Who Walks Beside Me?

         People may plan all kinds of things, but the Lord's will is going to be done. (Proverbs 19:21, Good News Translation)

I know I’ve written about this before, but now that I have finally returned from my dream trip to Cambodia, I felt I had to share this one more time.

I first learned about the temples at Angkor Wat when I was in sixth grade—fifty years ago. I was mesmerized, and though the dream wasn’t always at the forefront of my mind, I knew that someday I had to go there.

Flash forward to January of 2020. On a whim, I googled volunteer trips to Cambodia and came across the cultural immersion trip for grown-ups over age 50 with Projects Abroad. I sent the information to my friend Denise, and it didn’t take her long to get back to me with a big smiley face. She was game, and after a little more research, we signed up.

Then COVID-19 hit, and we had to cancel.

The fall of 2021 held potential, but the pandemic was still causing enough uncertainty and inconvenience, so we canceled the trip a second time.

The following year, COVID-19 had abated enough that it was safe to travel, but my daughter wanted to return to Kenya, so Denise and I joined her.

It looked like 2023 would finally be my year until my back went out in April, and the rest of my body fell apart after that. We canceled just weeks before our intended departure.

Ahh, 2024! Fourth time is apparently the charm.

I had been thinking that God simply didn’t want me to go to Cambodia. And I get that—this wasn’t going to be a volunteer trip, mostly just a vacation to an almost entirely Buddhist country. There would be no Sunday morning Christian church service and certainly no sharing of the Gospel (not that God has blessed me with that gift!).

Would my fascination with all the Buddhist and Hindu temples lead me spiritually astray?

The answer is that no, it did not. Quite the opposite. This fantastic trip reminded me that I serve an amazing God who will never leave me or forsake me. For some reason, God wanted me to complete my dream trip this year and not any other.

And as you will see as I continue blogging about this trip, He walked beside me every day.

And the Lord, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed.” (Deuteronomy 31:8, New King James Version)

Our First Two Stops - Cambodia blog entry #4

         Though Sunday, September 15, was our first full day in Cambodia, it wasn’t until Monday that we actually got out and started experiencing things on the ground, instead of riding by in our tuk tuk.

First though, here’s a picture of our tuk tuk, in case you were wondering what it really is. I’ll post a blog about all the different ones we rode in during our two-week trip, but this is the one we used in Phnom Penh. Our driver was a sweet man named Wo-Tea. He didn’t know much English, but K was almost always with us and otherwise pointing,  hand gestures, and the few words we knew in common worked.

We went to Central Market first. What a maze, filled with hundreds of vendors, hawking everything from watches to silks to fruits to fish. Also called Phsar Thmei, it’s a massive, mostly-indoor shopping center, which has everything you could want to buy.

Built in 1937, in the art deco style, by a French architect, it is a bright yellow building with an 85-foot-high central dome, with four tall arch-roofed arms branching out diagonally across the block. In between each of those halls, is an opening for more vendor’s stalls leading out to the street. (I plucked this photo from Google, full credit to whoever took it. I hate borrowing pictures from the internet, but I left my drone at home.)

Supposedly when it was built, the architect designed it with open air windows at the top, which were intended to allow air currents throughout the building to cool it. It didn’t feel like that was working to me. But the architecture was beautiful. 

Just like in Kenya, you can't even stop to look at something without being pressured by the vendors. First stall we stopped at I bought a scarf for four dollars, because I knew I wanted one. Then we wandered. D and I separated, and I couldn't find the way back to where we had come in. It's arranged like a wheel with eight spokes and after a while they all look the same. Finally found my way out, and they were all waiting for me.

Next stop was Wat Phnom temple, a Buddhist temple (which are called wats). It is the tallest religious structure in the city, with a total height of 150 ft.

It is a historical site that is part of the Khmer national identity. The pagoda is named after Lady Penh from the story of the discovery of the five statues: four Buddha statues and one Vishnu statue.

Set on top of a tree-covered knoll, Wat Phnom is on the only hill in town. According to legend, the first pagoda on this site was erected in 1373 to house four statues of Buddha deposited here by the waters of the Mekong River and discovered by a woman name Penh. The main entrance to Wat Phnom is up the grand eastern staircase, which is guarded by lions and naga (snake) balustrades.

We saw hundreds of pagodas throughout Cambodia. A pagoda is a tiered building with multiple eaves and ornate details, that is often used for religious purposes. Pagodas are common in many parts of Asia, including India, China, Japan, and Thailand. They are often Buddhist and can also serve as community venues, schools, and places for sharing knowledge.

This is the stupa of Ponhea Yat who was the last king of the Khmer Empire and the first Khmer king of the post-Angkor period, from 1421until his death in 1463. A stupa is a steeple-shaped mausoleum holding the bones and ashes of the deceased, usually placed around the grounds of a pagoda. They can be made of sandstone, laterite, brick, and more recently of cement, and some are huge.

Streets of Phnom Penh - Cambodia blog entry #3

Sunday, September 15 was our first full day in Cambodia. After a good night’s sleep (ten hours!!!), I woke up that morning feeling pretty good. My chronic back pain wasn’t bad at all, only my right wrist was killing me, but that’s kind of how my life has been the past eighteen months, so I wasn’t going to complain.

I won’t bore you with every detail of the day, except that D and I made one trip to the 7-11 on the corner for snacks and also stopped at Dairy Queen for blizzards! Choosing to ease into the foreign foods.

Actually nearly every meal we had was pretty good, always food we could eat and never went hungry. But I’m going to save the food photos for the end when I have them all together.

After lunch, K took us for a ride around town to show us the sites. Here are some of them.

I know that cities around the world have this kind of traffic, evern the large cities in the US. But this small town girl continued to be amazed by traffic every day. 

 

Indepence Monument built in 1958 to celebrate Cambodia's independence from France.

The monument in the background honors the late Buddhist scholar Samdech Chuon Nath. I couldn't figure out what the little statue in front left is of.

The front side of the staute of Samdech Choun Nath.

The riverwalk along the Tonle Sap River.

I think it's just the gate outside some random building. They had alot of ornate gates like this.

The Phnom Penh post office, where packages disappear into a black hole

The government building 

Not a government building. More like typical working class apartments

A typical street with light traffic. 

A little bit more chaotic traffic. It was hard to get a picture that really captured it. 

I Know What I Believe

“If you think it is wrong to serve the Lord, choose today whom you will serve. Choose the gods your fathers worshiped on the other side of the river, or choose the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15, New Life Version) 

Buddhism is the state religion of Cambodia. According to various sources, approximately 97% of Cambodia's population follows Theravada Buddhism, with Islam, Christianity, tribal animism, and the Baha’i faith making up the small remainder. From what I witnessed on my trip to Cambodia, I’d change that wording to say “97% of the population claim to be Buddhists”. I really didn’t get the feeling that all those people actually followed Buddhism; I could be way wrong and I don’t want to accuse anyone of lying about their religion so I need to leave it there.

After reading about Buddhism in several books and on the internet, as well as talking to a few people in Cambodia, it seems really complicated.

The easiest part is the five precepts or rules that must be followed. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not commit acts of sexual immorality. Do not speak badly of anyone. Do not drink to the point of intoxication.

The first four are in line with the Ten Commandments and no one can argue that if everyone kept those laws, the world would be a better place. Avoiding alcohol or other drugs is a good idea too, but just like in America, there seemed to be a definite presence of alcohol consumption, with signs advertising beer and similar beverages everywhere.  

Then after those five rules, Buddhism takes on all kinds of weirdness. Yes, people probably think that parts of Christianity are weird, so, again, I shouldn’t judge. I’m also not going to go into more detail right now.

Just one last comment. Between the 9^th and 14^th centuries, Hinduism was the dominant religion in Cambodia, and the vast temples built by the country’s kings during those years were dedicated to Hindu gods. It’s thought that many people in Cambodia practice Buddhism along with Hinduism to this day.   

That makes my head spin and reinforces my faith in the triune God and in Jesus Christ as my Savior.

Here I Am! - Cambodia blog entry #2

           I didn’t know where to start, so I decided to show you pictures of the Projects Abroad volunteer house first. After you’ve looked at them, if you want to read my ramblings of our arrival in Cambodia, you sure can. Didn’t want to bore you from the get go.  

My bed

The other side of our bedroom

The living space / dining room downstairs

We had a very small balcony from our room and this was the view from it. 

There was a roof top deck, however, on the six story building we were in and this is the view from there. 

This will be the first trip in a long time where I didn’t bring my trusty laptop. I prepared a journal with typed descriptions of all the places we would be visiting, leaving pages in between each place to write facts and my thoughts at the time.

Then I decided that maybe I’d try journaling into my cellphone. I wasn’t sure how it would work as I hate typing on my phone, with my big clumsy right index finger. Type with both thumbs? Are you kidding? That’s even more difficult for my arthritic hands. I gave it a shot, though, first sending myself an email via my phone, then typing a Google document on the Drive.  

Our flight arrived on time at 11:15. Getting thru immigration was easy, as our paper work was in order. Just hand him my passport, Visa, and e-arrival QR code. Stick my hand in the finger print reader. Or is it really a device which sucks out part of our life force for the government to use to strengthen its military?

Baggage claim. Wait and wait. How do some of those bags spit right out and ours is always one of the last. When Denise's came down the conveyor I thought, yeah, mine is next. But then it was another 20 minutes. Or so it felt. Really probably two more spins of the belt.

Outside, our ride Phirum, was waiting with the Projects Abroad sign and wearing their signature green shirt. Greeting us with a smile and a wave. Did our American looks stand out that much. Considering there were only two other non-Asians on our flight and one of them was a man. Yes, I guess we were easy to pick out.

Ride to house was maybe 20 minutes. The streets! So, like Nairobi. It was like being back home in Africa. The chaos. The vehicles whipping by on all sides, many more scooters and motorbikes than in Kenya though. Whole families - mom, dad, a little boy, a baby girl, all riding lined up on one bike. Sometimes wearing helmets and eye protection, sometimes not.

And the smells. Garbage of course, but fried food too. The occasional whiff of raw fish hanging in the hot sun. Didn't notice the diesel fumes which are prevalent in Kenya though.

The sounds of motors running. Somebody grinding metal, lines and lines of auto and bike shops. Very few horns honking in the chaos. Such patient, pleasant people.

Anxious to try the street food but will wait for one of the workers here to direct us.

We met out guide for the two weeks – Khouch Ken, who we will call K. After a short rest and some unpacking, he took us out to eat supper at a place called Eleven One.

Tuk tik ride there thru the same busy streets, even more crazy in the twilight.  And because we rode in a tuk tuk, as opposed to riding in the car from the airport, we were closer to the sights and sounds. No obstructing car windows, closed so the air conditioning isn’t wasted.

Oh, yes, the heat and humidity. The rooms at the volunteer house were air conditioned, but as soon as you open one of the doors, the oppressive weather takes your breath away.   

Anyway, the restaurant was very nice. Had an open air ceiling, so no AC but not too warm with the sky above and fans churning in all the corners.       

I had the stir fry chicken with mango and cashews. Denise had the shrimp with toasted hash brown potatoes. I don’t remember what K had but it was adorable, a little teepee of rice next to his main dish of some meat in some sauce. Because we just met him, we didn’t try it, but as the week went on, we all tried each other’s meals. Pictures of all those meals will be coming later.

          Back to the house and fell into bed at eight to sleep like the dead.

Where am I? – Cambodia blog entry #1

           I opened my eyes and looked across the dark room. A dim light was streaming outside the open door from a source to the right. Where was the bathroom? It had to be out there somewhere.

          My travel partner, D, snored very close behind me. We’d been sleeping in separate beds for the past sixteen nights; why was she in bed with me now?

          Then it dawned on me. It was my husband snoring, and I was home in my own bed.

          I rolled over and read the clock. The red number 12:15 screamed at me. Totally exhausted, I’d crawled into this perfectly comfy bed only four hours ago. Why was I wide awake?

          Darned jet lag.

          My left brain wondered from the beginning how I’d be affected by this phenomenon this trip. Previously, I’d only ever flown to Kenya, eight time zones to the east, and jet lag never bothered me when I got there, but always messed me up when I got home.

This trip took me twelve time zones to the west. So my left brain reasoned that the jet lag would be worse going to Cambodia and not as bad when I got home.

Left Brain has definitely got it wrong. Right Brain believes that when I go somewhere, I am so excited about the trip that my body and my brain adjust quickly so as not to miss out on anything. When I get home, all the hormones let loose, and my internal clock doesn’t want to switch back to Central Standard Time; it just wants to sleep.

And Stomach Clock grumbles because it thinks it’s just past noon and we should be eating.

Then Writer’s Brain pulls me by the arm to get me out of bed to write down all these peculiar thoughts because it knows that, just like when we dream, if I go back to sleep, all of this will be gone.

So here I am, at 1:40 am, trying to keep my eyes open while the rest of me feels crazy-energized. But I am going to follow the lead of my eyes and wander back to bed. Whether I go back to sleep or not, who knows? Will my hypothalamus figure this out and allow me to drift peacefully off, or will the rest of my brain continue bouncing around neurons?

In any case, I’ve been home from Cambodia for just over thirteen hours. It’s been forty-eight hours since I left, I think, because I still can’t put any part of my brain around the whole time travel thing about these trips.

It was a short flight from Phnom Penh to Taiwan with a brief layover at Taipei Airport. The ticket on the second flight read that we were leaving there at 8:00 pm and arriving at our destination in Chicago at 8:45 pm. So, I’m supposed to convince my body that it took 45 minutes to fly halfway around the world when I know it really took thirteen hours.

Oh, well, I’ll come around. I promise that on Friday, I will start posting about my once-in-a-lifetime, fifty-years-in-the-making trip.    

Good night – or good morning. And the first and last pictures - with over 2,000 taken in between.  

Sunset over Chicago before our flight out

Sunrise over Chicago before our drive home from the hotel

Can’t put my head around it

September eleventh. 911. Twenty-three years ago. So long ago. So tragic. Hard to believe that there are young people out there today who weren’t alive on that day.

I won’t be flying today, but I will be flying on Friday the 13^th. I’m not superstitious. And at least there won’t be a full moon.

There are a lot of thoughts and images running through my mind. I watched the movie “The Killing Fields” yesterday and have been reading all I can about that time in Cambodian history.

I just can’t put my head around it. Sure, I was only twelve years old when the Khmer Rouge overran Cambodia and instituted its brutal form of communism. But all I remember hearing about in the 1970s was Vietnam. Shoot, I even wrote a novel about the Vietnam War. So, I was aware of at least some news when I was entering my teens. But it sounds like the Cambodian genocide was swept under the rug at the time. 

Here I am, about to fly halfway around the world to learn, firsthand, about the plight of the Cambodian people fifty years ago. I think of meeting someone my age, who was also twelve years old at that time, and instead of worrying about what they were going to wear to school on picture day, they were just trying to stay alive.

As I posted the end of August, there have been many genocides over the decades. When will the madness end?