Elephant Ride

August 16, 2009. What an adventure in texture, color, smell, and flavor today. To begin our day, Daniel and I rode an elephant (a beautiful female elephant named Simba) in the park across the street from our hotel! We actually rode out on the street with all the traffic of cars, motos, and tuk-tuks, which surprised us, and we received lots of smiles and waves. People took our pictures, and I felt like I was in a parade and should be throwing candy to the children. After the ride, we all four fed miniature bananas to Simba.


Next, we stopped at a tailors' shop where Ben had his custom-made suit sewn and had Don's measurements taken, selected fabric and design, and will return Tuesday for a fitting (all this plus leaving a deposit--$10 extra for the large American measurements--in less than 15 minutes). Next stop--the market. Oh, the fruit, the fruit. . . and the fish and whole chickens and variety of vegetables and cooked dished and trinkets and treasure--all in such a small space. The pungent odor of the meats almost knocked me off my feet. Whew!


But we bought mangosteen, the fruit Jill declared her favorite from her years in Sri Lanka. "You're buying too many," Don said to Ben.

"No, I'm not," Ben replied. And he was right. Outside the market, we devoured those luscious fruits within three minutes.









Our visit to the Royal Palace was enriched by our tour guide. Daniel's comment: "I've never seen so much gold and silver in one place." One Buddha was carved from emerald.

Our ever-so-faithful tuk-tuk driver today delivered us to the tailor, to a museum, to a market, to lunch, to what Ben calls the Khmer Costco (3 floors of market merchants), to the Royal Palace, to a cell phone shop, back to our hotel, to the church for two hours of basketball, and back to our hotel. He was always waiting for us after each errand, he kept care of our packages, and he was cheerful and ready to roll at our beckon call.

Sure wish I'd have taken the camera with me for basketball at the church--two hoops outside with a dozen or so mainly teenage boys playing ball. Another dozen guys were at the opposite end of the parking lot on some lawn playing volleyball. And, across the street there was music playing and several locals doing aerobics (we saw three such groups on our ride over). Ben was like a magnet! Such warm greetings from all . . . and after several games (and a sweat-soaked shirt for Daniel--it was hot outside without exercising!), Ben spent even more time visiting, plus introducing us to people. One of the sister missionaries we met is Sister Wang from California, whose youtube video of her opening her mission call is one we watched from home. Her companion is from Twin Falls and has only been out two days. Lucky girl to get to serve here.

Church tomorrow!