My first trip to Cambodia was in the summer of 2000 for the purpose of helping a friend who was adopting a baby to bring the child back to the United States. Needless to say, most of my time and energy was spent taking care of little Sophie (as we came to name her) and teaching Claire how to take care of her first child. (I am a seasoned father of three)

I did, however, have an opportunity to explore Phnom Penh with Sophie hanging in a Snuggly, and one day I flew north to the village of Siem Reap to explore the ruins or Angkor Wat. My thoughts are reflected in the journal entries titled "The City" and "The Village"

This past summer I was fortunate to have an opportunity to visit the country again with a delegation of 24 very interesting people from all walks of life to develop a Sister City relationship between Lowell and Phnom Penh. I had decided to stay behind after the delegation returned to Lowell to explore more of the country with some other members of the delegation when the hotel that we moved to was bombed in an extortion attempt. Luckily none of us were hurt. However, three people did lose their lives and eleven others were wounded in the blast. I simply call this journal entry "The Bomb"

As we flew into Cambodia I was struck by the lack of anything on the ground. From the window of the plane all that could be seen for miles in every direction was trees, fields, brown water holes and dirt roads. Nowhere was there any evidence of civilization or buildings of any kind. Any minute now, I thought, I would be able to see something familiar, some sign that there was life below. Nothing. The closer we came to landing the more nothing there was.

Photo by John Boutselis

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