Kampong Cham is Insanely Awesome

The first night here in Kampong Cham I realized this will be my favorite area of my whole mission. Literally, everywhere I bike is mountain biking on small skinny trails through forests with things hanging low that you have to duck under, hills that you bike down that you can get going really fast, and random parts of the trail that aren't trail anymore, because it turned into a lake. Every day is an adventure, and the air is like 10 degrees cooler out here, too. Its not as far away as Siam Reap, but this province is just rice fields and rivers. No tourism. No big buildings. No cars. Well, there are a few cars, but not away from the city. This feels like camping. Especially since I can watch the sunrise over the jungle every morning.

Apparently, out of all the provinces, Kampong Cham is the most "Cambodian" of them. And I'm beginning to think it's because of the lack of white people. It's so cool. Actually, the best part is the kids that just scream "Hello!" every single time we ride by. Seriously. In the city the moms would always be like, "Hey look a Frenchie; say hi to the Frenchie, come on!" and the kid just hides behind the mom's leg. But here the kids are just like screaming at the top of their lungs from the garbage piles that they play on. It's pretty funny. And the weather is really nice here, too. Oh and a side effect of having no tourism here is that they only have Khmer food here. Making American food is pretty much not an option. So I have eaten so much rice since I've been here that I'm starting to wonder what American food tastes like again. Not really. Haha.

Cambodians love spoonerisms. It's like a big part of their language. They call them konloah. Except, the way you do it is just switch the sounds from the end of the phrase to the first word of the phrase. So like sok sabbay turns into say sabbok. So when people say that to you and you say say sabbok back, they crack up. Every time I do a konloah, the people here think it's the funniest thing in the world. And I can think of funny ones on the fly, so it helps the members like me. Haha. 

Elder Ros (Wyatt's MTC comp), Wyatt, Elder Slavens

Elder ?, Elder Slavens

Elder Slavens and Wyatt in front of what I assume is their home.

Slavens. He is a super cool guy. Actually, it's really weird that we are companions, because we still haven't reached our maturity mark in the mission (that you reach when you train or get called to be a zone leader), because we still don't have the best grasp of the language. But it'll be fun either way. Actually having a companionship like this is way more fun than having a senior comp. Haha. We haven't done any real work yet since last week was transfers, so next week I'll have some better stuff to tell you. 

Love,

Elder Hall