Where We're Not Staying

We've really had a busy couple of days, so blogging time disappeared. I'll catch you up quickly...

Two days ago, we left Kompong Cham by van and headed northeast to the untamed wilds of Mondulkiri. What a beautiful region, and one that was very different than the other regions we've visited. Mondulkiri is the mountainous area that indigenous people continue to call home. It is here that we found waterfalls, including Cambodia's highest, Busrah Falls. The drive to Mondulkiri took about 4 hours, and then another hour on bumpy, winding, dirt roads to get to the falls. As this is the start of the rainy season, we were treated to falls overflowing (pun intended) with water. We took a grand photo of "the Augie A" at the falls in front of a Cambodian flag... it's worthy of website status!

We then headed back into "town" in Mondulkiri (stress on the third syllable) to check into our hotel. It was an idyllic setting located in a valley; the view from our rooms was of a rising mountainside with terraced plantations for coffee and fruits. It was a remote location that was stunning, but we wondered how the students would like being so far from town. And even though "town" does not consist of anything urban, there is a wonderful restaurant there that has Western food choices (like hamburgers) and a pool table. Students, you will want to hang out here!

As I said, our hotel was beautiful, but unfortunately, people are not the only living beings residing there. At about midnight, I woke up to a noise akin to the shuffling of papers. I sat up in bed and stared into the dark. I couldn't see a thing, even as my eyes adjusted to looking in the dark, but I kept hearing this sound. I was so tired that I finally convinced myself that it was the noise of the small in-room refrigerator. Well, I woke up again at 1:00, with my brain alerting me that the sound could not be the refrigerator, because the sound had moved to ear level. I rolled over and opened my eyes to make out the figure of a rat munching on some crackers in a Ziplock on the nightstand. As soon as I moved my hand, the rat ran. I tried to find it, but eventually my searching woke up my sister and roommate, Deb. Deb can be squeamish about critters, so I wasn't sure I wanted to tell her about the rat! But I had to, because I was squeamish about the rat! Long story short, we had a family (she says quaintly, really meaning to say an infestation) of rats in our room. We got no sleep at all for the rest of the night, as Deb went to sleep in the lobby and I standed guard in our room, protecting our stuff from rogue rats. They had had quite the fun while we slept from 10 p.m. to midnight. We were VERY HAPPY to leave that hotel at 6:00 the next morning, an early morning because we were going to go to see elephants in their natural habitats in the Cambodian jungle on the outskirts of Mondulkiri! The bottom line to this story: we are NOT staying at this hotel with you, students!! (We checked out another hotel and that is where we'll be!)

The next morning we drove by jeep to the Elephant Valley Project, another NGO dedicated to saving wildlife in Cambodia. We were going to spend a half day hiking into the jungle to observe 4 elephants in the wild. Unfortunately, my sister slid down the very muddy and slick hill, and while falling, put her hand down to break her fall. Instead of breaking her fall, she broke her wrist. She was quite the brave one through it all. We knew she was in a lot of pain and undoubtedly very nervous. Here we were, in the Cambodian jungle, about 6 hours away from any urban medical treatment. A broken wrist is not enough to summon a medical helicopter, so our Elephant Valley guide, Jenna, constructed an emergency splint. We hiked out and piled into her jeep, which she then proceeded to drive at speeds only she could have managed on the back roads. She took us to the local clinic where a very basic x-ray confirmed the broken wrist and provided pain medications -- the total bill was $8 U.S. Our Cambodian guide and driver, Mr. Eak and Mr. Xin were right there devising a plan with Marsha. They took all of us back to Phnom Penh and to the SOS International Hospital. The drive to Phnom Penh was 6 hours of long and bumpy, but Deb remained brave and relatively comfortable. The PP physician repeated the x-ray and confirmed the break, said he recommended surgery, and partially casted Deb's arm. While Deb was seen medically, the rest of us were on the phones. What we want everyone to know, especially the parents of our students, is that the travel medical insurance the four of us are carrying and that all of our students also must carry when traveling abroad with us, worked efficiently and without a single hitch. Medex insurance immediately agreed that Deb needed to be medically evacuated to home for surgery, and they arranged and paid for all of her new flights, medical bills, etc. They also said that they would cover changes for me to accompany her; however, Deb assured us that she was okay to fly back alone. We spent yet another night at our favorite PP hotel of all times, the Ohana, and all four of us went to the airport the next day: Deb flying to Soeul and then home, and me, Marsha, and Taddy flying to Siem Reap to finish our work here. We just heard from Debbie that she is back home in Nashville, awaiting a medical consult at Vanderbilt. Deb, our love and prayers are with you!