Lauryn is Anita's sister, Karen's, daughter. An only child at home, she had an idea what she was getting herself in for when travel with the MacDonalds. Still, it's always shocking to discover you've become the gravitational center of three kids' universe. She contributed this blog entry before heading back to the States for soccer camp.
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| Carrie & Lauryn stand on the edge. Siem Reap, Cambodia |
Lauryn's Blog on Traveling With the Family
Traveling with the family has probably been one of the biggest adventures throughout my time on this trip. On June 17th we met up the MacDonald family in Siem Reap where we stayed in the Gloria Hotel for three nights. These days and nights included many types of travel such as by tuk tuk to the night market and restaurants, a van to temples, and a good deal of walking. The most exciting of these transportation methods was the tuk tuks which are little open carriages that are driven by motor bike. Grace was especially excited to be driven on these and the possible risks did not seem to phase her. Me on other hand was nervous on every single ride and let the safety risks overcome my excitement. Liam and Carrie seemed more or less indifferent about the experience.
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| Our usual tuk tuk ride to dinner. Siem Reap, Cambodia |
The next traveling opportunity was on the June 21th when the entire family would take a six hour bus ride to a major Cambodian city Phnom Penn. The bus ride aroused some excitement because of the free wifi. The tides soon turned when it was made clear their could only be two people to a seat. We decided to be fair the kids would alternate every few hours in order to allow everyone to sit by who they wanted to. The bus ride was a bit rough at the beginning. I got a migraine and a bit of nausea but after some advil and dramamine it was smooth sailing. First I sat with Carrie for about two hours. We mainly just spent the time getting the most of our free wifi, which we were both pumped about. After that I sat with Grace for another two hours. We mainly spent our time laughing eating snacks and playing various games that Grace made up usually involving a celebrity or girlfriend and boyfriend. I think its fair to say me and Grace had a Blast! For the last part of this six hour journey I sat with Liam and the competition was on! It turned into a tournament of who could get the highest score on various games. The main game we focused on was called Ski Safari this was the game that really spiked our emotions. While others were trying to sleep Liam and I were uncontrollably laughing at "epic fails" each other had. This caused a lot of hushes and stares from other passengers and family members but it was worth it. Soon enough we were in Phnom Penn.
After two days in Phnom Penn we faced our next travel adventure to Vietnam. But this time we weren't taking a bus or a plane we were going to be taking a boat. When faced with this information the kids (myself included) did not know what to think. We got to the boat station at 12:00 pm and waited around for about forty five minutes. In this time their was some fighting but that seems to happen about every five minutes on this trip. The plot usually goes Carrie says something, Grace gets mad screams for a few minutes calls Carrie a jerk and peace somehow gets restored. But none the less everyone had somewhat high spirits when boarding the boat. The boat had nice seats but thats about it. There was no air conditioning or free wifi which was kind of a bummer for us kids, but we soon found other things to do. Grace liked to stand up on top the boat and look around. Soon almost all the kids began doing this which lead to another fight... but thats another story. I sat with Carrie most of the trip and we played hard core games of Life on her iPhone (which i always won). Then we discovered these jelly candies and we began slurping them all over the place, after noticing the excitement Grace joined in fun and soon jelly candies were flying all over the seat. It was a BLAST! Later we stopped to get or passports checked in order to go into Vietnam which was very rushed and frantic because this was the time Grace discovered she had lost track of her iPod. When we got back on the bus everyone searched and searched for Graces iPod with no luck lets just say their was a lot of tears and yelling. The good news is just when everyone thought all hope was lost as we were preparing to get off the boat we found her iPod buried in the snack bag. So i guess that's a happy ending for everyone.
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| Mission on the Mekong: no naval gunboat, this capable craft transported us for our own Joseph Conrad/Apocalypse Now experience. Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Chau Doc, Vietnam. |
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