Temples, temples, temples.

We've had another fantastic morning exploring the Angkor temples. We woke up nice and early to a beautiful sunny day, jumped into a tuk-tuk and made our way to the fabuous Preah Khan temple. It was huge and very labyrith-like and it was easy to get lost in the maze like walk ways and doors. It was similar to Ta Prom and had a lost jungle feel to it.

After a long 4K in the heat we made it to beautiful Ta Som which is much smaller than the other temples but equally as amazing. The colours in the stone from ageing and weathering were fantastic making the temple looking pink, purple and red and the carvings on the wall were beautiful. At one of the entrances to the temple there was a huge tree wrapped around the stone door frame which looked awesome. We've had an amazing three days exploring the Angkor temples and would recommend anyone and everyone to go.

Yesterday afternoon, whilst Nikki read her book in a hammock, Charlotte, Joel and I had a walk around the town. We walked a bit further out of town were tere weremore locals and less tourists and we stumbled across "Sunrise Children's village", a small orphanage. So, we met with the manager to see if we could help out. There are 35 children living there aged from 12months to late teens. The children were so polite and all stopped to say hello and bow there heads as we walked by. The staff were all very friendly and eager to see us. It was clear that they had tried to make the orphanage into a nice place for the children as they had a small hall for the children to practice dance and drama and had spent some money buying props for the children to use. They had a small hall that the children used as a classroom, for those who couldn't go to school which doubled as the dining hall and they had a small room which they used as the library which contains english books that people had donated.

We spent some time in the nursery which had ten children aged 12months-3years. As soon as we walked in the children ran up to us for hugs and were very excited to see us. They all sang Cambodian songs for us and were eager for us to sit down and play with them. Although the children were happy and had huge smiles on their faces it was still very sad. None of the children owned shoes and there were no toys for them to play with. the room that they played in was tiny and they spent all day in there, entertaining themselves and aslo slept in there. Some of the older children were able to go to a school by bus which was quite far away but the staff had to make their uniforms as they obviously can't afford to buy them each one, so they go to the market to buy cheap material to hand sew all the children uniforms. The government does not provide nay funding for orphanages in Cambodia so it can only run from public donations. however, the last person to visit the orphanage was over a month ago and goodness knows who before that so it is unlike that they recieve many donations. The orphange used to have a computer room but due to lack of donations they had to sell the computers to provide basics like food and clothes for the children.

Joel and I are taking Nikki there this afternon so we can help out a bit more. If you have any spare money that you can donate or sponser a child to go to school then please go to http://www.sunrisechildrensvillage.org/ They would be grateful for any donations and even the smallest amount will go a long way there.