Touring around on our last day in Philippines on the 29th took us to Taal volcano, which is one of the smallest but still active volcanos on the islands. Vendors on the street persistently shouted to offer us a 'boat ride' to reach the volcano, even chasing our van on their motorbike just to see if we had changed our mind. We did end up riding a banca boat to the base of Taal and tightened up our flimsy tennis shoes to hike the volcano. Like true Americans, we denied any offer of help riding horseback on the way to the top and huffed along in 95% humidity. Of course, the 3 in our group who are taking doxycycline for malaria (with increased sun sensitivity as a side effect) got scorched by the sun. Sunscreen just mocked us as we tried to avoid the inevitable. Besides Tiffany and Ben also getting hit by some heat exhaustion, we were still stoked to reach the rim of the volcano!
We flew to Cambodia on the 30th and were immediately impressed by our first impression of Phnom Penh. Maybe it was the free wine and corvoissier on our flight or the delicious Thai food we had, but this city is better than we were expecting. Spent our first day getting a somber tour of the Tuol Sleng prison and the Choeung Ek killing fields, where they tortured and executed nearly 1/3 of the country's population during the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-79. It was hard for us to see evidence of the brutal tactics that Pol Pot and his combatants took, killing any educated citizen including most teachers and doctors in order to maintain control. Cambodia is still trying to recover but making great strides. Later in the day, we got a review of Buddhism and Hinduism and saw many many temples, buddha statues and pagodas.
Tomorrow we split our group with half of us going to Sihanouk hospital with Dr. Gossman, and the others to an orphanage. Probably more graphic stories to come from our hospital experiences there!
Stay tuned....
Kelsi
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