But eventually we made it and had about an hour left before sunset to swim and get back to the lodge!

Dried up waterfall

The Crater Lake

Originally I thought that it was called a crater lake because it was in a dried up volcano but it turns out it's just a massive crater they think was formed by a meteor or something. It's about 800m in diameter. The water is clean and beautiful, a sort of mirky green but it's beautiful none the less!

The Reclining Buddah

A very friendly but sadly blind puppy came to play :D

The Swinging Bridge!!! At one of the waterfalls

Yes ... I fell over and hurt my foot ... unfortunately I fell on gravel and little stones got stuck in the wound :(

Chloie putting her nursing skills to practice and fixing up my poor foot!

Beautiful waterfall

On the second day we went back to the garden in the morning and just read in the shade, it was really nice! In the afternoon we went to see another waterfall and ride an elephant and in then went back to the lake.

Sunset

The garden ... imagine what it looks like in the wet season!

Chloie relaxing in the garden

Poor, sad, starving but very cute monkey :(

First elephant ride!

;P

All in all it was an awesome two days. The only downer of the trip was that the elephant were being mistreated which was horrible and ruined the elephant ride for us. 

It's very sad to see how animals are mistreated purely for the entertainment of tourists. I guess in a way it's kind of like how the devil mistreats those who choose to follow him instead of Christ. He doesn't really care about us, who we are, or what we do with our lives. He uses us purely as a source of entertainment, trying to win the fight against God.

Another waterfall

3 on 1 bike!! Terrifying!

Cotton :D

the trail to the sunset viewing platform