#3 — Team ‘Smile’ Meets for first time

By end of Saturday Feb 3rd, all of the team members had reached the hotel. Most of us were fast asleep and the plan was to to meet the next day for a team outing together. We met at the hotel lobby Sunday morning, introduced ourselves and headed out for a coffee at Brown’s Coffee, followed by a visit to Royal Palace

Cambodia has an amazing history and lot of monuments are worth a visit.

The idols are worshiped in temples. People offer lotus and also free birds as a practice of their prayers.

Having grown up reading the stories of Ramayana in India, the painting on the walls of the palace grabbed my attention and was easy to share the same to few team members. The entire story is painted on the walls. There are many idols of lord Ganesha, Buddha and even Lord Rama (vandalized!) in the royal palace !

After the palace visit, we went to a dining place specializing in Khmer cuisine. I had to custom order with the help of Seng An for a simple fried rice without any fish sauce. And this is indeed my everyday challenge — being a vegetarian in Cambodia is harder than in Europe or USA. There is so much food, multi cuisine, continental and so cheap. But all of them have a seafood or sauce. Rarely anything is pure vegetarian. The hotel breakfast buffet includes a wide range of fruits and veggies and they are my good source everyday.