Chelsea's Highlights in Thailand and Cambodia

As part of our round-the-world airline tickets, we got to make a stop in Asia. Because Zaf's uncle and auntie live in Bangkok, it was the natural place to choose. 

Durian at a market

I came to Bangkok when I was 19 years old as part of a travel scholarship and Zaf had been to Bangkok several times before we were married, too, therefore we both felt somewhat familiar with the city highlights.

At the market during our first evening in Bangkok

So we were really excited when Uncle Vaughan offered to take us on a road trip to Battambang, Cambodia which was going to be totally new for both of us... plus there was a Baha'i House of Worship to visit there, too!

Walking to cross the border into Cambodia

Honestly I didn't think much about this part of our trip ahead of time... since Zaf's uncle was going to be there to help us plan it (unlike the previous three months in Europe and Israel which I was basically single handedly planning!) so it felt completely different than previous bits of our trip which I was "in charge" of organising. I had done a bit of research on "must sees" in Battambang but because many of the websites were outdated and/or tourist attractions were running on the bare minimum due to COVID, so we couldn't really plan much in advance. 

Once arriving in our hotel in Battambang (after about six hours of driving and several stops, including the border crossing which took an hour or two... which Uncle Vaughan very kindly arranged!) we met the most delightful family who owned the hotel Uncle Vaughan had booked. They gave us these lovely scarves called "krama" which are multi purpose cloths which several of the kids mentioned in their posts. Straight away we felt welcomed and very excited to learn about the Khmer culture. 



I also spotted these beautiful handmade jewellery pieces in the hotel lobby, made out of old bullets. Then I started researching online about the Khmer Rouge and was surprised I really didn't know much about it before.

Zorion talked about it in his post but visiting this site (the Well of Shadows) was extremely moving.

Some of the touristy highlights were seeing how to make several foods like these rice paper rolls...

The bat cave and huge statues carved into the mountain...

Learning the history behind various statues...

Riding in tuk tuks...

Seeing krama being woven...

We saw lots of new foods and tried a few...

I loved having a traditional breakfast at the market...

And drinking yummy sugar cane juice a few times...

Cora experienced her first squat toilet...

And we had an amazing two days at the Baha'i House of Worship.



We were also blessed to meet some of the Baha'is in Battambang and hear about the various activities going on in the neighbourhoods.

It was such a fun experience for our family to visit the Baha'i Inspired School "Gems" to give a presentation at the morning assembly, and I was very kindly invited to give a presentation to the teachers later that afternoon which I enjoyed very much.

Luckily our accommodation was a five minute walk to the main market so we also explored it a few times.

Drying sesame seeds before processing them to make oil

Although we were only in Cambodia for about five days, the spirit of the people was really touching. There were so many people working so hard and doing whatever they could to make a better future for their children.



Cambodia is definitely a place I'd love to visit again.

When we got back to Thailand, we took a day to recover and also did some last minute shopping at the mall across the highway in front of our hotel.

Uncle Vaughan took us out for a day of sightseeing including the largest golden Buddha in the world...

A market in Chinatown...

And a boat ride. 

I felt our visit to Thailand and Cambodia was the perfect choice of destination before we flew back to Australia... reminding us to be grateful and to look out for ways to help others... and I'll always cherish the memories we made there!

We really appreciated the hard work of Uncle Vaughan and Auntie Sunantha to make our visit so memorable, and loved spending time with them, too.

And here is our last family photo, taking in the airport in Bangkok, before we flew back to Australia!