Cambodian Community School - NGO meeting a need for education!

Check out this link to the wonderful program we visited in Cambodia.

...Irene and I made a small donation - here are pics of what they bought:

Cambodian Community Assistance Association : Our Project Proposal: Cambodian Community Assistance Association  (CCAA) CCAA was recently founded in 2013 by a former JWOC scholarship student, C...

Hong Kong and home...

Our last stop is Hong Kong, the "Special Administrative Region" of China. This is quite a change of pace from Cambodia - lots of people, fast life style, and (sadly?) very consumer oriented. We stayed at the YMCA (really a hotel operated by the "Y") - it is in a perfect location right next door to the famous Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon.

View from our room at the "Y"

Irene and Steve outside the Peninsula Hotel

The real highlight was that Irene took me out to Felix, the restaurant on the top floor of the Peninsula for my birthday - we had a window seat on the 28th floor overlooking Hong Kong harbor...perfect!

We had the opportunity to sail around the harbor on the LAST real Chinese Junk:

 

We visited Victoria Peak (and did the 1-hour hiking path all the way around the top for 360 degree views), and found our way to Flower Shop Road, the Dried Fish market, Goldfish Street, the Jade Market, the Ginseng street, and some lovely neighborhood parks. We loved the Bird Street where men bring their pet caged birds for a walk and endless discussion of the beauty of their birds.

View from Victoria Peak

 

Flower Market Street

Dried Fish Street

Men with their beloved birds on a walk

We also, of course, had some local meals, we had shredded squid from a booth along the waterfront, a great fish lunch, -- and Steve even had Sea Cucumber.

Finally, our round-the-world odyssey was closing. We flew from Hong Kong (14 hours) to Chicago, and connected there for a short flight home to Denver.

...and a final picture of sunset over Hong Kong Harbor:

Ode to Public Transit

...a break from the travelogue 'selfies' to mention public transit around the world. In almost every country we visited, we used public tranist whenver we could. Buses, trains, subways, streetcar trams, etc. And of course, in Venice we had Vaporetto 3-day unlimited cards, so we could easily hop on a boat for a couple stops along the canal and even for the long ride to the island of Murano.

We also loved the technology - most cities have great (and discounted) prepaid or refillable fare cards (which also make the senior discounts easier without showing ID every trip). Wherever these exist, they are RFI cards which means that you just wipe/swipe them across the turnstile reader. One neat quirky thing for single fares on the Istanbul streetcar trams - the tokens are plastic and very light weight.

Here is a short photo essay of transit along our route....

London - the Undergound (subway) and also the bus from Highgate:

 

 

The Prague subway and the train to Benesov:

 

 

The Rome, Italy Metro and the High Speed Train to Florence & Venice:

 

 

Vaporetto and the People Mover to the Cruise Ship Port in Venice;

 

 The Streetcar Tram in Istanbul:

...and in Hong Kong, the MTR (subway), the buses, the cable car tram, and of course the Star Ferry:

    

 



Phnom Penh, Cambodia

It's been about 12 years since I was in Phnom Penh. We really enjoyed our short stay - the city is bustling, but the people have kept their charm and grace. Phnom Penh (literally, "Phnom's Hill") takes its name from the present Wat Phnom ("Hill Temple"). Legend has it that in 1372, an old nun named Lady Penh went to fetch water in the Tonle Sap and found a dead Koki tree floating down the stream. Inside a hole of the Koki tree were four bronze and one stone Buddha statues. There's a picture below of our visit to Wat Phnom.

Dinner - our last night in Cambodia on the rroftop of our hotel

Skyscrapers and traffic

Still lots of motos in traffic

We visited the Archeological Museum and the Royal Palace

People gather along the banks of the Mekong River with their families - flags of most nations of the world line the river bank.

...our visit to Wat Phnom (and Steve's chance to hold a baby ... he always loves the kids!)

After our 5 days in Sihanoukville on the beach in our grass cottage, this room was quite a modern change:

...a couple more pix: the new parilament building, and another skyline at dusk: