Day 242 (February 19): Singapore to Siem Reap and the Circus

Why are we so excited? Read on!

The forgettable first half of this day was transportation: 6am taxi to the airport, disappointing food, gift store argument, slow boarding, easy flight, confusion/panic at immigration, seamless pickup by tour guide, bumpy drive to hotel. The notable anecdote, the immigration, was that we (I) forgot that we needed to apply for a visa before arrival. The agent who greeted us didn't speak much English so we were at pains to understand that the immigration forms we had carefully filled out (x6) on the plane were different from what was required. Then we found out we had to pay in cash, which we lacked (there was an ATM). But 15 minutes later the episode was behind us. The hotel had a pool and our kids were in it, making new friends, within minutes.

Our guide picked us up at 4:00 and took us to a Cambodia circus called Phare for a class, then dinner and then a performance. Phare is a nonprofit and school whose mission is to create economic opportunity for artists of all stripes. Our tour company partners with them and other NGOs throughout our itinerary so this was a great and inspiring start.

(We'd love it if you would donate to them! Here are links to learn more or just to make a contribution directly. They provide jobs to many different kinds of artists and offer free school to hundreds of students. Thank you!)

The class was a little like a traditional gym class: the athletes led us through several minutes of warm ups and stretches. Next, we practiced different moves on a padded runway. The kids loved this. It was painfully hot in the gym, which had no fans, much less AC. At one point I poured water on Henry's head and he was no wetter than he had been with just his rivers of sweat. Here are tons of pictures of us at play:

The next part of class was juggling. The adults had more fun with this than the kids, except Lily who was quite determined to get it. At least there was less movement and therefore marginally less sweaty. Owen was definitely our champion juggler and by the end he had remembered enough of what he knew as a youth to try with bowling pins!

Dinner was simple and easy and soon we were packing into a traditional circus tent with hundreds of others. I had a short panic when I wondered if there were any passengers from the contaminated cruise ship in the crowd (hot, limited air circulation) but that was swept away when the action started. The circus had a moderate plot: a villager was ostracized for having an unusual appearance but ultimately, with the help of supernatural spirits, he demonstrated his acrobatic abilities to earn their acceptance. There was a love plot mixed in there and a resurrection that didn't make sense. But the gymnastic, dance and acrobatic set pieces were incredible. The music was performed live by a percussionist and a traditional xylophone. We tried to capture some photos and videos in the dark room but I think our picture of the enraptured faces says even more.