Back in Siem Reap

We made it back to Siem Reap early yesterday afternoon.  I was sad to leave Poipet and the CHO staff, but am excited to explore Siem Reap.  We spent our last day in Poipet at a safe house.  CHO has quite a few safe houses around Poipet.  They are similar to foster homes.  Families take in at risk children and provide them with a safe environment.  The safe house we went to was about 30 minutes outside of Poipet, and we had to travel through some rough terrain to get there.  The flooding is still bad in some areas, so we literally had to drive through mini mud rivers and cross a few (kind of scary) bridges to get there.  We also passed a lot of mine fields.  They mark the mines with skull and crossbones signs that read "Danger!! Mines!"  The kids don't live very far away from this area.  We were told that they find dead cows every now and then.  Apparently it takes a lot of weight to set them off, something like cows or a tractor.  One single person couldn't set it off...  lets hope they're correct about that.  The safe house is tucked pretty far back in a little village and houses a few kids.  There is a school nearby, which is where we played with them.  I had so much fun playing ball with all the boys.  Once again, they were a little hardcore with the throwing, but it was fun.  We made cross necklaces again and sang head, shoulders, knees and toes, in Khmer.  We learned the song in Khmer!  Awesome.  "kabal, sma, chung kong, chung jeng chung kong, chung jeng. kabal, sma, chung kong, chung jeng chung kong, chung jeng. Peneck, tracheck, mot and tram; kabal, sma, chung kong, chung jeng chung kong, chung jeng."  Try saying that three times fast.  All in all I think we had a great time meeting and interacting with the kids.  They are so bright and inspiring.  I think we fell in love with them all.  Now we are back in Siem Reap after a two hour drive.  Our first stop was at the Land Mine Museum.  It's crazy that Pol Pott was in power, what thirty years ago?  Apparently the land between the Cambodia/Thailand border is FILLED with mines, and is considered one of the most dangerous areas in the world.  They are currently trying to de-mine it.  What a tedious job.  One of our CHO friends, Rothana, fought with the Cambodian army and was showing us the different mines and weapons that he used.  It kind of freaked me out.  I don't like weapons and war.  After the museum, we walked about Siem Reap and went to dinner.  We saw some pretty disturbing things while out and about.  At dinner, there was an older man (maybe around 60, 65) with a young, tiny Cambodian women.  Maybe they already knew each other and were having a nice dinner together.  But it's more likely that she was a prostitute, and he just bought her.  It was pretty upsetting and pretty much ruined my dinner.  Now it's Saturday morning, our last day in Siem Reap.  We're heading over to Angkor Wat today, which I'm super excited about.  We fly out tonight around 10:00pm, so I'll be sure to check back in before we depart.