Cambodia

One might think that with such an 'exotic' vacation destination such as Cambodia that I would have been quicker to pen the details of our trip and share them with our loved ones.  However, as my friend Karen Bowlin so eloquently summarized "vacationing with children is a misnomer."  It's actually traveling with children not vacationing.  If you have youngins or specifically remember what the baby/toddler years were like you know that this is true.  Pre-children days meant leaving the your cares behind you and exploring, drinking eating, shopping, lounging and whatever the heck else you wanted to do - and the ability to change your mind at a moments notice.  Post children days are quite the opposite.  There are naps to plan around, a ridiculous amount of things to pack, melt downs to wrestle with etc...We knew this going into it but decided to roll the dice and take advantage of traveling Asia while we are living here.

The girls think travel is easy

It's not totally their fault that our trip started off and pretty much stayed on the wrong cadence the whole time.  It didn't make it any easier though.  Those little whipper snappers don't quite get it when there is a 2 hour plane delay which causes one such family to miss their connection and therefore we had to take an additional leg.  This gave us a total of 3 planes and 10 flipping hours (I might add almost enough time to get to get to California from here) to get to a place that we should have been to in under 5 hours!!!  I digress.  Their dispositions were fairly good considering the circumstances however, Helaina was complaining of a headache on the very first plane.  (odd for her).  She was very uncomfortable and in full whinny mode for the rest of the 8.5 hours.  She slept for a bit and so did Indi.

Helaina already feeling off

When we arrived in Siem Reap, the temperature was a sweltering 93 degrees at 9PM.  After filling out visa's and getting through customs we were very pleased to be greeted by the driver and concierges for the hotel we were staying at ( The Privilege Floor  - no seriously, AWESOME HOTEL!!).  They never showed their displeasure in anyway but I have to imagine they were not as pleased with us when Helaina upchucked in the car.  Luckily for them, it mainly landed all over Chris.  (poor guy)  Helaina's "lovies/softies" took a big hit as well.  Good for us laundry was included in our hotel package.  (did I mention that I loved the hotel).  She got sick 2 more times that evening.  Each time Chris sprinting to and putting her to the beautiful claw tub to make clean up easier.

They had a crib in the room but none of the people under 4 foot wanted to sleep in it and none of the people over 4 foot could fit - though we were tempted to try.  Fortunately the room was equipped with two queen beds that were shoved together.  Again Chris drew the short straw and ended up sleeping in the middle, otherwise known as the crack.  **Just for the record, Helaina had a huge daddy attachment that day (ok really everyday) so it's not that I wasn't available for helping.  If it were Indigo that was sick, things would have been different.  Helaina didn't get sick again but was restless in her sleep and therefore we were too.  Poor Helaina.  Poor us.

The hotel asked if they could get some coconut
juice for Helaina to feel better. 

The next day she wasn't up to snuff so Chris and she stayed and rested.  Indigo and I headed out to see some of the ruined temples called Bayon Temple.  Uninhibited, my photography skills are not able to capture how amazing these temple ruins are, let alone with a wiggly 2 year old strapped to my back.  She did do a pretty good job especially considering it was 97 degrees out.  As amazing as the temples were we got just as much enjoyment out of feeding wild gibbons that were along the road side. It's one of those things that was probably frivolous parenting but I couldn't resist the smile that it brought to her face and mine.  Had we been there a few minutes earlier I would have also allowed us to ride the elephants that the locals were touting.

Indigo was thrilled ;o) 

We took our satiated sweaty selves back to the hotel to relieve daddy.  Helaina wasn't doing so well so Chris ended up not going out that day.  We ordered room service and remembered to be glad we were staying at a nice hotel.  If we were at home, I wouldn't have thought twice about her sickness but being in a foreign (ok Shanghai is not that foreign anymore to us) country made us worried and then grateful we had access to and were in contact with our international emergency service that we have.   If thing progressively got worse with Helaina, I knew we would be covered.  She was very slowly moving in the right direction.

On the morning of day 2 it seemed H was on the right track and we thought it could have been a 24 hour thing.  So of course we whisked her out into the 95 degree weather (#ParentsoftheYear) to look at the most popular of the temple ruins, Angkor Wat.  I must say that despite Angkor being particularly larger, I was more impressed with Bayon.  This perspective comes purely from the person who practically sprinted through most of the ruins, but not all to avoid any toddler meltdowns.  We didn't take guided tours, because tour guides don't understand potty breaks and stopping to look at peculiar things that a 4 or 2 year old find interesting.  We listened when we could to other tour guides and watched a documentary at the hotel to pick up on the history and fun facts.  We found it fascinating that it is still a working temple and we saw many people worshiping still today.

Local fare.  They "cook" these clams by keeping
them in the sun on the back of this bike.
My better judgement told me no.

 Helaina was tired but was adamant to see the monkeys her sister had seen.  Can you blame her?  Give the girls her monkeys.

We pushed through and had lunch and our first meal outside of the hotel and it was lovely.  I took the girls back for rest and Chris went out and got to see "The Old Market".  He took lovely pictures and was kind enough to say it wasn't the same without us. 

 That night, because it was our last, we went to dinner at a restaurant that the hotel recommended.  I give the ambiance, the service, & the food all 5 starts.  If this restaurant was in Miami it would have cost $150.  Not that the two are related, but the fact that it cost under $30 took the sting out of having to clean up the 3 times that Helaina hershey squirted herself while we were at the restaurant.

FYI.  Helaina is better but it took a full 2 weeks and a round of antibotics.  TMI - The rest of us suffered also mild versions.

With the little bit we saw of Cambodia, I can say the people are almost uncomfortably nice, the food is delicious, and things are very affordable (oh and PS they prefer the American dollar and most cash machines will give you such).   If you can plan around plane delays, toddler tendencies and sickness, it's worth going.  Please let me know if you figure out how to do that on a trip to anywhere.  Entries have a deadline before our next adventure to Japan at the end of may.  Stay tuned.