March 25th, 2026,

Our first day in Phenom Penh started with a visit to Mr. Arn Chorn Pond's organization, Cambodia Living Arts. After hearing more about his story, we listened to two musical performances by scholarship students of CLA. We had an opportunity to learn how to play each traditional instrument, both the long-neck guitar and three string fiddle. After a short snack break with Cambodian traditional snacks, we learned three different types of dances: classical, folk, and social. Our stomachs were growling by this point.

We headed to lunch at Eleven One Kitchen after. Our personal favorite dish was the deep fried fish cakes

The highlight of the day was an afternoon adventure with Chef Nak. To get to her house, we took a ferry across the Mekong River; there we saw incredible views of the city. Back to Chef Nak, the moment we entered her culinary arts center, we were in awe with the modern landscape architecture. Colorful flags, abundant greenery, a relaxing vibe. It seemed like every component of the space came together in a really beautiful way that captured the essence of Cambodian culture. A conversation with Chef Nak taught us that although her compound looks like a museum of the outside, it is a living museum where we should touch and uses the various thing inside. By doing this, we are creating history.

 "Storytelling must begin with pride" — Chef Nak

We speak for everyone when we say that the cooking workshop brought out everyone's competitive spirit. Each group, about 6 people, had a designated area to perform their culinary art. Chef Naks started with a demonstration of the dish we will be making. With 45 minutes to recreates Chef Nak's fish curry, we all scrambled to work together. The pounding of the mortar and pestle, the chopping of knives, and the sizzling of the various ingredients. After everyone finished, we all took a portion of our finished product to the dining room where we would be enjoying a meal cooked by Chef Nak and her team. The room was decorated by elaborate furniture and intentional decorations. For dinner, we had corn fritters, string bean salad, steamed fish with the lemongrass paste we all made, and a very tasty shaved ice. 

This dinner was particularly special because it was Sophie's birthday and Ryan's early birthday since his

birthday is in two days. We celebrated with Chef Nak's watermelon "cakes," aka mounds of fresh and juicy watermelon surrounded with birthday candles, and a warm Happy Birthday song. 

This eventful day was tiring, and we were ready to go to bed, but we each took a piece of Cambodian cooking home with us. We hope that today will be filled with just as much learning, fun, and laughter. 

Yours truly, 

Sophie & Celine!

    This is Ryan and Conner reporting on our busy day yesterday. We started off the day with a lesson with Mony and Silong. They taught us to count in Khmer using body motions. They also shared the way of the day: right view.

    We then headed to our activity at Epic Arts, an NGO that uses the arts to teach and support people with disabilities. The dance workshop, which was conducted in Khmer, English, and sign language, included on five activities and two games. We started off with a diamond dance, where four people stand in a diamond shape and worked together to choreograph a short dance. The dancer in the front of the diamond led the others for several moves before turning it to the next dancer. The second dance we learned was the technical dance. Everyone was using counts to understand the pace of the movement. Next, we did weight poses, where two partners balanced each other at light, middle, and heavy levels. Our fourth dance was a "picture" dance. In groups of four, we created short dances that ended in a pose for a picture. Finally, we learned a traditional Khmer slow dance, with hand and leg movement to symbolize the circle of life through a progression from a young leaf to a flower. After several hours of practice, we performed our dances in our 4-person groups. We all really enjoyed trying something new and using our imaginations to create all the dances!

    After the workshop, we had a delicious lunch at the Epic Arts Cafe. Conner and Casey enjoyed their brownie shake, absent the sugar crash.

    Finally, we took our bus back to Phnom Penh. Our hotel, the Frangipani has a rooftop lounge with beautiful views of the river and the city. We had a dinner at the Banana Tree restaurant, where we enjoyed a live performance of the Khmer dance we had learned earlier in the day. For our final event of the day, we watched part of a documentary about Cambodia's performing arts before the Khmer Rouge.

    We look forward to another amazing day today! 

Some of Ryan's photos below:

Monday, March 23rd, 2026

    Today we started off our first full day in Kampot with a trip to the mangroves. Once we got to the community, we boarded small boats and began on our way to plant young mangroves. Before getting out of the boats we all grabbed five mangroves and trudged our way through the cool mud. Planting the mangroves was much easier than we expected, leaving us with some free time to walk abound in the mud and explore the terrain. After this, we returned back to the community, and with our remaining free time we wandered around the bungalows and got to explore the mangrove forest. During our brief walk, we all persevered and faced a fear whether it was snakes, or the wooden bridges we used to wander through the forest. Before having a delicious lunch of traditional Cambodian foods in the community center, we sat down and had a conversation with the community leader. He shared the story of their conservation community, taught us the ecological significance of mangroves to Cambodian life, and shared some words of wisdom about conservation and humanitarian work. 

    After visiting the community center we returned to the hotel and freshened up before exploring the temples and caves of Kampot. The first cave was over 7000 years old and we were taught that ancient civilizations used to live there which was truly fascinating. In this cave we found a cat, shown below, that was very adorable. We then went to another cave that had a temple inside of it and was quite a difficult to reach since it was at the top of a hill. The last main part of our day was when we went to the beach and got to the see the amazing Cambodian sunset and all the Cambodian people enjoying their Monday evening. We finally went to dinner and returned back to the hotel ready to start our long journey to Phnom Penh tomorrow. We are so excited!

XOXO, Casey and Olivia

Sunday, March 22, 2025

This is Ms. Sharma reporting on our first day in Cambodia. I’m writing on behalf of a group of very exhausted, yet very happy students. We are incredibly proud of how gracefully they navigated a long and demanding journey. Even after arriving at our hotel, their spirit for adventure carried them through a full and meaningful first day.

We landed in hot and humid Phnom Penh this morning, where we were warmly welcomed by our two local guides, Mony and Silong, who will be accompanying us throughout the trip. They met us with an air-conditioned bus and led us on a drive that gradually revealed the textures of rural Cambodia.

After a 2.5-hour journey, we arrived in Kampot. Along the way, students caught glimpses of pagodas, temples, and Tuk-Tuks weaving through the landscape. A highlight of the ride was an impromptu singalong—led enthusiastically by the students—to Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe, along with a few other favorites. (video below) 

We arrived in Kampot and enjoyed a delicious lunch at Le Corner, where students were introduced to the vibrant flavors of Cambodian cuisine: lemongrass, galangal, ginger, and the region’s world-renowned Kampot pepper.

Following lunch, we settled into our bright and comfortable rooms and took some time to refresh before gathering for a two-hour cultural orientation led by our guides. This session offered a thoughtful introduction to Cambodian culture, along with a detailed overview of the itinerary for the days ahead.
The students played games and repeated words in Khmer and the session ended with a traditional Cambodian scarf called the Krama that was gifted to each student. The students eagerly sported that around their neck and learned how to drape them traditionally.

We ended the evening with a peaceful walk along the river, followed by dinner featuring Amok, a traditional fish curry delicately cooked in coconut milk. Our adventure has only begun but all in all, a rich and memorable start to our journey. I am including below a few pictures and a video taken during our day and the blog will continue in the voice of the students starting tomorrow. 

  

 Ms. Bocquin here - It has been about 24 hours since we arrived back in California. The cold weather feels strange compared to the heat of Cambodia. 

On our last full day in Cambodia, we traveled from the village of Banteay Chhmar back to Siem Reap. Once there, we relaxed and enjoyed the Phare circus. We were amazed by the athleticism, grace, and charisma of the performers as they told a story of reconciliation.

On the last day we also had a time to reflect and share about our experiences. Here are some of the things that were shared:

Arjun: "A goal I have when I return is to be more grateful for the things I have and not take things for granted."

Atticus: "I learned that Cambodia is a rich country with a long history and really hot weather."

August: I learned about the main values of Buddhism. (paraphrase)

Brendan: "Something I learned about Khmer classical dance is that the different hand gestures describe different parts of a tree."

Bridget: "I learned the difference between my physical and mental abilities."

Edge: "One thing I thought was cool about Siem Reap is that nothing can be taller than Angkor Wat."

Elizabeth: "A goal [I have] is to be a responsible traveler."

Hayden: "My favorite memory was riding the tuk tuk early in the morning for the sunrise [at Angkor Wat]."

Julia: "My favorite memory was getting a necklace from one of the vendors as a gift."

Justin: "My highlight was the interview with Chef Nak."

Katie: "My highlight was the wheelchair workshop."

Maddie: "My favorite memory on this trip was the Cambodian Living Arts portion."

Mia: "My highlight was the magic music bus."

Mimi: "My highlight was the homestay and playing with the children at the homestay."

Oliver: "The highlight of mine was the cooking class."

Ronen: "I love Siem Reap because of the temples."

Zan: "My favorite memory was getting to know the host family."

Ms. Bocquin: "My highlight was the temple ruins in Banteay Chhmar- I could have spent hours there."

Ms. Hamilton: "Something I learned about Angkor Wat is that they did all those carvings using little rocks [as chisels]."

Ms. Tomokiyo: "My favorite memory was watching the students in the fields planting and harvesting."

It was a wonderful trip!

Today I explored the village of Banteay Chhmar.

I started the day with tours of two textile workshops. Watching women weave vibrant strands of silk with complex wooden contraptions, I admired both how smoothly their bodies synchronized with their machines as well as the pride the women appeared to take in their labor. Picture a Khmer woman in her mid-fifties pushing pedals up and down with her feet while passing a spool side to side with her hands, with a calm expression of half-closed eyes above a soft smile not unlike that of the several Buddha statues dotting the village.

From there, a tractor took me to Banteay Chhmar’s rice milling machine. Living in service-centric Los Angeles, I rarely encounter agricultural machinery. So when the milling machine whirred to life, I climbed to the top of it, where a visceral grasp of the physics I study in school struck me like a grain of rice hitting a metal pan. A single motor turned dozens of axles in different directions using a combination of perpendicular pulleys and twisting rubber bands, an enormous conversion of electricity into rotational kinetic energy that fed an entire village.

Another tractor ride away lay the village’s cassava farms. Bumping along a dirt road, I surveyed the landscape around me: the light from the cerulean sky scattered across lush fields skirted by distant power cables would have made for a fine Impressionist painting. To me, the whole farm and its stewards represented a rare remnant of a lost world. In the fields, I helped harvest the cassava, which consisted of tugging at a thick stem until an enormous potato-like plant burst through the red soil with a sound not unlike the croak of a frog. At first I found the process strangely satisfying, but soon felt sobered by the realization that my “fun” was the farmers’ daily labor. It is unfortunate that most tasks are enjoyable when they can be done but dreary when they must be.

In the afternoon, I spoke with two elders of Banteay Chhmar: the village chief and, incidentally, my homestay father. A couple moments in our conversation stood out. First, when asked whether Banteay Chhmar’s weather had changed during their lifetimes, the chief resolutely responded that the village had grown more hot and arid with consequences for its crops. I have long had an academic understanding of climate change, but meeting people who had experienced its impacts firsthand added a human dimension to that understanding. The second response that the elders gave that I pondered answered the question of what one thing they wanted to impart to the village youth. Likely influenced by their experiences of witnessing and surviving the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime, both responded that they wanted the next generation to understand the importance of living a moral life, defined by values like tradition and hospitality. Doubtless some nuance died in translation, but I did see the chief gesturing with her hands clasped in the form of a respectful greeting.

Before dinner, I wandered around the remains of the Banteay Chhmar Temple. If the cassava farms could have constituted an Impressionist painting, then the temple could have constituted a Romantic one: The ancient stone ruins illuminated by a golden sunset and torn asunder by towering green trees recalled the setting of a Caspar David Friedrich painting. Alternatively, one could perhaps read the ruins as a Cambodian embodiment of Shelley’s Ozymandias: The Banteay Chhmar Temple once enshrined King Jayavarman VII and his son’s victory over the Cham invaders, but Nature and occupying armies over the centuries brought down the King’s mighty display. Power is fleeting; all is temporary.

-Brendan

As we ventured towards Banteay Chhmar while parting with the tranquil atmosphere of Siem Reap, we began the day at an elephant sanctuary, awaiting us beyond the two hour bus ride. Immersed within the vivid breath of this sanctuary, we were transported through the force of resilient tractors as we eventually arrived to encounter our first elephant. Jok, our guide at the sanctuary, conveyed his thorough knowledge of the endangered species while amplifying the living beauty of these creatures, not tainted by the yearning to exploit their presence. Utilizing the appealing nature of butchered sugarcane and watermelons to draw the elephants near, we were able to gaze in close proximity to these momentous animals separately. With poor eyesight as well as an overall state of vulnerability within nature, the elephants at this particular space have experienced immense care, fueling a regaining trust once scarred by the detrimental acts of humans. This significant experience embraced a tender moment as it instilled a delicate sense of connection with the world around us, not merely revolving around humanity, rather encompassing the unity within all life that we often lose sight of. 

As we commenced our journey through the intentional maneuvering of our bus, we arrived at the individual homestays we shall be settling in within the next few days while getting acquainted with radiating energy of welcome from our hosts. Throughout the entirety of this trip, smothering heat has been a notable element we have encountered yet funnily enough, a thunderstorm struck this evening. As we indulged in the presence of umami packed food and the simple yet fulfilling company of one another, the rhythmic trickling of the crisp rain poured within the caked ground, washing yet another day in Cambodia away.

-Mia