Island hopping or almost....

After the morning tour we were ready for a quick bite to eat with our driver Mr. Mada. We were fascinated as he told us about his family, kids, wife, and growing up. He really felt more like a good friend than a driver in a strange new country. He was always watchful to make sure we didn’t get hit when crossing the street, he suggested great places to visit, and that we went to clean but very nicely priced restaurants ($3-6 a plate).

                https://www.facebook.com/MrMadaTukTuk

(Dale set up this FB site to help gather more business for our good friend, Mr. Mada)

We spent the remainder of the day on a cute little island close to the capital, which we reached by having Mr. Mada drive his tuk tuk onto the boat (below) then ride it over.

It was a bit of an experience to get it down the semi-steep hill but Mr. Mada was up for the challenge. So glad not to be driving!

Our time here was spent learning how to weave the intricate and beautiful designs that they are known for. Ok... maybe we each did just a few lines with them telling us what to do BUT we felt excited that we could do it. It is likely not a good profession for us to go into however! 

This cute little boy was checking the rice while we took some time to weave our "Silk Masterpieces" at his house.

We went to a silk farm where they taught the whole process on how they extracted the silk from the worms to the finished silk thread. There are so many processes to make this work from start to finish. 

On our boat ride back to Phnom Phen we noticed all these little house boats. We would have loved to go inside and see how they live. We cannot imagine sleeping here in the cold, wet or mosquito infested times of the year. 

Perhaps these kinds of experiences and visuals when you travel will help you to appreciate even more profoundly what you have. Coming home from our travels through Cambodia and Thailand made me want to pack up most of our stuff and give it away (actually I did give much away... simplified more). What do we really need anyway. We had lived away from our "Stuff" in Australia for 3 months and there wasn't much I missed. It is just things to take care of, clean or spend $ on. It was amazing at how much more time we had when we didn't have so much stuff to take care of. Instead we spent it on time together!

We love watching all the fisherman as they literally use anything they have to catch something in all kinds of weather.