Cooking with Poo

No, we're not preparing food with feces here in Bangkok. Cooking with Poo is the funny name of a cooking school owned and run by a woman nicknamed Chompoo (meaning "rose apple"), Poo for short. I heard about this place when we first arrived, and my husband and I both have been interested in taking a cooking class there since. But as our time here is coming to a close, with neither one of us having had a chance to check this activity off our list yet, I decided to book a class for my husband as an early birthday present (his actual birthday is late next month) since he enjoys cooking.

The story of Poo is an interesting one. She lives in the largest slum of Bangkok, in a section of Klong Toey, and used to making a living making and selling food from the shanty where she lived with her family. However, the price of rice increased to the point where she could no longer afford to do so. An Australian woman who also lived in the area helped Poo start her cooking school, initially in Poo's house. Five years later, the school has grown to include a nice-sized kitchen that can accommodate up to 12 people, and Poo has mastered the English language so that she is able to communicate well with foreigners. She holds cooking classes six days a week for 11 months of the year, taking July off to train her staff. There are six different menus, one for each day of the week. Her school has become quite popular among Bangkok's visitors.

Because of the success of her school, Poo has been able to move her family to better living quarters on the second floor of her cooking school. She also helps her community by making small loans to help others in the neighborhood better their lives, raising funds to pay for higher education for the young adults in the community, and training and employing those in her community at her school.

The cooking classes for laypeople in Thailand are unlike those in the U.S. The classes here include the students in the entire process of food preparation -- from learning about and purchasing the ingredients to cooking and consuming the dishes. To begin, my husband and his group were given an hour-long tour of the local market. The market was huge and covered many, many streets and blocks. It was such a maze that my husband said he could never figure out how to get out on his own. The food there was extremely inexpensive and everything imaginable is sold there; it's where the locals from the area shop. Many of the markets around us, while still inexpensive, are a bit pricier because they cater to the middle-class and foreigners, but the locals in the poorer sections always know where to buy the same goods for much less money.

Once at the school's kitchen, the group prepared the ingredients, cooked, and ate. Each person made so much food that some were able to bring some home. The process took quite a few hours. According to Poo, one of the dishes, massaman curry -- one of my husband's favorite dishes -- requires such a lengthy amount of time to make that many Thai people make it only once a year! For the cooking class, Poo prepared ahead of time so there would be enough time to make the dish. Following the main courses, the students tasted an array of Thai fruits, with some that my husband had not tasted before. The students were all given recipe cards of all the dishes they made.

After the meal, some people purchased Poo's cookbook of the same name as her school. Poo then took the group around the neighborhood. My husband thought the neighborhood was quaint, with narrow streets and homes nestled close to each other. He quite enjoyed the day, meeting new people and learning new and interesting things.

At the market:

 Some of the things sold at the market, some more appetizing than others:

In the 'hood and at Poo's school. The mosaic was created by an Australian artist for Poo's school. The paper sign was formerly used by Poo for her school when she first got started, cooking for two at a time.

Having a blast cooking with Poo. I wish the participants could've kept the aprons.

Some of the most delicious Thai food I've ever tasted. The massaman curry in the third picture was amazing. Glad we have the recipes!

And...this is Poo!

Third Culture Kids

Third Culture Kids (TCKs) are defined as children who spend a part of their formative years in a culture different from their parents'. In their book, Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing up Among Worlds (1999), authors David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken (who was herself a TCK) state that, while TCKs build relationships with all cultures, they tend to be noncommittal to any one culture. They are citizens of the world.

Like everything else, being a TCK has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, TCKs display cultural awareness and understanding, maturity, and a global perspective. They are able to connect with different peoples, and are flexible, tolerant and accepting, open-minded, resilient, and adaptable to change. They are world travelers and are more likely to be multi-lingual. They are at home everywhere. On the other hand, they tend to feel like outsiders, except with those with similar experiences, and may lack a sense of belonging, identity, and commitment. They experience a sense of restlessness and feelings of loss (because of so many transitions and goodbyes in their lives). Their idea of "home" can be confused. They may be unable to develop deep, intimate relationships.

(Souces: http://whichschooladvisor.com/guides/pros-cons-third-culture-child/; http://denizenmag.com/2009/10/whats-good-about-being-a-tck/; http://www.worldweave.com/procon.htm; http://www.expatinfodesk.com/blog/2013/04/16/the-pros-and-cons-of-raising-a-third-culture-kid/)

A shirt we bought in the U.S. last summer that celebrates another part of my son.

Though I certainly have been able to relate to most of the characteristics attributed to TCKs ever since learning about them, I never thought of myself as a third-culture anything, kid or adult. Part of it may be because I didn't grow up thinking about myself in those terms and descriptions, and part of it was that I've always considered myself "American," having lived in the U.S. for over 30 years. Nevertheless, growing up, I often felt like an outsider that didn't really belong anywhere, both physically and mentally. I could never put my finger on exactly why that was, though, and generally just assumed that I was the one with the "problem."

Then there were all the moves, both in Taiwan and in the U.S. I'm not used to living in any one place for very long, and if do, I feel bored and antsy. The first house that my husband and I bought was the longest I have ever lived in one place my entire life -- just seven years (and I was able to stay that long only because I switched jobs several times and had a baby during those years, so I was too busy and tired to move). While filling out the application for admission to the bar after graduating from law school, I realized for the first time that I had moved five times within the previous ten years. Filling out all the addresses where I had lived since graduating from college was no small feat! As a young adult, I sometimes envied my friends with their long histories with people and places, and fond memories of growing up surrounded by the same people, sharing inside jokes with them, living in the same house in the same town their entire lives, and knowing every nook and cranny of their little corner of the world. I wondered what it was like to be able to go home to the house where I had grown up and be friends with people I knew as a kid.

My son wrote "Sammakorn," the name of the village where we live.

Another "struggle" of TCKs is being asked where they are from. Like many others who have moved a lot, I have always struggled to respond to this question in one simple sentence. For most people, like my husband, he can simply respond with the city and state where he was born and raised (though that's changing for him now as well). But for me, an entire thought process goes through my head before I can answer the question: Does this question mean where I was born? Does it mean where I attended elementary school (four total in three different cities on two different continents), middle school, or high school? Does it mean where I went to college? Does it mean where I lived after college, or where my husband and I lived for over a decade after we married? It's, as they say, complicated, and made even more so by our move to Thailand two years ago. These days, if I tell people that I'm from America, I get remarks such as "But your face doesn't look American!" (or simply, "But your face..." followed by pointing to my face) "How can you be American?" or "But where are you really from?"

It was only in recent adulthood that I came across the term "third culture kid." Learning of the term and reading about TCKs, a light bulb came on -- I was finally able to explain me to myself! There were others like me; I wasn't the "problem" after all. And living here, among people from all over the world, has only brightened that light bulb. I feel at home and comfortable here, despite the questions (which are more amusing than anything else, and it's fun to watch people's facial expressions as I relate my meandering history). I am among people like me -- people who consider their "home" to be nowhere and everywhere, people who understand. It doesn't matter if I don't fit in with any one culture; no one else does either, and everyone is accepted for who they are.

My son's collection of foreign currency from our travels and our friends' travels. He currently has currency from 11 different countries, and loves learning about the people and pictures on the money and converting them to the U.S. dollar and Thai baht.

It wasn't often that I heard the term used while living in the U.S., though I know many adults and children there for whom the term is fitting. Being abroad, however, is a different story. This term is very common amongst the expats and the international school community, for obvious reasons. Since moving to Thailand, I've had multiple, in-depth conversations with other expat parents about the pros and cons of raising TCKs. I've heard students discussing themselves as TCKs, and one student even presented a talk on it at a TED Talk event my school hosted. My friends and I have discussed the many positive aspects of growing up as a TCK, and we've discussed the numerous drawbacks of life as a TCK. We wondered if we were doing right by our children or if we were subjecting them to a life as outsiders, wandering lost and rootless. I thought about adult TCKs that I know and how they seem to be coping with life, having lived as TCKs while growing up. We sought advice from those with more experience.

Despite the difficulties I went through growing up as a TCK, I still wouldn't trade it for the world. I feel that growing up as a TCK has had a positive effect on me as a person and has broadened my mind. And I want my son to grow up with similar values and perspectives. I want him to see that there are people of all shapes, sizes, colors, and blends in this world; that there is not one that is "better" than others; and that there are many, many ways to live life, do things, and think. I want him to be able to see the world from different points of view. I want him to be able to put himself in others' shoes, have compassion and empathy for those who are less fortunate than he is, and be able to relate to those different from him, whether it's ethnically, socioeconomically, or what-have-you. I don't want him to grow up in a bubble, be narrow-minded, and treat others as less than fellow human beings just because of where they come from, how they look or speak, or their differing ideas or opinions.

Some of the places my son has seen.

And living abroad seems to have been a very good experience for him. The reasons listed here are all the reasons I love about being able to give him this experience. Even after just almost two years of living abroad, his perspective and thinking already reflect his experiences: He accepts others as who they are, without judgment, regardless of how they're dressed, their behavior, their sexual orientation, their religion, their socioeconomic class, etc. He looks forward to visiting new places and having new experiences. He is adventurous about trying new foods (one thing I love about living abroad is that there are no separate kids' menus; children are simply expected to eat what everyone else eats, and they do). He is quite aware and respectful of differing cultural values and traditions. He loves learning about other countries, their peoples, and languages, and talks about where we should move to next (after America). He enjoys looking through his passport and reminiscing about all the places he's been to. He no longer bats an eye when hearing other languages spoken (going to birthday parties where the birthday song is sung in at least five languages is the norm for us these days), has developed an ear for picking up languages, and has become very interested in learning languages (his Thai is coming along very well, to the point where he is now reading and writing, and is able to translate for us occasionally when others are speaking to us in Thai!). Most importantly, he has been so happy these last two school years at a school with children who come from different places and accept each other for who they are, and where he feels at home and is accepted.

Of course, I also realize that, as parents, we all bring to the experience of raising children our own childhoods, our own relationships with our parents, our own realized and unrealized hopes and dreams, our own insecurities and baggage, and our own projections of how we want our children's childhoods to be, and we parent accordingly -- a combination of the way we were parented ourselves and the way we would've liked our parents to have raised us. I am quite aware that I am giving him opportunities I had had that I want him to have, as well as parenting him the way I wish I had been parented myself. How our children react to and feel about our parenting is a combination of a number of factors -- environment, personality, and relationships, just to name a few. There is just no telling how he will react to our parenting and our chosen lifestyle. For all I know, my son could grow up to resent having lived this kind of life. He may resent having moved so much, feeling like he doesn't belong anywhere, not having the same childhood as those who have the stability of growing up in one place, or not having friends from his early childhood days like some people do (though with technology, that's now less of a concern as it is very easy to keep in touch with friends). He may grow up never wanting to step inside a bus, train, or plane ever again. So far, his easy-going personality and adventurous spirit tells me he will look back on at least parts of his life with fondness, but who knows, really? Still, in this day and age when many seem to forget their own and others' humanity, and when the world is getting ever smaller and more intertwined, it can't be a bad thing to try to learn more about it and to try to forge connections with each other as fellow human beings.

Photo courtesy of Third Culture Kids (TCKs), a Facebook community.

Coming Together for Nepal

One thing I admire about our school here is the way it comes together for those in need. Right after Nepal suffered its first earthquake in late April, everyone at our school -- teachers, parents, staff, and students from pre-K to grade 12 -- has pulled together all the resources, and raised money and taken donations for the people of Nepal.

Currently, there are five different fundraisers going on at school. There's a used book sale, a sale of customized DIY pencil cases and key chains, and a water bottle sale. There also is a spaghetti dinner sale, which sells spaghetti dinners (with various different sauces) for 100 baht (~$3) each. People also can donate ingredients to make the spaghetti dinners, volunteer to make the dinners, or sponsor/pay for dinners for needy families in our area, The Parent Association also is selling t-shirts designed by a student. These t-shirts have been selling like hot cakes and the group already is on its third or fourth order.

Then there's a group of students, who call themselves the New Generation Philanthropists, who put together a CD/DVD set of various piano concert performances of one its members. This member is a student of my husband's who, at only 14 years old, already plays the piano like a professional, and who has entered and won several international competitions. Not only is he a talented piano player, but he also is a nice, modest person and a high achiever academically. On the DVD is one of his performances with a music school orchestra when he was just ten years old. He was phenomenal.

We've tried to participate in the fundraisers and support these efforts to help Nepal. We've sponsored spaghetti dinners for a few needy families, donated a couple of bags of clothes, purchased my husband's student's CD/DVD, and purchased a t-shirt. The rest of the school, it seems, has been similarly or even more supportive. Another student, who also is an amazing musician at just 11 or 12, donated the money he won at a piano competition (our school is full of very talented musicians -- one middle-school student already has performed at Carnegie Hall while still in elementary school). Early last week, about two weeks since these fundraisers were started, the entire school had already raised over $10,000 to help Nepal. There is to be another announcement this or next week of the total amount raised from the fundraisers. I wouldn't be surprised if the total were over $20,000, the way everyone has pitched in. It's heartening to see the community coming together to help.

Sailing into the Sunset

At this time yesterday -- Thursday -- evening, we were celebrating the end of the year with a private dinner cruise on the Chao Phraya River with the rest of my department and other members of the school. It was a lovely, grownups-only evening. Our son was at our friends' house near us in our neighborhood, where their cook/maid stayed over to watch our kids. We taxied downtown to the docks, where, for only about $40 each person, we had the entire boat to ourselves, enjoying an evening of lovely weather on the waters of the river, gorgeous views, great conversations, and a fantastic sit-down dinner. We could bring our own alcoholic drinks if we chose, and everyone brought so much that there was not only plenty for the entire party, but still some for them to bring home.

It was also a farewell party for those of us leaving -- two special educators (one at the elementary school and one at the high school: me), a school psychologist, two high school counselors, and two people (spouses of other teachers) hired later in the year to provide more assistance to our department. Speeches were made, and we each received some lovely compliments and beautiful, handmade porcelain.

Up to then, I had been so immersed in the day-to-day minutiae of my job that it hadn't sunk in yet that the job was ending and I was going to be saying goodbye to all these people --people who have been in the trenches with me for the past ten months -- very soon. When my colleagues told me last night how much they appreciated my contributions this year and how they will miss me, it finally dawned on me that this is it, and that I have no idea how I am going to say goodbye. It was an emotional evening, but also one full of camaraderie and friendship, a nice time outside of work to show appreciation for one another, which we don't get to do very often in the hectic chaos that comes with the job.

Here are a few pictures of the evening. It is very difficult to take good pictures on a moving and rocking boat!

Our boat for the evening.

Our own private bar.

A charming house on the river. We passed another one where people were doing zumba on their rail-less porch outside.

I don't know what this is, but I loved how it shone against the dark night sky.

A mall all lit up.

Some of delicious food we had for dinner.

The Grand Palace lit up at night.

This was breathtaking in reality.

A beautiful night with beautiful sights. Seemed unreal.

The little piece of Thailand that was presented to me.

The Ancient Cities and Temples of Siem Reap

With Tuesday, May 5, being Coronation Day, the Thai government decided to make Monday, May 4, into a holiday as well, and we took the long weekend to visit Siem Reap, Cambodia, to see the amazing sites of Angkor Archaeological Park, which contains the remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire from the 9th to the 15th centuries. The area is approximately 400 square kilometers and includes temples, buildings such as libraries, monuments, communication routes, and other features of ancient civilization.

We spent two full days in Siem Reap, flying into town late Friday night and leaving Monday afternoon, so we'd still have Tuesday to recover and get ready for school on Wednesday. At the Siem Reap airport, we got into a tuk tuk sent by our hotel to pick us up. Our hotel was very quiet and quaint, but our first night there didn't start out well at all. Apparently, even though we had already reserved a room there weeks prior to our arrival, the hotel still overbooked and didn't have a room for us our first night there! They ended up putting us up at another hotel nearby, but it still took at least half an hour to straighten out. By the time we got to the other hotel, it was close to 11 p.m., and we were exhausted. Thank goodness the rest of our stay at the first hotel was pleasant and without incident.

Poolside at our hotel.

Prior to our trip, our friends had recommended their tuk tuk driver to us, so we hired him to drive us around for the two days we were there. Riding in a tuk tuk was quite fun and enjoyable. They didn't have much power to them, so we didn't go very fast. There was a nice, albeit warm, breeze, and we were able to take in the sights and sounds of Siem Reap just by riding around. Our tuk tuk driver was really nice, spoke excellent English, and helped us plan our days there. We couldn't tell how old he was (we think probably around our age), but he told us he has five sons, ranging  from age 10 to 21. He said he and wife were trying for a girl, but decided to stop after the fifth boy. We really enjoyed talking with him and learning about him and his life.

Siem Reap itself is a town built around the tourist attractions of the Angkor ruins, so the town itself is quite rural. Wherever we went, there were water buffalo and chickens scattered everywhere. The people of Cambodia are wonderfully friendly and kind, with more substance to them than the Thai people. But the poverty in Cambodia is a lot more apparent than in Thailand, or at least Bangkok. Here in Bangkok, it seems the poor people still have everything they need. Most even have expensive smartphones. They seem content and supported by their communities. We rarely see beggars. But in Cambodia, there are more beggars. There was more of a sense of desperation. Everywhere we went, people as young as five or six years old were practically begging us to buy things from them. People stared at us with big, sad eyes as we passed them.

The main "highway."

The countryside.

The cows and chickens were soooo skinny.

An armless statue at the main intersection of town.

The Khmer cuisine is delicious, with influences from around the region -- including Thailand, Vietnam, and India -- as well as countries as far as France, but also with its own unique flavors. We immediately took a liking to the food in Cambodia, with its varied flavors, but without the spiciness of Thai food.

We began our first full day at the War Museum, which showcases the machines and weapons, such as machine guns and land mines, used during the Cambodian civil war, which only ended in 1998. The museum also offered free tours given by tour guides who personally experienced the war and all of whom were amputees. However, we walked the grounds on our own. Children were allowed to climb all over the tanks and machines and to handle the weapons; we took a picture of our son touching a couple of bombs. Only in Asia.

A helicopter from the war. Many of the war machines and weapons were from Russia.

Wooden weapons.

It was so strange to see tanks sitting among fruit trees in such an idyllic setting.

From there, we toured a silk farm/factory, where we were shown the process of silk-making by hand from silk worms to a finished silk product. It was fascinating. Each cocoon can produce 400 meters of silk. The outside layer of a cocoon produces a lower quality raw silk, whereas the inner layer of a cocoon is turned into higher quality and more expensive fine silk. The process of silk weaving is long, tedious, and time-consuming, with some products such as wall tapestries taking as long as seven months to make, excluding the process of cocoon-spinning by the silk worms. The farm makes and sells all its products onsite, and doesn't distribute them for sale anywhere else. The finished silk products were beautiful -- richly colored silk dresses, shirts, and ties; handbags, purses, and wallets; scarves and handkerchiefs; hats; and table cloths and wall tapestries.

That night, we ate at a restaurant that offered apsara dance performances with dinner. Our tuk tuk driver helped us make a dinner reservation earlier that day, and convinced the person taking our reservation to allow our son to eat for free (adults cost $12 each, and children are generally half price). Dinner consisted of a huge assortment of various courses in buffet style -- there were separate tables for meats and soups, salads, main courses, noodles, appetizers, fruits, and desserts. There also were people who made to order soup noodles. There was so much food. We got there a little after 6:30 to eat before the performance at 7:30. There were six different dances, with costume changes between each dance. The dancers were amazing and beautiful. They moved their limbs and bodies very precisely, stood on one leg for long periods of time, and had to hold their hands and wrists just so. One dance performance was of the tinikling dance, which we had just seen and learned about on the sitcome "The Middle" a few months ago! Who says you don't learn anything from watching TV?

We called it a night after the dinner performance. We had originally planned on going to Pub Street, a street with lively night life, and the night market, but we were all exhausted and had a long day the next day.

The mulberry trees used to feed silk worms.

Baby silk worms.

Cocoons.

Cooking the cocoons to spin them into silk.

Spinning the silk onto spools.

Natural dyes.

Putting plastic on the silk to make patterns when the silk is dyed. This process takes days.

Weaving.

The restaurant where we watched apsara dancing.

One of the dances.

This dance was pretty and graceful.

Tinikling dancing.

When the show ended, audience members rushed the stage to take pictures and touch the dancers, as if they were objects. Very bizarre.

Our second full day there consisted of a day-long visit to the Angkor Archaeological Park. We started the day at 4:45 a.m., when our tuk tuk driver picked us up to drive us to the park, where we bought one-day passes to the park (there are one-day, three-day, or seven-day passes, but not two-day passes). Each one-day pass cost $20, with our photos on them; children under 12 are free. We began with the sunrise at Angkor Wat, which was underwhelming considering how much sleep I had to sacrifice for it. Our hotel had packed us each a breakfast, so we ate after watching the sun rise at around 5:30 or 6:00. The grounds were packed with tourists and people trying to sell us coffee, scarves, books, and maps.

After eating our breakfast, we made our way through the grounds of Angkor Wat, which took about an hour. By then, around 7:00, it was already steaming hot. We returned to our tuk tuk driver, who always waited for us at the entrance to the ruins, and he took us to the next one, the Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom. From there, we walked to Baphuon, where those over 12 years old can climb to the top of the temple for a view; the Terrace of the Elephants; and Terrace of the Leper King. After that, we drove to Preah Khan (or "Sacred Sword"), a temple that was built in the 12th century for one of the kings and the center of a large organization with approximately 100,000 officials and servants. It was probably the most dilapidated of all the sites we saw that morning.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat.

A lone child. All his friends ran away right before I snapped this picture.

Walls and walls of carvings depicting Cambodia's history.

Details of a wall carving.

A monk meditating.

A structure within Angkor Wat. The girls in the picture asked us to take a picture of them, so they were running to get in position. 

A Buddha statue.

Most walls were covered with carvings of gods and dancers.

At this point, we had already seen six sites, we had walked and climbed a ton already, and we were hot and tired, but it was only about 11:00 in the morning. We went to lunch at a quiet, out-of-the-way spot with amazing food, and rested for at least an hour while our tuk tuk driver hung out in a back room with other tour guides and drivers to watch the boxing match.

After lunch, we went to one more temple before returning to our hotel for the afternoon. This temple, Ta Prohm, was made famous by the films Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, both of which were filmed there. I could see why those movies were filmed there -- the grounds and the condition of the buildings have largely been untouched. With gigantic trees growing out of many of the ruins and dilapidated stones everywhere, it was breathtaking. I felt as if I had gone back in time.

Temple of Bayon at Angkor Thom.

Doorway upon doorway everywhere.

Temple of Bayon has about 200 stone faces such as these.

Close-up of a face.

More intricate carvings.

Leaving the temple.

At around 4:30 that afternoon, we headed out again, this time to Phnom Bakheng, a Hindu and Buddhist temple atop a hill, for the sunset. The trip was not worth it, though. We had to hike for at least 15 minutes uphill, which is awful when it's hot and humid and there is no air flow because of the mountains. We were all drenched in sweat within a minute of starting the hike. Once at the hilltop, there was no shade and it was crowded. We waited for over an hour to see the sunset, but then clouds rolled in and the sun was obscured. Once it came back out, though, it was still high in the sky, and didn't seem like it was going to set anytime soon, so we decided to leave. I definitely would not recommend climbing up for the sunset unless you are there during the "winter" or hot season, when it's less likely to be cloudy.

View from atop Baphuon.

At Baphuon.

Another view from Baphuon.

After this last leg of the trip, our tuk tuk driver drove us back to our hotel, and we thanked him and said goodbye to him. He stayed a while to chat with us about Cambodian customs. He was going to a friend's wedding party that night, so we discussed the wedding customs in Cambodia, other Asian countries, and the U.S. According to him, the weddings of wealthy people could last up to three days, and cost about 1000USD (Cambodia uses American currency). Those with less money usually have a one-day wedding, which costs about $400. He told us his oldest son, at 21, just married a girl he works with. The one-day wedding was expensive to our tuk tuk driver -- according to Cambodian custom, the groom's family pays for the wedding.

The Terrace of Elephants.

Walls of elephant carvings at the Terrace of Elephants.

Hindu gods at the Terrace of Elephants.

Wall carvings at the Terrace of the Leper King.

Going into Preah Khan ("Sacred Sword").

At Preah Khan.

Stupa at Preah Khan.

The ruins at Preah Khan.

Overall, I enjoyed the trip. But this trip was tinged with some sadness for me, for a few reasons. First, this trip was the second-to-last trip we will make outside of Thailand before going home. This fact dawned on me as I was lounging by the hotel pool our first day there. In that moment, I realized that I will miss this life so much. I mean, how many people can say they're going to hop over to Cambodia -- or any other country -- or a random island just for the weekend? It is an amazing and surreal way to live.

Seeing how the Cambodian people live also made me sad. Here in Bangkok, we're rarely exposed to the poverty of the people, and when we are, it is not as stark or devastating as what we saw in Cambodia. Every time our tuk tuk stopped, several people immediately descended upon us to sell us things. It was especially difficult to see the children doing this. It was so hard to turn them away as I wanted to help them; at the same time, however, I didn't want to encourage their begging and pleading. I had to wonder what went through their heads when they saw my son -- someone who looks a little like them, but who has everything they don't and will never have. I felt a huge amount of guilt thinking about the difference in the quality of these children's lives and my son's life.

At Ta Prohm, where Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom were filmed. 

These huge tree roots were a sight to behold.

Another structure overtaken by nature.

Ruins at Ta Prohm.

Since witnessing the daily lives of the poor Cambodian people, I've felt nothing but gratitude for the life that I have. After our trip, I basically feel that I have no right to complain ever again. Any problem I may have or will ever have amounts to nothing compared to the problems the poor Cambodians have to deal with just to survive; my problems and issues feel like luxuries. I also feel a certain amount of disgust with the lives that we lead and the amount of excess and waste that we, and everyone else we know, have in our lives. My son, and my friends' children, seem so spoiled in comparison, living in their clean, safe homes with running water and electricity; eating their freshly cooked, hot meals; complaining about what's lacking in their lives.

Watching the Cambodian children, some as young as preschoolers, hawking their wares and being essentially left to their own devices, also made me painfully aware of how coddled, sheltered, and carefully tended to our own children are. The Cambodian children I saw are survivors and fighters, smart and savvy. At five or six years old, they were capable of so much more than my son is at eight. It made me question some of the things we do in the developed world to parent and educate our children. We're always talking about and trying to create for our children "real-life" learning experiences, but I wonder how real their experiences can be when everything is so planned, manipulated, and sanitized. Here we are, spending loads of money on language lessons, music classes, gymnastics lessons, and what-have-you, all in an effort to open their worlds; mold them into well-rounded, well-educated, and good human beings; or help them develop physical strength and agility, among other things. But in Cambodia and other countries, children are getting an actual, "real-life" education by picking up skills and applying them to their lives. For example, it is common for poor children in Cambodia, Vietnam, and other less developed countries, to be illiterate due to a lack of education. Yet, they will also know how to converse in six or eight different languages because they know they need these skills to make money. A friend of mine once traveled to one of these countries with a friend of hers who can speak many languages. One of the local children struck up a conversation with him, and didn't miss a beat when my friend's friend switched from one language to another.

A distant view of Angkor Wat from Phnom Bakheng.

The sad and devastating history of the country also brought me down, and this tragic past can be seen in the people -- the way they carry themselves and on their faces. While they are always kind and gentle, there's also a heaviness to the spirit of the people in Cambodia. In comparison, the Thai people seem happy and carefree.

I thought the ancient ruins were magnificent and amazing. Nevertheless, I probably didn't get as much out of the trip as I could have because of the lack of knowledge and understanding I have about Cambodia's history. My husband had a guide book with him, and was reading up here and there, but I really didn't have the patience and energy to study everything in detail while wilting in 100-degree heat. The atmosphere also left more to be desired because of the hordes of tourists constantly shouting and shoving, and all the locals pestering us to buy things. I suppose that's a balance that would be hard to strike -- to be able to share a country's treasures and history with the rest of the world while preserving the characteristics of its culture and history.

At Phnom Bakheng.