Angkor Children's Hospital and Mekong Delta

The temples were great, but I am definitely templed out at this point. We visited so many of them that they started to all look the same by the end. However, we met a guy, Ryan, who is dating a Harvard '01 graduate. His boyfriend found out that Kate Jackson, who I am traveling with, was going to be in Cambodia through Facebook and contacted her. Ryan is currently volunteering as an architect at Angkor Children's Hospital and arranged for us to take a private tour of the hospital on our last day in Cambodia.

The hospital provides free care to children in the Siem Reap area and surrounding counties. There is currently a severe dengue fever outbreak in the country. In the month of June, the saw more children come in with dengue fever than in all of 2006. The hospital only has 50 hospital beds but there are hundreds of children there right now, many sleeping on straw mats on the floor wherever they can find space. Even the outdoor waiting room area is converted into a sleeping area at night for people who were unable to see the doctor that day.

The visit to the hospital was definitely one of the highlights of my trip to Cambodia, it was also very difficult. I saw severely malnutritioned and sick children as well as prematurely born babies. One of them was born 3 months early and weighed only 1 kg (about 2.2 pounds). While the facilities are pretty good considering the hospital is located in an impoverished third-world country, and the doctors and nurses are hardworking and caring, they are still lacking all the necessary resources to take care of the deluge of patients they are seeing on a daily basis. The hospital is completely funded by donations and was founded by a Japanese photographer who visited Siem Reap several years ago. I hope that everyone who reads this will donate online at http://www.fwab.org/ (Friends Without a Border). In addition to providing free care, they also educate parents on how to take proper care of their children, teach them about nutrition and hygiene, provide free dental care (only dental clinic in all of Siem Reap for children) and serve as a premier teaching hospital for doctors and nurses. They do get some funding from the Clinton Foundation and works with CF to provide free drugs and care for children with HIV.

After the visit, we left Cambodia and headed to Vietnam. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) last night. HCMC is a loud and chaotic city. There are people on motorbikes everywhere, sometimes as many as 8-10 rows deep. It feels like I am risking my life every time we cross the street. There are almost no traffic lights, except at the major streets.

We went to the Mekong Delta today, stopping in 3 places - Cai Be, Vinh Long and My Tho. We saw the floating markets in Cai Be where people took their boats filled with fresh produce out into the river to sell. Here in the Mekong Delta, boats are the main form of transportation. The children even attend school via boat. We had the opportunity to see people make rice paper, coconut candy and popped rice (looks like rice krispies treats). I even tried to make rice paper myself but failed miserably. It is harder to do than it looks because it is so thin. We took a boat trip down the Mekong River to see the markets in Vinh Long. They were similar to the ones in Cambodia - loud and bustling, filled with people selling all sorts of things from personal care products to fruits and vegetables to meat. We stopped by Vinh Trang Pagoda in My Tho on our way back to HCMC.

We ended up ordering in food for dinner since it poured all evening. They delivered out food on trays. Instead of using disposable plates and utensils, they put it on regular plates and gave us silverware. It was rather surprising. I guess they are not really used to people ordering take out here in HCMC. So far, the food in Vietnam has been a bit disappointing. We even went to a really nice and fancy restaurant in HCMC last night but that was not fabulous. Hopefully I will be able to get some good pho and bun (vermicelli). The bun we had was not like the kind we have in NYC or Boston so I was disappointed. Maybe I like fake Vietnamese food better than the real kind?

Tomorrow, we are visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels where the Viet Cong soldiers hid underground during the Vietnam War. I think we will get the opportunity to shoot AK47s in addition to crawling through the tunnels. Should be an interesting experience. We're also planning a visit to the War Remnants Museum and if we have time, stop by the Reunification Palace. Then we're headed to Hoi An where I am going to learn to dive (it's apparently okay even though I can barely swim...) and cook a Vietnamese meal!