Cambodia - Dec 2024

Shawna had to make a trip to EYC in Phnom Penh to spend a week with the management team while the Director was in Mexico with his wife, giving birth to their first child.  Since we were there earlier in the year, Keith did not join her to save some money. She flew out from Dallas, spending one night in LA before then taking the flight to Cambodia via Seoul.  In LA, she stayed at the LAX Marriot which is a large, nice hotel near the airport. She arrived into Cambodia quite late on the Sat night and stayed until the following Friday night.  While there, she stayed at the Courtyard Marriott which is a new, high rise building downtown with very nice, modern rooms.  She was upgraded to a larger room and breakfast, which was a very tasty buffet of mixed Western and Asian dishes, was included as well.  The hotel also had a decent sized gym on the top floor along with a rooftop pool.

Room at Courtyard Marriott

She spent her time at the Youth School meeting with the management team doing a few facilitated capacity building sessions while also spending 1:1 time with each manager. She also got to sit in on a few classes - English, STEM and Leadership - which were all fun.  Lou, another board member from Australia, was also there part of the week with Mates Abroad so she was able to spend some time with her as well as Mona, the board member that is local in Cambodia.  

EYC Management Team

For meals, she had breakfast at the hotel each day as well as a few other meals there.  Outside of the hotel, she went to the following places:

Master Sukisoup - she took the management team here for lunch one day.  They specialize in these large pots of broth that you throw in a bunch of vegetables and meat/seafood - kind of like a shabu shabu dish.  Needless to say, she only ate the broth.

One More Restaurant - she took the volunteers here for lunch one day.  Not knowing, she ended up ordering a dish with chicken that had a lot of bones so needless to say she only ate the rice!

Namaste India Restaurant - she took three alumni here for dinner one evening - and Mona, the local board member joined as well. She had chicken vindaloo - quite tasty. 

My morning commute via tuk tux