day 7

Today was an amazing day yet again! We planned to do something with Savy's family, they said they were going to take us to some mountains that we could not pronounce... which is cool, but we basically had no idea what we were in-store for. We took off at 9 in the morning to our mystery destinations of the day. First stop was a really cool Monastery on a mountain. There were multiple steps and elevated buildings and relics. It was a very beautiful site with mountains in the background, flowers and trees everywhere, monks in their orange robes, nuns in their white robes, and us walking around awkwardly in the middle. We soon took off again to our second location. We travailed on a remote jungle-like road to a clearing at the base of a mountain. There was a walkway leading toward the mountain and so we got out and followed it. When we got to the base of the mountain it was amazing.. there were stairs that lead all the way to the top of the mountain.. this took about 10+ minutes to climb.. I was basically taking a shower in my sweat.. Delicious! When we reached what we thought was the top, we found relics and Buddhist alters. We soon were lead to a path that came to these amazing caves and holes in the mountain. We found out that this was the mountain that the Enemy during the Genocide stayed. They would throw people from the top of this mountain down into the caves where we were at. There were human bones piled in these cages from real people who had died there. In one cage there were bones piled as tall as I am. There was a huge statue of Buddha laying down in the cavern as well. It is amazing how superstitious these people are.
As we further explored the mountain we found that there was still more mountain to be climbed. We continued to climb and find more and more and more and more relics and Buddha statues.. they were everywhere! We found more caves and relics everywhere as well.. it was so beautiful. We came to this one clearing and there was a huge Buddha statue sitting Indian-style. There were wild monkeys all over the statue and surrounding trees so we fed them bananas. It was such an awesome time.
The third place they took us was to a lake. We pulled up and there were these huts along the side of the lake with elevated floors about 4 feet off the ground with hammocks everywhere! so we got in our own hut and had an enormous lunch with a whole giant fish, a whole chicken, beef, cooked bird, vegetables, fruits, rabbit soup, and some random mango spiced things (kind of like coleslaw with mango). after we ate we took an hour nap by the lake, the biggest lake in Cambodia.

It was so awesome to get to spend more time with the family of B3 and have them treat us with such respect. This was definitely one of the more eventful days. We then came back to our hotel and took the family out to dinner later. We payed for them and really treated them for all that they had done and given us. This day was soo gooooodd!

Sadly tomorrow we leave to go back to Phnom Penh and stay there for 2 days then fly out of Cambodia to Thailand where we will be staying the remainder of our time here. It is going to be really hard to say goodbye to the orphans and family of B3 orphanage and to our new friends Jill and Keven.. but I am excited for what is to come in Phnom Penh and Thailand. God is really working here with Asia's Hope and I am excited to see more of what he is doing.