Submitted by Mark Bacchetta on the 2013 winter session program in Cambodia and Vietnam sponsored by the Department of Entomology & Wildlife Ecology…
On January 14, my study abroad program (Entomology and Wildlife Conservation) went on a short birding expedition with Dr. Bowman at 6:00 in the morning in the mountains of Cambodia! It was incredible to see the different types of birds up there and the temperature hit a chilly 65 degrees. After the birding expedition, our lovable tour guide took us to a Buddhist temple to give them food for lunch. We also went up to the top of a hill on the mountains in Sean Monorum to watch the sunset. It was magical (not to sound girly). The next day became my favorite day because I went to Elephant Valley! It is a huge sanctuary for about 10 elephants who have been rescued from the work force so they can live a peaceful life under the care of a wonderful staff. I even got to give an elephant a bath, which includes throwing water on them, scrubbing them, and touching them! We even had lunch that day next to a waterfall and went swimming in the river! That day took a lot out of me so it was fitting that our next day was spent traveling to Kratie, a town in Cambodia that lies along the Mekong River. Here, we arrived in the town around 4 in the afternoon and went directly to the river where my program promptly boarded boats and went out to the river. And guess what we saw? River dolphins! These dolphins are supposed to be rare, but the spot that our guides took us to was full of these round-faced mammals. I also visited another temple, which monkeys now inhabited instead of monks. Since I only spent that one night in Kratie, the next day, January 17 was our longest bus ride on the trip. The bus took about 7 hours to travel from Kratie to our final destination of Siem Reap. After reaching the city, the night was spent looking at the Night Market in Siem Reap where I bought a few t-shirts and some presents for my family for fairly cheap prices. After that day, we had class on the 18th. Class was from about 8:00 to 12:00 and was mostly about our group projects that we have been working on. After class, the day was free to us to live, except we all went to go see the sunset on top of the mountain at Angkor! Continuing on the amazing path of day trips in Cambodia, my program went to a meditation session on the 19th. Here, our day was spent with Jonah, our teacher of the art, who guided us on how to meditate, eat well, and become one with ourselves. At the end of the day, I realized that meditation was not for me, but it was still interesting. Finally, today was spent at Angkor, the largest religious complex in the world! The largest temple, Angkor Wat was also there, although we are visiting that specific temple tomorrow. Today I was able to view the temple where the movie “Lara Croft: Tomb-raider” was filmed. There are actually trees growing into the stone! Hopefully our last days here will be amazing!