Extending my trip with Challenges Abroad: an extra week in Cambodia!
Hey, I’m Cayleb, and I was a participant on the Community Paramedic Challenge in Cambodia. On my recent trip, I chose to extend my stay, and I completed the extension trip. This was a fantastic decision in the end, and I’m so glad I committed to three weeks in total in Cambodia!
The program itself was such an eye-opening experience, and it gave all the participants a new perspective on life. After these two weeks, there were seven or “brapir” as we learnt in Khmer, of us left doing the extension trip together. By this stage, we were like a family and everyone was really close.
Day 1 of the trip was mainly travelling via road. We got a bus from Battambang to Phnom Penh, but the time went quickly when we had each other’s company. Once we arrived and checked into our hotel, we were introduced to our tour guide, Sam who took us to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, or more commonly known as S-21. This was probably the most intense museum tour I’ve ever experienced. I highly recommend doing some research about the Khmer Rouge and the history that occurred in Cambodia. It’s crazy how recent these events occurred. The Khmer Rouge genocides happened only fifty years ago in the 1970s. We learnt what terrible things would happen at this centre, saw all the victim photos and the soldiers responsible too.
On Day 2, we continued to learn more about the Khmer Rouge, and we visited another site in Phnom Penh called the Choeung Ek Killing Fields. We were informed by Sam that, sadly, almost 10,000 Cambodian citizens were brutally persecuted and murdered at this site. We visited all the buildings and mass graves around the field and paid our respects at the stupa where all the remains of the victims have been memorialised. We even got to meet some survivors who had written books that were translated by publishers to English. Some others and I were fortunate enough to buy these books and read about their stories. Next, we were on our way to Mondulkiri Province, located in Cambodia’s southeast, close to Vietnamese border.
After arriving in our nature lodge in the Mondulkiri Province, we attempted to get a good night’s sleep whilst sharing the room with bugs, ants, geckos in every corner of the room (this is all part of the experience). Then, we prepared for our jungle trek for Day 3. We were privileged to have two amazing guides, Hong and Tra who took us through the Cambodian jungle, chopping bamboo out of the way with a machete to clear us a path. Along the way, we saw elephants too! Such an amazing experience, and I think the photos speak for themselves. And don’t get me started on the waterfalls!
On Day 4, we made our way to our guide, Hong’s home village in Pu Long for the homestay. This was very close by, and we were still in the Mondulkiri Province. We learnt that despite Hong’s reasonably young and fit appearance, he has 8 children and 5 grandchildren, which we were all shocked to learn. Once we arrived, we met and played with all the local village kids, which was so much fun. We were also introduced to the traditional way of living in Pu Long with the bamboo and straw houses with hammocks hanging up. The food is definitely not what we’re used to back home, but we still loved it, nonetheless. Lots of noodles, rice and salads as we were following a vegetarian diet to be on the safe side.
On Day 5, we left Hong’s home in Pu Long and made our way to Koh Trong Island. This island is along the Mekong River, and we had to take a ferry across. From there, we did a bike tour around the island, passing lots of cows that were roaming around the area, and saying, “Suostei” to the locals, which means ‘Hello’, of course. And whilst we were along the Mekong River, we did the dolphin tour where we saw the native Irrawaddy dolphins which have deformed heads, which was very fascinating to see. Finally, we finish up in the Kratie Province and check into our hotel, which has a beautiful view of the Mekong River.
Then on our last day together, we headed back to Siem Reap, and after dinner, we hit the iconic Pub Street for the last time.
Overall, the entire trip was such an amazing experience, and it was great to end with this extension trip as it nicely wrapped up everything. The program is really good, but there isn’t much time to explore when completing the health promotion workshops and project work, so I highly recommend this extension trip to finish any challenge completed with Challenges Abroad.
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