Buses- The buses are not the most comfortable ride I ever had.  The seats do not fit a normal sized person and they stop many times on a trip to pick up seemingly random people.  It also takes about 3 hours to go 100 km.

Children Sellers- these kids were relentless and really tugged on the heart strings.

Jungle Gut (Renelle)- Renelle was really sick on Koh Ta Kiev.  She was sick most of the night and missed most of Danika’s birthday.  Positive note is that she saw some amazing scenery in all hours of the night and found a new remedy, flat coke and salt.

Tripping Trees (Gabriel)- Gabe has some major jungle rash.  He swears that the trees tripped him (twice).  To top it off he tumbled when we got to our hotel in Phnom Penh, you guessed it, on hard wood floors.

Number 10….. The Silk Farm Tour, Siem Reap– this was really interesting.  None of our kids knew where silk came from and it made one appreciate the amount of labor that goes into garments.

Number 9……Pub Street, Siem Reap– this street was busy.  It was full of life with many vendors and tourists.  We had a great visit with Brian and Carrolyn, and received a great behind the scenes tip.

Number 8….. Angkor Wat, Siem Reap– You know that this place has to be special in Cambodia.  It is the only country with a building on it’s flag.  We loved it here, I think our guide really made this for us.

Number 7……Food-Everyone talks about Thai food.  This was the place for me.  Khmer curry dishes, Amok, Beef Lok Lak, smoothies.  The flavours were out of this world!

Number 6…….Cambodia Land Mine Museum, Siem Reap– this place gave us a real sense of the amount of land mines in Cambodia.  It was informative and really gave a story of hope.  The kids really loved it as well.

Number 5……Wildlife Rescue Centre, Phnom Penh– this was a hit with us.  Feeding various animals and getting high jacked by monkeys really made this magical and hilarious.

Number 4……. Siem Reap– this place had everything for us.  A lot of things we did there were also on this list.  The people, our hotel, the vibe of the city, we loved everything here.

Number 3…….Koh Ta Kiev– This island oasis was special.  Sleeping in a bungalow overlooking the ocean, the bar tenders really making Danika’s birthday special, the relaxed atmosphere, it really had it all.

Number 2…..Phare Circus, Siem Reap– This socially conscious circus was phenomenal!  The performers put on a show with a pride that we have never seen in a performance before.  We also loved that they made fun of tourists.

Number 1….People– this one was so easy for our favourite thing.  The Cambodian people are perhaps the most beautiful, kind and most polite people that we have encountered.  They were always glad to see us and really made us feel welcomed in their country!

Wen we wer in Cambodia we rented a boat and we did snoorcoling and fishing.  Wen we wer fishing we fished with water bottles and the guy who steered the boat cot one fish and one eel and then my dad cot a even bigger eel. – Gabriel

Cambodia was my favourite country over all (so far).  But the other day we had to leave it.  😦         So no I will right about things that I loved about Cambodia.  The land mine museum was really satisfying.  Koh Ta Kiev was AWESOME, on that island we were drinking Pina colada shots by the beach. (non-alcohol).  Siem Reap was pretty lit.  There was Pub Street full of entertainment. (not that many pubs).  Share Circus was amusing, with lots of acrobatics with back stories.  Over all Cambodia was just awesome! – Sayer

Cambodia was very nice and hot.  In Siem Reap there was a very big, very cool night market.  At the night market there was a street called PUB STREET.  At Pub Street there were a lot of restaurants.  One night we met up with my auntie Ali’s friends at the Red Piano.

In Phenom Penh we stayed at a very fancy hotel.  We also went to the central market which we thought would have food but it didn’t.  Finally we went to the zoo which was very cool.  We got to feed monkeys, deer, bears and elephants.  Finally we went to Koh Ta Kiev which was very nice. – Danika

Feb 19 – We ate breakfast, packed up the hotel room,  and caught a tuk tuk to Otres Beach 1. We had a coffee and some shakes as we were waiting to load the long tail boat.  On the boat there were only 2 other guests on board.  We arrived to the resort on the island Ta Kiev and were probably the few people that brought rolling luggage to this island.  We found our abodes, the girls in one treehouse and the boys in another.  To be right on the water open to the elements with only a mosquito net around your bed was going to be an amazing experience.  We were so excited.

Our beds.

Girls hut.

The view from the girls hut.

The kids played in the water and in the hammocks and Shawn and I plunked down in the  chairs and ordered some cold drinks.  It was handy that the kids were so close in view and the water was shallow and gentle.  We found out that this place has unreal food and everything is handmade.  They bake the bread in the wood stove here too.  The kids loved the tapas appetizer platter and we had the Fish Amok and Beef Lok Lak again.  We sat and watched the sky turn colours as we had the best seat in the house to watch the sunset show.

Playing in the hammocks.

Hanging out on the deck.

Admiring the view.

The kids liked the swing by the deck.

Danika reading. Can you spot Sayer?

So pretty.

Pretty and pretty.

We headed to our abodes around 7:30.  It was still so hot outside and there was no air movement.  It was hard to fall asleep.  Plus we went to bed earlier today.

Thank goodness for the gorgeous view from our hut because I was going to see a lot of it  over the night.  Danika fell asleep just before 9:00 and I was just starting to get sick.  Just as I was about to fall asleep I would get sick again.  I thought maybe I had food poisoning but Danika was fine.  I didn’t know how Shawn and the boys were feeling and I didn’t want to trek over to their hut to find out.  Oh ya, another cool fact about this island, it only had electricity from 6-9. The kitchen ran on a generator for the restaurant the rest of the time.

Feb 20 –  Today Danika became a teenager!  It was her 13th birthday!  She didn’t want to spend the day on the bus but the island was very cool and some workers and guests made it even better.

Danika was up at 7:30.  Excited that it was her birthday.  I was still sick and unable to get out of bed.  She went to see the boys and they had breakfast.  They brought me back a gingerale.  Shawn was talking to one of the staff and fellow Canadian, Laura, and told her I was sick.  She figured I had a case of “jungle gut” and was reacting to the different bacterias on the island.  She told him of a fix, that someone heard from someone who heard from a monk, that would cure me.  It was flat coke with tons of salt.  I guzzled it as quick as I could.  I read for a bit and maybe dozed off a couple times in the span of two hours.  Nope, didn’t quite fix me yet, still sick.  In the meantime, while I am down and out the kids are having a blast swimming, playing hammock games they created, and they ordered tapas again for lunch, a large one, as per the birthday girls request.  They came and did some quiet reading time in the afternoon as well.

Tapas

Cheers

Birthday girl

My view of the beach while everyone is having fun on Danika’s birthday.

I slept a bit more and around 5:30 felt more human so I ventured down to see what everyone was up to.  A French man and his 10 year old son, Antoine, who now live in Vietnam wandered over from a different resort.  We had seen this boy the day before and Sayer asked if he wanted to go swimming but he wasn’t allowed.  Today the kids played Uno with him and played on the swing.  He reminded me of Mowgli from the Jungle Book.  We sat around the bar and I was craving cold ice water, so the barkeep got me some with a squeeze of lime.  Laura took some cool photos of us with the sunset. She took some on her phone too that she is suppose to send me.  Hint Hint if you are reading this Laura.  LOL

I still wasn’t up to par and needed to be in a horizontal position so I went back to bed.

Another night watching the picturesque sunset.

Gabe and Antoine

Fun photos

The family stayed up and everyone helped Danika celebrate her birthday.  A French lady gave her a squid lure she found on the beach.  Laura and the workers made “Pina Coladas” for the kids and then they got to take turns using the shaker themselves.  They brought out sparklers and had everyone sing to her.  Everyone at the bar had a shooter in her honour.  Meanwhile, I am in bed missing the festivities but at least I can still hear it all from where I am lying.

Shawn takes the kids out to see the bioluminescent plankton.  Since it was a full moon the night before it was fairly bright out and they didn’t see too much and they came to bed shortly after. Tonight there was a slight breeze and everyone went to bed a little later so it was cooler outside.  Everyone had a great sleep.

Feb 21 – I actually slept through the night and felt more like myself.  We ate breakfast and  I was able to stomach some of the kids leftovers.  Who knew porridge could taste like apple crisp.  Yum.

We boarded the boat, this time it was full with many staff and guests either leaving or heading to Sihanoukville for a bit.

Laura from Waterloo, Ontario

Kids with Laura

The view of the resort from the boat.

The view of the girls treehouse.

Our family saying bye to Ta Kiev island.

We grabbed a shake at the next resort, grabbed a tuk tuk to the bus depot, made the long 6.5 hour ride again.  This time it was in a VIP express van.  We booked our seats before anyone else in the van and we chose two seats at the back out of four that were pictured. We loaded in the van and there are only 3 seats at the back so the lady that works for the company says our seat is in the middle in between the driver.  I tried to tell her we booked two seats at the back and she said if there are only three seats in the van then the seat is up front.  Honestly, who would want to sit up there?  Shawn sucked it up and went even though I tried saying one of the other two people that are sitting in the back could sit up front.  He had his podcasts on the iPad so it was fine for the hour trip he made.  I switched with him for the rest of the ride.  The window at the back seat was so tinted you couldn’t even look out of it.  At least I could now watch the road and engage in wonderful conversation on the way home.  Sarcasm, I was in the middle of the driver and a lady that spoke Khmer across me.  At least swatting mosquitos was the same language for us.

We arrive back to Phnom Penh and grab a tuk tuk back to the same beautiful hotel we stayed at before Sihanoukville.  The beautiful Ta Kiev island wasn’t all beautiful, squatty potties and bucket showers, so we deserved the luxury of the pool and great showers.  It was cute to see the baggage guy and staff at the hotel excited to see us and welcome us back.  We went to our same restaurant that we frequented and they were happy to see us again too.

We went for a swim and had nice hot showers and hit the hay.  Tomorrow would be another long bus ride to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.  FYI Our eVisas stated we would enter Vietnam through Moc Bai Land port and so we had to backtrack to Phnom Penh in order to go through the proper port. -Renelle

Feb 16- We travelled by bus from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville.  It is only 250 km but took us 6 and 1/2 hours to get there.  We finally got to try some roasted bananas with mixed reviews.  We arrived pretty late so we didn’t see much of the city of Sihanoukville and headed straight to our hotel at Otres Beach 2 and called her a night. In the accommodation department we went from fab to drab.  The new place had big clean beds, fridge, and A/C and I guess the basic needs were met.

Trying fried bananas at a road stop.

Views from the bus.

These cows were being led but there were many loose and grazing.

Feb 17 – We had breakfast and went back to the room to get in our swimsuits.  We found out that on Sundays the power gets shut down everywhere and it usually comes on before dark.  Our place did not have a generator.  It was a beach day for us!  Renelle made some friends with the local vendors and even got a massage from one of them.  There were quite a few people coming to sell massages, pedicures, sunglasses, and even baked mantis prawns.  A few were quite stubborn and would sit with you for awhile and hope you’d cave.  One made Renelle pinky promise her that she would pick her later for a massage.  They were all complaining that business was slow.  Not as many people for them to take care of.

A walk on the beach.

Foot/ leg massage for Renelle.

Many people also tried to sell tours of the islands that are close by.  We ended up renting a boat for $50 and would go the next day to three islands.

The beach is nice and goes on for seemingly ever.  Sayer figured out that they will serve him beer (to give to his dad).  We had a fresh fruit salad cut up right in front of us with pineapple, mango, and bananas.  We had a great beach day and soaked up the sun.  The water was warm and we all were sun kissed at the end of the day.  We found the Bamboo restaurant on the beach and we loved every dish.  The kids found some of their favourite Cambodian food.

Sayer loved getting drinks on his own.

Cutting up the fruit.

YUM! So Fresh.

A view from our perch.

Check out those tan lines.

Feb 18 – We ate at the restaurant where we rented to boat.  We left for the first island and snorkelled there.  We had two masks and snorkels or our own but we left the flippers in Thailand.  There were some pretty well used snorkels and masks for the rest of us to use. Snorkelling with three kids and swimming against the current seemed difficult and it didn’t last too long but we did see some fish.  We did not bring the Go Pro since our hands were tied with the boys.

On the boat. Ready for the day!

Excited!

Watching out the front.

Snorkelling.

After this island, we went fishing using a line and bottles.  The boys actually got to touch the fishing equipment unlike in Thailand.  Shawn even caught something…… an eel!!!  Our guide caught an eel and a tiny fish as well.

Gabe fishing.

Danika fishing.

Our guide caught a little fish. He didn’t speak any English.

An eel1. Eeeeeew! It would twist itself up.

Shawn checking out his catch.

Gross eel.

Trying to set it free.

Fishing!

Sayer fishing!

Once fishing was done we went to the island Koh Ta Kiev.  We had lunch at the restaurant there and saw the cutest huts on the beach.  The owner said he was all booked up so we were quite disappointed.  We walked along the beach and saw another tree hut resort.  They had two huts available for the next two days so we put our name down and decided this would be our next stop on the trip.  The kids played in the hammocks in the water while we were organizing our stay.

We waited and waded in the water until someone woke up our boat driver who was sound asleep in the hammock and then we left Koh Ta Kiev.  Actually, we all had to help push the boat out first as it didn’t want to budge.   Our driver asked us if we wanted to snorkel again near the third island.  We declined since it was already 6 hours or so and we had bus tickets and hotels to book since we wouldn’t have wifi at the island.  We ate at the Bamboo restaurant again and later took a long walk from where we were on Otres Beach 2 to Otres Beach 1.  We were looking for the place we would need to buy the return boat tickets to Koh Ta Kiev.  We loved looking at the sea creatures, crabs and acorn worm remnants.  the sunset was amazing to take in. – Renelle

Breathtaking sunsets on the beach.

The kids checking out the sea life.

Feb 12 – We decided to leave for Phnom Penh today.  This was with mixed feelings as we have loved Siem Reap.

Pool in at Siem Reap hotel.

One more fruit shake for the road

We took a 6 hour bus ride and basically checked out our hotel for the evening.  We did go to the Central Market but did not stay their long, it was crowded and kind of junky.  Our hotel is pretty nice

and has a great pool on the 22nd floor that has a great view of the river and the city.

Feb 13 – With ice skating on the boys minds we checked out the biggest mall in Cambodia, Aeon Mall.  Unfortunately, the skating rink was not there anymore, but we found a sweet arcade, great food court and Renelle even snagged some movie popcorn.  We then headed back to our hotel for a swim.

Lots of time in the pool

Gabe’s friend Gary.

Feb 14 – After much discussion amongst our family we decided that only Renelle and myself would take in The Killing Fields and S-21(The Genocide Museum).  We left the kids in the care of Danika (Netflix), and went on our way.  This was by far the most emotional day on our trip for us.  To be told about such atrocities is one thing, but to see the actual places of these unimaginable things was something that I have never experienced.

The start of our day.

The largest stupa to commemorate the victims.

S-21

Feb 15 – After the heavy day yesterday we decided to check out the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre.  This is a government ran centre that is about a 2 hour tuk tuk ride out of Phnom Penh.  We did get to feed monkeys,

a moon bear, wild pigs, local deer,

goats, and even elephants.

The highlight for all of us was hand feeding the elephants and having our tuk tuk ransacked by monkeys when we were looking at the lions.  Very funny to see about 20 monkeys scatter off of a tuk tuk with our bananas and sweet potatoes. – Shawn

River view from hotel.

Our guide

Feb 11 – We took a tuk tuk to the museum today.  It was a bit of a drive in the countryside.  On the way back we stopped at a palm sugar stand and then went to the streets behind Pub Street for supper.

Traditional Cambodian house

Palm sugar stand

Alley behind Pub Street.

Today we went to the Cambodian Landmine Museum founded by Aki Ra.  Aki Ra first went to war by the age of ten, back then the adults used the children as bait, the adults put the kid in front in case of a landmine.  Aki Ra cleaned up around 50 000 landmines.  There are still about 3 to 6 million more landmines to be cleaned up in Cambodia.  1 in 300 people in Cambodia step on a landmine. – Sayer

Large gun that was decommissioned

Land mine examples

Today we went to a landmine museum.  It was pretty cool, we saw a lot of landmines.  This guy named Aki Ra, he thinks he was born in 1970 but he doesn’t know for sure.  When he was 10 he was given his first gun and joined the Khmer Rouge army.  Aki Ra planted many landmines not knowing what they did.  Later in about 1987 he joined the Vietnamese army, he learned how to disarm landmines and has disarmed about 50,000 in Cambodia. In Cambodia it is estimated there are around 3 to 6 million landmines today.  Aki Ra made this museum and school. – Danika

Feb 10 – Today we arranged with the hotel a tuk tuk to take us to a silk farm.  Here we learned about the intense process to make silk items.  The weavers work 8 hours a day 5.5 days a week.  In order to make a two meter patterned silk piece it takes four 8 hour days!

sifting through for sick worms.

The worms eating the mulberry leaves.

Pulling silk from the cocoons. The raw silk is the outer layers and the fine silk is the inside layers.

Boiling the cocoons.

They need 40 strands to form a string.

Tying plastic around the strands to make the pattern prior to dying it.

The busy hands and feet working hard 8 hours a day.

We returned back to the hotel to cool off with a swim.  Next, we headed down the street to a market.  It was more of a local market where locals would shop for their groceries.  It was interesting to see all of the food stalls.  We jumped back into a tuk tuk and headed to pub street.  Brian and Carrolyn had showed us the restaurants that were in behind the main restaurants like back alleys.  We found a nice place and had a traditional Cambodian (Khmer) meal.  It was the best meal Shawn and I have had on this trip.  We had fish amok (a curried dish), coconut chicken soup and fresh spring rolls.

Delicious Khmer food.

Our next tuk tuk driver took us to a barber shop for the boys to get haircuts.  They were long overdue for one since its been five months.  We pointed to the pictures on the wall for the styles the boys wanted.  It cost $3 usd each and we gave them a $2 tip.  Pretty cheap haircuts and the boys were happy they turned out.

Gabe getting his locks cut off.

Sayer becoming a lot lighter.

The barbers and their new dos.

We returned back to the hotel for another swim and some downtime.  The next adventure was to the Phare Circus. This is a Cambodian circus where artists train at a school that provides free public education and vocational arts training to children from disadvantaged backgrounds. This was such an entertaining circus as the artists had so much energy and proud smiles.  Danika says it was the live version of the “Greatest Showman”.  It was really well done.  We headed back to the hotel but made a pit stop for fried (frozen) ice cream rolls. – Renelle

We have made it to Cambodia and are loving it!

We took a bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap.  The bus went well with no hang ups.  * Interesting fact: Thailand drives on the left side of the road and Cambodia drives on the right side of the road.  The border is the change over.

Feb 8- After our arrival in Siem Reap, we took a tuk tuk to our hotel with all of our luggage, quite the feat!

Our hotel is great, it has a nice pool, comfy beds, free breakfast and even Tom and Jerry (our pet geckos in our room).  We decided to go hit up a night market and Pub Street. **

$3 for a beer and Doctor Fish!

These were big fish.

Representing!

Feb 9 – We went to Ankor Wat, we hired a guide for this temple and he did not disappoint.  His stories and knowledge were great.  We got some really neat pictures and had a blessing from a monk.

One of the stone wall stories.

Our tour guide telling us the history of the Angkor Wat Temple.

We bought 3 paintings from this artist.

The sellers were chasing Renelle, so funny!

Representation of the centre of the universe.

This was so special to all of us.

We then went to two other temples, one of which Tomb Raider was filmed at. (who knew?).

We have been having a tough time with all the children that are selling stuff.  The government does not want you to give them any money because then they will not go to school.  This little guy hounded us for 5 minutes.  ‘2 for $1, 2 for $1…………”  Really heartbreaking.

To cap our day off we met up with Brian and Carrolyn, Renelle’s sister Ali’s friends that are volunteering in Siem Reap.  They took us to a cool restaurant called The Red Piano that had really good pizza.  They also introduced us to the streets behind Pub Street.  We had a great visit with them!  I feel like a broken record but…….the Cambodian people are incredible!  So far our trip has taught us that people are incredible, everywhere that we have been this has been the common thread!  – Shawn

* Booking our bus took some time online.  We had bought our tickets but a couple hours later and we still did not receive the confirmation email.  We used the online chat and the person we chatted with said there was no longer five seats on the bus at our time of departure.  We asked for a refund and decided to stay in Bangkok one more day.  We booked online again and found five seat that were assigned to us with the same company.  We were reading online how to best proceed getting across the border and had read about many scams of bus companies and the people as you cross the border trying to scam you before purchasing your on arrival Visa.

Just before we reached the Cambodian border our bus attendant came on and asked who had their E-visa and who still needed one.  We could arrange with the bus company to process our Visa for $1400 baht each (about $45usd).  Mostly everyone on the bus had E-visas so we felt a little pressure to buy and yet felt okay to pay more with their help, since we didn’t really know how to go about it.  We filled out some forms and handed them our passports and a copy of our passports for the photos that were required for the visa.  There was a solo traveller from France with very little English and she was a bit panicky about handing over our passports and wondering if we were getting scammed.  Danika had to help translate that we felt the same but were hopeful it would all work out.  They did end up getting returned to us and the bus gave us all lanyards with the bus information and our meeting place.  We walked off the bus and headed to the first building to get our Thailand exit stamped.  A solo Russian lady stuck to me like glue.  She had little English but she tried to say she was grandma to our kids. She did not get her visa on the bus.  I’m not sure if she didn’t understand or if she was smarter and would only end up paying the $30usd.  She seemed very panicked the whole time as she was the only one without the visa stamped in her passport.  After we walked through the first building and she did too we continued to walk across the street to the next building.  With our lanyards around our neck the locals did not try to bother us to ask if we needed rides or “help” with our visas.  As we got to the next building it said Visas on Arrival so I pointed the Russian lady to go in that building.  She seemed a little scared and as though she wanted me to wait for her but we continued on our way as I didn’t need another person to look after.  At the customs counter we filled out more forms and noticed that every adult had their finger prints scanned and Shawn and I did not.

The Russian lady made it on the bus so everything must have been okay.  I didn’t get a chance to ask her how much it cost her to get her visa.  Not sure if she would understand me anyway.  Now that I know how the process works I wouldn’t pay the bus company, I would just do it on my own.  I don’t know that I’ll be crossing from Thailand to Cambodia on bus again in my future.

** Pub Street had pubs with $.50 draft, fish massages, fried(not really fried)ice cream rolls, fried snakes and scorpions, and tons of restaurants, clothing stalls, and food vendors.  The kids saw blue lights flying up and down in the sky and later found out it was a toy.  A little girl was trying to sell them to us and I politely said “no thank you”. She walked with me a while and continued to try to get my to buy.  They were $1 and she said she had no food or money and really knew what to say and what facial expressions to make you feel guilty.  The price went down to 2 for $1.  I still said no and the only way she left me alone was when I pointed to another lady and told the girl that I think that lady wants one.  We did our fish massages and started walking back the same street.  Shawn decided to let the kids get one of these light up toys and bought some.  WELL, it wasn’t from the same girl that was pestering me and she saw this.  She came to me and said “Why you not buy from me?  Why you buy from her not me?”  I told her I was looking for her but couldn’t find her.  We ended up buying two more from her anyway so I asked her. “You happy now?  You happy .  Me happy”

A few days later she saw me on the street again but didn’t try to sell to me.  She just wanted to say “Hi again” with a smile on her face.  I laughed and said hi back.

Also, after touring the temples in 30+ degrees we decided to buy popsicles for the kids from a man selling them.   We bought a pineapple from a kid near the popsicle stand.  Then another kid came and wanted us to buy from him.  “You buy from me too?  You buy more.”

As a side note we had read at one of the temples that it is not good to buy from children as it encouraged begging rather than going to school.  As the toy seller was in the evening, I’m not sure if she goes to school and just sells at night.  It is tough on the heart to see these kids begging, the moms begging with babies in their arms, and the landmine victims evident from their amputations. – Renelle

Number 5….Bug Bites- this really impacted Renelle and Danika the most.  The mosquitos are so small you cannot hear them.  Little itchy bites on the legs were irritating.

Number 4….. No TP- most toilets did not have toilet paper in them.  We had a few interesting moments of trying to find some toilet paper. We learned to BYOTP.

Number 3……Fishing- going fishing and not even touching a fishing rod was interesting.  At least the food was great.

Number 2….. Monkeys- those seemingly loving, gentle monkeys are beasts.  They really harass you and if you have food they will attack.  From a far we like them but not anywhere close to us.

Number 1……The bus from Krabi to Hua Hin- it just stopped in Phuket and unloaded everyone’s luggage.  We jumped on another bus and had to sit separate, no one really wanted to move so we could sit with our kids.  The seats were small and we were rubbing against the strangers next to us.  And then in Hua Hin they just stop on the side of the road and drop us off.  Not at a bus terminal and it was 3:30 am.  Thank goodness Albert came and got us.