Cambodia, Part 2: Laughter

We visited the royal palace while in Cambodia.  It is a huge complex that is covered in gold and symbolism.  

My family at the palace

So we then went into a different part of the complex called The Silver Pagoda.  The Silver Pagoda holds many images of buddha and, as a tradition in many of the Asian countries we've been in, it is required that you take your shoes off before going into a temple.  My father was wearing a pair of loafers that he had bought the week before and left them beside my brothers shoes.  Can you guess where this is going?

So we come out of the pagoda maybe 20 minutes later and...no shoes.  We tell our guide and he tells all the guards who are around and they ask my dad to wear a pair of sandals that somebody left behind.  My dad is a HUGE germophobe.  HUGE.  My dad is like, no that's cool.  So they actually take us to the front of the complex and ask us to watch people's FEET as they

 walked by.

We actually thought it was really funny (my dad too).  So we put on our loafer goggles and watched people walking by.

The loafer goggles did not work.

Look at those socks!

My dad was uncomfortable with staring at people's feet and accusing them of stealing his shoes.  Plus, being a germaphobe, he didn't even want to put them back on after someone's stinky feet had been in them.  Our guide, Wan Tay, said that in the 13 years that he'd been a tour guide, this was the first time that had ever happened.  He also told us that he was going after he was done at work with us to actually go look for my dad's shoes.  And my dad believed he really did go looking for them.

That's okay.  We needed a good story for the trip.