Lao and Cambodia

Well it's been awhile since I've posted anything, but it has been kind of crazy over here. We got back from Vietnam, worked for a few days, had a long weekend, worked for a few more days, then left for ten days in Lao and Cambodia. I have pictures from my trip, but blogger has been really slow lately, so you can hopefully see them by following this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040&l=02809&id=517427346
The reason that we just had a ten day holiday is because of the Songkran holiday that just occurred in Thailand and surrounding Buddhist countries. During Songkran people basically have huge waterfights in the streets for days on end. It's really fun if you're prepared for it, but can be horrible if you're not and you have any kind of electronics on you! We literally had everything ziplocked for our entire vacation. We started off our ten days with an overnight bus to Lao. We went to Vang Vien where the major attraction is tubing down the river. You rent an inner tube and float down the river for the day. If you don't stop, it takes around 3-4 hours depending on the current, but there are bars with ziplines and rope swings along the banks, so we stopped quite a bit. It was really relaxing and tons of fun on the ziplines and swings.
After Laos we took an extremely long bus to Cambodia. We only had two days started in Siem Riep where we went to Angkor Wat, which was massive and beautiful. After a long day of walking through ruins, we went to donate blood in the children's hospital. The hospital was started by a Swiss doctor who asks that young tourists who don't have a lot of money donate blood.
The next day we hopped on yet another bus and went to Phnom Penh. Our day in Phnom Penh was probably the most depressing day of my life, but was really important for us to see. We began at the Tuol Sleng genocide museum, which is the former site of the Khmer Rouge S-21 Prison. We learned all about the Cambodian genocide which killed an estimated 2 million people. We heard stories of the horrific things that they did to people and saw pictures of all of the people killed during the genocide (like the holocaust, they took pictures of each prisoner to document the sick things that they were doing and these individual pictures were all displayed in the museum. It was really haunting to walk past row after row of mugshots knowing that all of these people had died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge). After the museum, we went to see the killing fields, where they actually killed the prisoners.
After the killing fields, we went to visit an orphanage, which completely broke all of our hearts. We drove up expecting at least a building, only to find basically a shack under a tin roof. When we got out of the vehicle we didn't really know where to go, but the kids came running out to greet us. They grabbed our hands and led us into the orphanage. They were all so happy and were really excited that we were there. They showed us around and then started playing music and putting on a dance performace for us. At first we felt kind of weird sitting and watching them dance, but they all seemed so excited to have an audience and liked it even more when we took pictures. We were really glad that we went, but it was completely heartbreaking to see all of these children. Some were orphans, and others came from families that were unable to take care of all of their children. The volunteers seemed really nice and taught the students English, classical dancing and boxing.
Now I'm back in Bangkok for a few more days before I leave forever! I cannot believe that my time here is over, but sadly it is. I have tons to do in the next few days and I'm actually quite stressed about it, but I'm sure it'll all happen somehow. On Saturday we're heading down to Koh Phanang and then we;re hanging around there for a few days before Krista and I head over to Bali for a week. After Bali we're coming back to Thailand to hit the south again and to see Krabi, Koh Phi Phi, etc. I'm sure the time will fly and I'll be back in Winnipeg, maybe before some of you even read this!
See you soon!