Second Half of Ella’s Cambodia–Sorry for Its Late Arrival!

Hello! After the temples, we swam in the hotel’s pool and ate dinner in the city. The next day we, again, toured temples. We saw three Hindu and Buddhist temples in the same style as the day before and then ate lunch. While we ate, we started feeding a small kitten and a breastfeeding mother dog, but when we gave the cat chicken they got into a fight and we all felt bad. After lunch, we went to a beautiful temple nicknamed the Lady Temple because it is so ornately carved and decorated, people say that men never would have had the patience to carve it, but it is actually called Banteay Srei. The carvings were chiseled immaculately and were very fine and detailed, and worthy of their name!

Personally, this is actually one of the highlights of Cambodia. We went to another temple, but one that is modern and people use it, and saw piles of human skulls left over from a war.

We swam in the pool again and Aba went to get a massage, but it was canceled. Then, as usual, even though I haven’t been mentioning it, we did homework. That night, the hotel hosted a barbeque in honor of Cambodia’s Independence Day and we fed another kitten. We went out to the old Night Market and I bought a present for a good friend of mine that was so perfect for her that I couldn’t resist! Aba bought some fried ice cream, and then we returned to the hotel. The next morning, we got up and drove to a butterfly pavilion. A guide explained to us the life cycle of a butterfly and showed it to us in different stages of life. The workers had sectioned off cabinets for eggs, caterpillars, and cocoons, but the butterflies flew free everywhere. There was a little boy running around and he kept offering us flowers!

Next, we drove to a silk factory. A couple of years ago, I thought that it would be a neat idea to farm silkworms and make silk, simple, right? Well, I did some research and discovered that in order to get the silk, worms in the cocoons are boiled alive in order to unravel the thread. I didn’t have the heart or the stomach for it, so I abandoned my ‘enterprise’. In this factory, we saw how mulberry leaves are grown, they are the only plant that silkworms eat, and two different types of silk, raw and fine. Raw silk is formed on the outside of the cocoon and is a bit rougher than fine silk, which forms the inside of the cocoon. We got to see how they pattern thread and scarves, a very interesting though complicated process that I will not go into here, and how they weave scarves and dye and unravel silk from the cocoons. One thing that made me feel better is that silkworms die the day they emerge from their cocoon, so they only lose 1/27th of their lives. Also, people eat the boiled worms.

We drove to the supermarket and bought food for a picnic we had planned to have in a Botanical Garden, but the book Aba was using was written in an odd fashion and we misunderstood. There was no botanical garden, so we made sandwiches and picnicked on our balcony. On this trip to Cambodia, we had tried palm juice, palm fruit, and sugar cane juice, and while we were eating our picnic we tried a foul-smelling fruit called Durian which only Meril savored. We swam and Aba got his massage, then we did homework and went out for dinner. This time, we all ate fried ice cream. Something that I found very interesting was that they served snakes in the street, something that I haven’t seen in other Asian countries.

After we ate, we drove in a tuk tuk to an acrobatic circus, which was very enjoyable. In the morning, we drove to the airport and flew for 1.5 hours. Then we got on another airplane and flew for another 1.5 hours. An interesting thing happened on both flights that I had never seen before, though I had heard of it. On both flights, we sat in row 14, but the row in front of us was row 12! I’d previously heard that some airlines skip row 13 because superstitious people don’t want to sit in it, but I’d never actually seen it until now. I’m dying!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 As soon as I catch my breath I’ll write more! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

24-4-24-4-24-4-24-4-24-4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S

Guess who lost the food lottery! (Hint: ME)

Ella