Temple field trip

On our first full day here, Ryan and I accompanied Ponheary and Lori on a fieldtrip with students from one of the Foundation's schools 150 kilometers away. They attend a tiny school in what is less than a village — this visit was their first time seeing real buildings. The trip was funded by a woman from Texas who was in Cambodia for a few days and accompanied the students. Because they are very poor and rarely have much to eat, especially now that the price of rice has increased by nearly 50 percent, we stopped for breakfast before continuing on to the temples. We spent the day touring Angkor Wat, Wat Bayon and Ta Prohm (better known to Westerners as the Tomb Raider temple). It was an incredible experience for the kids, who had never seen anything like these temples. They also spent some time in town where they experienced the novelties of ice cream and escalators.