Cambodia.

We seem to like lounging in hammocks, in our bungalow...no matter which country.

Wow, Ethan has written this blog twice, but today I tried to post it and somehow deleted it for the second time. The first time, Ethan had written it and the power surged and he lost about an hour worth of work. This time, I have spent 20 minutes trying to change the Korean language that this computer is defaluting to back to English, gave up, tried to hit post, but accidentally hit delete. Ethan is going to kill me.

We are trying to keep an updated blog but at this rate, who knows.

So, I will fill you all in on Cambodia briefly, feel free to email us or tell us if you want more details on a bit of our travels, but internet cafes are all different, power surges are regular and I know you all want to at least hear that we are well.

Right, Cambodia. We arrived in Cambodia after a fitfull night of rest on the floor of the Bangkok airport. It didn't fit our budget to go all the way into Bangkok after a late flight in and early flight out, so we found the area of the airport where the loudspeaker was minimal and the floor not SO dirty and laid out our hammock. The flight was uneventful and we arrived in Phom Penh without a guidebook ,feeling a bit naked. You never realize how much a guidebook does for you until you don't have one. We found a Spanish couple searching for the same as us and we agreed to share the taxi into the city and work from there. We were all a bit stubborn about the taxi driver picking the hotel, so left the driver and meandered through a local market with suitcase in tow (the Spanish couple had a lot of baggage). The market had frogs without skins and great veggies, all different than what we had seen in Laos or Thailand. We took a trip on Sunday out to the park and watched as hundreds of people flew kites. It seemed a big social occassion and as someone told us, it was the end of monsoon season and it was their way of celebrating. Very serene and peaceful as we sat back and watched the children run around, a bit scared of our white faces and just enjoyed the moment.


Interesting Facts: I bet American Bacardi doesn't have "Established in Cuba" logo on it's bottles. We are convinced it tasted better from Cuba, than from Puerto Rico.

The beggars were more than in Thailand, so was the pressure to take a tuktuk or a taxi, or to buy this or to come into a store, so we opted to rest and eat at our guest house. We actually had a room with TV, so we took advantage of it and watched a movie (on local television, not dubbed). We went to the Killing Fields which was very emotional. For those of you who don't know, Cambodia had a holocaust of sorts in the late 70's, when Pol Pot, exterminated educated and intellectual Cambodians. I am reading a book now on it, but the Killing Fields was where they did their "interrogations." On the way out, again the driver asked if we wanted to go shoot big guns at the range, but somehow after seeing so much death (in your face), shooting seemed like the last thing one would want to do. The next day, we headed to Sihanoukville by bus. This area was a bit off season and now we understood why. We walked a good distance to the beach, again too stubborn for a motorbike taxi. Yes, the local way is to put my bag between the drivers legs and sit behind him. Ethan would do the same on another guy. I wasnt up to it, so we walked. We were on a hunt to find a way to get to Bamboo Island, as a fellow traveller had told us all about it. But, the place that ran one bungalows said it was closed for another week or two. They couldn't give us the name of the other place (we knew there were two bungalows on the island), so we booked at Cloud Nine, a great little place off the main beach with a great view. We did find the other managers, but realized that one place was mainly used for daytrippers and the other for sleepovers and we were happy that we didn't book with the daytripper side and enjoyed our stay at Cloud Nine. The seafood was fantastic and a very good value for the money, but there was an abundance of beggars and beach vendors all around us. We bought local crayfish and squid from some vendors that were extremely tasty, cooked in front of us with their portable hibachi coal pots.


The lady who cooked our squid. MMmmmmm....lobster tails, squids and beer.

From Sihanoukeville, we took a early morning bus back to Phon Penh and then another to Siem Reap. Over tired and a bit hungry, we took the first tuktuk that had a somewhat honest face us and had him take us to the guest house of our choice. Although a bit overpriced, we ate some food and passed out. The next day, Sa, our driver came back and we booked him for the day and agreed to discuss using him to get to Angkor Wat the next. We went to see the silk factory and were amazed by a great free tour of how silk is made. We did puruse the gift shop, but nothing matched our budget. We also visited the Aki Ra landmine museum, which was an amazing experience ( http://www.akiramineaction.com/) This man was forced to plant landmines as a child and is now working a small non-profit to demine Cambodia. Landmines are still being made in the US and that was a frightning thought after seeing the damage they could do. They rarely hit the enemy, they usually get field laboreres or children. Visit his site for more info. We met some children there too, who were being schooled and taught new skills, that they could do with or without a limb.

Then comes Angkor Wat. Wow... so one time in Thailand, we actually saw part of a National Geographic special on Angkor Wat, which got us really excited for this part of our tour through Cambodia. I will cut and paste some facts about Angkor Wat and encourage you to visit the separate album of the pictures taken there. Also know that during the Pol Pot regime, these amazing historical structures were almost destroyed along with the people of the area.

from Wikipedia.com:
Angkor Wat (or Angkor Vat) is a temple at Angkor, Cambodia, built for king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. The largest and best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre—first Hindu, then Buddhist—since its foundation. The temple is the epitome of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple mountain and the later galleried temples. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the gods in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 km (2.2 miles) long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is orientated to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. As well as for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, the temple is admired for its extensive bas-reliefs and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls.

That's it. We could have spent days visiting the Wats around Angkor, but with only one day, we pushed off back to Bangkok. We had heard the roads were bad on the Cambodian side of this journey, but we never imagined that we would be in a small minivan, silent, deaf(from the noise of the banging vehicle with the rocky road), and without a pee break for ever. Four or five hours later, we arrived at the Thai border and were rewarded with Thai vendors selling familiar foods and a deluxe bus with a/c, reclining seats, a toilet, and Lord of The Rings...all the way back to Bangkok.

Bangkok was not so bad on the way back through. We were pleasantly surprised that we were much more comfortable in Bangkok this time through and even managed to take a local bus to the mall. Yup, the mall.... We atre our last streetside Pad Thai and pressed on out to India. More to come from Delhi soon.
Fa


After in-your-face sex tourism in Thailand, this was refreshing.

Oh, pics are having trouble loading, but they are all on albums on snapfish, so click the link: www.fiataa.snapfish.com .