You could see it in her eyes when she woke up: something exciting was going to happen, something she’s never done before, something new and adventurous: today she was going to ride an elephant. Becca was anxious to start our first morning in Siem Reap.

Last week we went to Siem Reap for a few days. A cousin of Josh’s Grandma Jensen (our first cousin twice removed) and husband made a trip to Siem Reap and offered to fly us up to join them. We told the kids that we would try to ride an elephant. I wasn’t sure Isaiah would enjoy it, but he told me he would be brave.

I think both kids were really surprised at how huge the elephants were. Before we arrived Becca asked me if the elephants would be bigger than Josh.  Before our ride we bought some bananas to feed the elephants. It was really cool to feel an elephant’s trunk take a banana from my hand. Becca had the time of her life. I wish I could have captured how delighted she was to feed the elephant by hand. Her laughter was priceless.

Isaiah refused to go near the elephants and decided to ride in the tuk-tuk with Uncle Mike and Aunt Jan instead of riding the elephant with us. I repeatedly asked him if he was going to change his mind, but he was firm in his decision not to ride. But once he saw us all up on the elephant, he changed his mind. Fortunately he changed his mind in the nick of time and was able to get on the elephant before we left.

We had a 20-minute ride up to one of the temples. It’s pretty neat to ride an elephant with your family through an ancient gate up to a temple ruins. Everyone enjoyed the ride, and Becca was thrilled.

At the end of our ride we found some monkeys at the edge of the forest. The kids enjoyed giving the monkeys a few of our leftover bananas. A perfect start to our day at Angkor Wat.