Shortly after we began volunteering at Krou Yeung School in Phnom Penh, the students enjoyed a field trip, visiting Coconut Park and the National Museum Of Cambodia.

Everyone piled into three school vans, and when we say “piled”, we do mean piled. And stacked. In the Cambodian custom of squeezing an infinite number of bodies into a finite space, we really pushed the envelope on passenger capacity. This even included accommodating the new music teacher, an Italian named Alessandro, who towers at about six-foot-six.

Coconut Park

Coconut Park is one of the few parks we saw during our time in Phnom Penh, which seems to be a very “city” city. The park offers a variety of activities, including a skating rink, swimming pool, yoga, a Lego center, a splashpad, and dance classes. But our interest was in just letting the kids have a picnic and run around for a while, letting off some steam outdoors.

The most fun feature of the park that we saw was a walkway — though it was treated more like a runway — made of wooden planks, that was very twisted and rolling, so that making your way around it, especially with a little speed, made the kids giddily off-balance. Well, some of the adults too.

National Museum

The National Museum, which was built in 1920, houses the largest collection of Cambodian artifacts in the country. The facility replicates some of the classical Khmer architectural design elements — which is ironic, because it actually was designed by a French historian.

It’s a museum that’s “bigger”, at least in terms of the number of items on exhibit, than it appears, because of its use of space, which incorporates an open courtyard also showcasing items, and featuring koi pools.

The students had a tour guide to explain to them what they were seeing, but we were a bit in the dark, since we had not learned any Khmer a that point. The National Museum might be worth another visit sometime, when we have more time to spend.

12/21-23/2022