Our trip is at an end...for now

Well, it's Friday afternoon and we fly out tonight, so by the time most of you read this we'll be in the air or hanging out in Bangkok. The last few days have been great, and last night was very exciting!

The evening started with a presentation of the photos taken by the Angkor Street Children project kids (the group that performed Hip Hop for Hope earlier this week). There are about 50 kids in the project, and we visited their house yesterday to see what they're doing and to meet some of the kids. Not only is it a great program, but the exhibit was great, too! The concept of seeing the world through the eyes of a child is universal.

Next was an exhibit for a program called InsightOut, and then the Eyes Wide Open presentation. Christophe introduced EWO, and then Ty said a few words. The exciting thing was that they had a translater come up and translate what both Christophe and Ty said into French and Khmer, so everyone there could understand! The exhibit was of the photos the EWO kids took for our two US projects. We got a great round of applause, and afterwards many people came up to us to congratulate us, to comment on EWO and what we are doing, and to offer help. This trip has truly opened up the world for EWO.

We stayed for awhile to see an exhibit by Greg Constantine (www.gregconstantine.com), one of the great people we've met and someone we now call a friend. He lives in Thailand and is doing a project on a group of stateless people, people who belong to no country and no culture. We're very excited to see the great things that will come from his project as well.

Today we've done our packing, had lunch with Greg and Jennifer, and stopped at the festival headquarters to donate the two EWO prints we brought with us to the Angkor Street Children house. We are hoping to work with them in the future, they have great organizers and volunteers, and they're making a great impact on children in Siem Reap.

Tonight we will pack our car, head to the Amansara hotel for an exhibit, and then head to the airport. We've made some great friends with both Cambodians and people from all around the world, and we know that great things will be happening for EWO. We've had to say our goodbyes, too, but we know we will stay in touch and see our new friends again. Thank you to everyone for all your support and good wishes, and we'll see you back in the States!!

A successful workshop at Angkor Wat

Good evening everyone! It's early evening on Wednesday, and we had another great, if very hot and sticky, day. Today was by far the warmest day of all, we're guessing about 98, and the sun was bright. Everyone was hot today!

We started the day with a traditional Asian breakfast of noodle chicken soup (yes, hot soup on a hot day, we know), and then headed downtown to the markets. We did some final shopping and picture taking in the Central Market area, and then headed to the Temples for a final tour. We first tried to find our three Temple Kids. We found family and friends of two of them, and gave them a copy of their pictures. Kao had already gone home, so we will try to find him tomorrow.

Then we headed to Angkor Wat, the largest and most famous of all the temples. There we found Peron, 14, one of five kids (he is the only boy). He walked us around Angkor Wat, which is quite large and impressive. There are five towers to the main building, and there are several side temples. This complex is surrounded by a moat, and there is a long walkway from the street area to the main temple. There are many levels and a large hall. You can climb all the way to the top for a spectacular view of the countryside. Peron took many pictures, and even he commented on all the tourists!

We were very tired after that, so we headed back to the hotel for a refreshing dip in the pool. Teresa continued to enjoy the pool until dark, and Ty headed out for some night shooting. Next we're headed over to Sofitel for an evening of exhibits and networking. Tomorrow is our last full day in Cambodia, and it is a big day since we have our presentation in the evening. It's been a wonderful experience, we've met so many great people, and we've had an incredible time. It's all been worth it.

We will post more pictures tomorrow, and we'll let you know how the presentation goes as soon as we can. Hope everyone is having a great week, we'll see you soon, and wish us luck with our presentation!

Another relaxing, photo-filled day!

Well, Tuesday is almost over, and we spent another beautiful day in Cambodia. This was another day where we explored the countryside and temples, relaxed and enjoyed. Ty headed to a new village outside the city of Siem Reap, and walked his way through, catching shots of daily life in Cambodia. He caught a moto taxi back to the hotel. It wasn't quite as comfortable as a car, but he made it safe and sound!

Teresa headed to Banteay Srey, the only temple made from pink sandstone, which has very detailed carvings. The temple is about a 45 minute drive from Siem Reap, and even though it's far, there were still many tourists. The road is paved, but it may as well be dirt--there were potholes all along the way, which makes for slow going. That made it easier to stop often on the way back to take advantage of the many great photo opportunities through the small villages.

The people here are very friendly, no matter where you are--city, countryside, or anywhere in between. Many people speak some English, and in the city people speak more English than we expected. Children go to school either in the morning or the afternoon, so at the temples the kids ask you to buy from them so they can go to school later. As soon as you leave a temple you immediately hear cries of, "Mister, would you like a cold drink?", or "Lady, you want to buy this t-shirt? I give you good deal." It can be hard to say no, but after awhile it gets easier to tune it out.

We had a very relaxing afternoon and dinner today. We stayed close to the hotel, relaxed in the pool, napped a little, and then had a great dinner at the hotel. Tonight we are off to a festival exhibit again, this time at the F.C.C. Hotel, where we hope to meet more great people. It's truly amazing the connections we are making and the relationships we are building.

We are both having a great time, and we have both taken many, many picures! The photos will be edited and sorted very well before we show anyone... we promise not to make anyone sit through a four-hour show!

We hope you are all safe and well and having a good week. We are enjoying the last of our trip, and we are anxious and excited for Thursday, the day of our presentation. We will keep the blog updated as best as possible, so keep checking back. Take care everyone, and we will see you soon!

Great things are happening in Cambodia!

Well, it's day three of the Angkor Photography Festival, and EWO is making the best of every opportunity! Yesterday (Sunday) we had a quiet day, and spent the morning at the markets. In the afternoon we headed out to Ly's house. While there, we saw the finished bridge, and we all crossed over it to see the work that's been done in their vegetable patch.

The kids were all there, and they all had a good time taking pictures on the cameras. We thanked the family for working with us and allowing us to visit. We then thanked them with some gifts, just a small gesture of some toys, snacks, and some more t-shirts. It was great to see the smiles on the kids faces as they figured out what a Slinky was!

Sunday evening we headed to the Victory Hotel to see the Siem Ream Street Children project perform Hip Hop for Hope. This project takes kids who normally beg on the streets and gives them some stability. They teach dance, photography, and standard school subjects, and the kids have a chance for a more normal life. The program was very cool, combining traditional Khmer dance with hip hop moves, all set to traditional music with a hip hop beat! The hotel also had a photography exhibition about a tribe of Sea Gypsies, which was very interesting. Everything we've seen has been very inspiring, and we're coming up with all sorts of ideas for projects and exhibitions.

At the Victory Hotel and then at the Heritage Hotel we met some incredibly talented and famous photographers, all there for the festival. We've introduced EWO to many people, and everyone is offering advice, help, contacts, and support. EWO will have help from around the globe, and we have a lot to live up to when we get back. It's very exciting and humbling at the same time, being surrounded by such talent and being a part of it all, too.

Monday morning Ty headed out to the country (to Ly's home), and walked back into the city to take photos. Teresa headed out to a few more temples and took photos, too. We met back up at the hotel and then relaxed in the pool (of course!). We headed into town to get the kids photos developed and had a bite at The Red Piano, then hit LK Internet. Tonight we will attend a festival exhibit at 10 p.m. This exhibit is given by a group of young Asian photographers (some professional, some not), who were chosen to be a part of a free workshop given by the festival organizers. It will be very exciting, we're sure!

Check back for pictures, and we'll keep everything updated as much as possible. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, and we will see you all soon.

Temples, temples and more temples!

Well, Thanksgiving is over for all of us, EWO spent the last two days at the Angkor Temples, and we found two more Temple Kids. Friday morning we headed to the famous Ta Prohm, the temple used in the Lara Croft Tomb Raider movie. It's a very good example of how invasive the jungle can be.

At Ta Prohm we found Kao, who is 12. He has three brothers and two sisters, and most of them sell at the temples. Kao spoke very good English, and by the time we were halfway through the temple, we had collected four of his friends. We had a lot of fun with them! They took us the back ways and through the side doors to get the best view for good pictures.

The temples are so amazing, but it's very hard to deal with all the tourists. Most of the temples are crawling with people, and more and more busses pull up all the time. The tough part is that tourism is the number one industry in Siem Reap, and even throughout Cambodia. Tourism provides many jobs and opportunities that weren't available before, but many of the hotels are foreign-owned, so the bulk of the money still leaves the country.

After a great morning with Kao and his friends at Ta Prohm and others, we relaxed in the pool and headed out for dinner. We went to a local restaurant that employs many poor Cambodians, recommeded by Soum. We were the only foreigners in the restaurant, and it was very good! We tried LK Internet and a few others, but the Internet was down so we headed back to home base.
Saturday arrived early, and we headed off for the "Big Circuit" as it's known. We drove through Angkor Thom city again and headed to Preah Khan, where we found Sohkan, who is 15. She is one of six children, and almost all of them sell at the temples. We headed out with Kan, a friend and her 3-year-old sister, and started exploring.

Preah Khan is huge, and once housed over 1000 monks as a Buddhist monastery and school. There are many rooms, hallways, corridors, and doorways to explore, and Kan found all of them! She and her friend climbed mounds of rocks to find good views that no one else would see. She didn't speak much English, but Soum stayed with us to help.

After relaxing in the pool in the afternoon, we headed to Khmer Taste for dinner, and then to the opening reception and exhibition for the Angkor Photography Festival. There were some famous and talented photographers there, and we met a few of them. This is going to be such a great opportunity to network, to get EWO out in the world and connect with people doing similar work in SE Asia. It was a great evening!

The biggest news for EWO, other than our three Temple Kids and the reception, is that we were able to repair the bridge for Ly and her family! We had asked Soum where we could find wood, nails, and anything else we would need, and he came through. On Friday after he dropped us off at the hotel early afternoon, Soum and his Grandfather fixed the bridge. It was a huge surprise to us that he was going to do the work, and it was also a surprise to Ly, Lourm and their family!

Please keep checking back and leaving messages and emails. We are having a great time, and we really feel like we're doing great things. This trip gives much meaning to a day of Thanksgiving. Miss you all!

Turkey Day in Cambodia

Well, we've made it through a few more days. It's hard to believe we've spent five days so far in Cambodia. The weather has continued to be humid and hot, but we seem to be getting more and more used to it.

Wednesday was a relaxing day here for EWO. We took our time getting up and then spent the morning in town, having lunch and shopping. Our driver, Soum, took us to Center Market, he has a friend with a booth there. That market is a little smaller than Old Market, but it has better bargains, so we got some great deals! We had a very American lunch at Cafe Indochine, and it was very refreshing!

We spent the afternoon relaxing and working on photos and such, of course spent time in the pool, and then went back into town for dinner and an evening out. Dinner was at Molly Malone's Irish Pub, which was a good place, although we sat a little too close to the street. That's not the best idea here, and now we know better. But it was a fun place, and they play traditional Irish music, so it's a big tourist attraction and a very popular spot. We walked around downtown for a little while before hitting our second home, LK Internet, and then heading home.

Thursday dawned bright and beautiful, and we headed out for our first visit to the temples. It's absolutely amazing: our driver, and it seems most Cambodians, know so much about their history, which is thousands and thousands of years old. The first temple at Angkor was built in 802 AD--in 802 exactly--and all the history surrounding the first temple is still known. The Cambodians are proud of their country and history, and we're learning much from everyone we speak to.

The temples are, well, simply breathtaking. Of course, there are many tourists, but we found a few out of the way places. That was all thanks to our first "Temple Kid", Mao, who is 15. She agreed to walk with us and take pictures on the digital camera we loaned her. She knew quite a bit of English, and she was able to answer our questions, and was eager to ask us questions, too. Mao typically sells bracelets at the temples, as does most of her family. She is one of five children, and she is in the middle. Most of her family were at the temples, along with many, many friends. She was a friendly girl with a big smile, and she was proud to tell her friends what she was doing!

We got some amazing pictures, of course. We started the day at the gate to Angkor Thom, a walled city. There are several temples within the walls, and we hit all of them. Some were more popular than others, but all were very beautiful. Bayon is a temple known for the four-headed towers, where each side faces north, south east or west. These temples are all in various stages of repair and restoration. Some of them have "Caution, climbing at own risk" signs, and the steps are quite steep on many of them. Each temple has it's own history and story, and all are very interesting.

After spending several hours at the temples and with Mao, we headed back to the hotel for a much-needed refreshing swim in the pool. We relaxed for a few hours and then headed back out for our big night--Thanksgiving dinner and our first exhibition in a professional gallery! Dinner was at Viroth's, a gorgeous restaurant with platform wood floors, waterways, concrete tiles, and amazing food! Our Thanksgiving meal was Chicken Lemongrass and Roasted Chicken Khmer Style. Both are Khmer (Cambodian) specialties.

Then we headed over to the new John McDermott gallery for the opening reception. We walked in to the entryway, and as we looked into the back room, we could see one of the EWO canvas pieces on an easel. The back room was filled with John's personal work, which is amazing, and with the two EWO pieces on easel, separated by a table covered with a black cloth, that contained three stacks of information sheets on John, and the EWO book and information brochures. We can now say that we have been professionally exhibited.

We checked out John's work, then went upstairs to see the other two photographers, one exhibiting pictures from Burma and the other from Vietman. Then of course we went back down to check out the EWO exhibit again! There were many people there that evening--John said it was more than he expected--and many of them grabbed an info card, checked out the pieces, and took a look at the book. We can't wait for our presentation!

Tomorrow we'll hit the temples again--we got a one-week pass, of course--and find our next "Temple Kid." We're also working on a way to repair, or preferably rebuild the bridge for Ly and her family. More updates to come, so keep stopping by! Thanks for all the kind words, notes, thoughts and prayers. It's great to know so many people are interested in what we're doing and are cheering us on.

Happy Thanksgiving to All!!! We love and miss you, but we're not ready to come home just yet...

Our first update in Cambodia!!

Well, Eyes Wide Open is officially in Cambodia! Yes, after 36 hours of grueling travel covering six cities and four countries, we are now in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We had some long flights and long layovers, and a race to the gate in Detroit (the final boarding call for our Tokyo flight was called just as we got off the plane from Columbus), but in the end, all was well.

We landed on Sunday morning (11/19) in a twin-prop plane, and walked down the ramp to humid heat and bright sunshine! After some initial head-scratching and trying to figure out how to get ALL the luggage into the car, we piled in and headed to the hotel. The Angkor Village Resort is filled with lots of beautiful plants, trees, flowers, bushes, and a very refreshing pool that winds for 200m through the hotel grounds. Our room overlooks the pool, and is very comfortable. The people are very friendly and willing to help, and always have a smile.

We may have unpacked first, just to try to figure out where to put everything, but the very next thing we did was hit the pool! It was wonderful just to be able to stretch out and move freely without someone telling us it was OK! The sun was very strong since it was about 11 am, but it was well worth it (and we didn't get burned). After that it was a long nap (much longer than we planned), and up again at 5:30 to head to dinner. It seems like it's been all about food so far, since that's always the bright point in those seven- and fourteen-hour flights. We ate at the hotel, and enjoyed some delicious traditional Cambodian and Thai food. The next big thing on our agenda? More sleep!

Monday came bright and early. We woke up at 6:45 to a sunny, bright blue sky. It was already humid that early, but we knew what to expect. We went for breakfast and ate in the same open air dining room of the hotel. There's always a light breeze helped by the fans, and it's a pleasant way to begin the day.

We started out the day with a driver and guide to explore the city and find our way around. Mr. BoBo gave us some background as we drove around the downtown area. We saw the Old Market and Center Market, both tourist areas where they sell every Cambodian souvenir you could want (a bargain hunter's paradise). Then we headed to Artisans Angkor, a school for students 18-25 years based on traditional Cambodian crafts such as stone carving, silk painting and wood carving. They are working hard to revive and maintain all the Cambodian traditions, because so many of them were almost lost during the civil war years.

Later that afternoon we went met with the organizer of the Angkor Photography Festival (www.angkorphotofestival.com), the reason we are here. He explained the details of our presentation, and told us it will be held in the Royal Gardens--across from the Raffles Grand Hotel--and will be open to the public. Most of the other presentations of the Festival are private, so we are very excited! We also spoke to local gallery owner and professional photographer John McDermott (www.mcdermottgallery.com), who agreed to exhibit the two Eyes Wide Open canvas pieces we brought, and to put the information cards and book with them. The gallery is opening on Thursday 11/23, and EWO will be a part of that (talk about a Happy Thanksgiving!). We finished off the day with another wonderful dinner in our hotel.

Tuesday also started out bright and early, the sun was shining and the humidity was heavy in the air. Another breakfast in the hotel (it's free, you know), and we headed to town to run a few errands. We dropped the canvas pieces off at the gallery and left a note for Mr. McDermott. We caught up on some emailing in an Internet store, and then did some shopping in the Old Market.

The afternoon was very exciting. Lourm, an employee of the hotel, took us to her sister's home out in the country. Ly and five of her children live in a wood hut on stilts in the middle of a field. A sixth child lives with the grandmother and Lourm and her son next door. Ly's home has no electricity, no running water, is one room, and she is very poor. She has very little education and no income, and grows vegetables in a small plot of land down the road. She has very little for herself and her family, but she makes sure her children go to school. The children were a little shy at first, but their big grins soon came out.

We invited Li and her children into our project, and asked that the children take photos of their everyday life, to show us the things they see every day that make them happy, or sad, or upset, or any other emotion. The children now have cameras in their hands, and will be taking photos over the next six days, both at home and at school.

Ly showed us her vegetable plot, which she shares with her mother. She has to walk down the dirt road and cross a very unstable bridge, which spans the creek of sewer water from the city. That water is used to water the vegetable plot, and there is also a vegetable planted in the water directly. Ly makes no income from this plot, it is only enough to feed her family, and often isn't enough for that, either. We are very excited to work with Lourm, Ly and her family!

Later that afternoon we met with John McDermott directly, and he agreed to exhibit our pieces during our entire stay. We are working on finalizing the pictures and music for the presentation, and we finished the day with dinner at The Blue Pumpkin, a local French bakery and sandwich shop with WiFi Internet. Things are going very well for Eyes Wide Open in Cambodia! We've had a great few days so far, and there's some great things to come. That's it for now, we'll post more updates soon.