Tropical Storm Pakhar

4/1/12:

So that crazy rain I wrote about in my post a few minutes ago ... Yea that's Tropical Storm Pakhar. Our first tropical storm of the year and it's in Vietnam!!! Holy cow this trip has everything.

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/typhoon-pakhar-struck-vietnam-as-a-tropical-storm-at-about-0600-gmt-on-1-april/

Travel day

4/1/12:

This is gonna be a long one. I'm going to detail what a travel day looks and feels like for us. This particular day is our bus trip from Sihanoukville up to Phnom Penh, over the Cambodian-Vietnamese border and on to Ho Chi Minh City.

0630: alarm goes off. I say a silent prayer that it's a mistake and I still have 6 more hours to sleep. No luck. Carolyn begins to roll out of bed. I whisper that she'll probably have to go on without me. It seems I've come down with an affliction which has cemented my eyes shut. The western world calls this affliction 'sleepy.'

0637: Carolyn gets in the shower. I ask no one in particular why anyone would schedule a bus at 0730?

0642: I manage to fall out of bed and begin personal hygiene.

0647: slather hydrocortisone on Carolyn cause she looks like she's come down with chickenpox because of all the bug bites.

0652: finish packing my bag. Remind my beautiful bride that I love her but the jury's still out on whether I'll be able to make it another 5 minutes before falling asleep. Perhaps my affliction is actually narcasleepy?

0700: walk out of our room right on time. Not sure how we made our time hack. Walk to the hotel restaurant and sit down.

0705: the waitress asks what time we're leaving to which we respond 0730. She assures us there is enough time for breakfast. We order 2 'small breakfasts' which is just scrambled eggs, a baguette (yummy!!!) and hash browns.

0706-0729: fiddle around on the interwebs, look at our watches every 2 minutes and remark that they're cutting it close.

0730: our meal comes. Immediately move into survival mode meaning we stuff all edible morsels into the baguette and shove it all down our gullets as quickly as possible. While inhaling our breakfast I grumpily provide breakfast for a family of Mosquitos who seem to inhabit the chair I'm sitting in. Aren't I nice?

0742: our ride shows up and we quickly finish our meal, pay the bill and check out of the hotel.

0745: the driver happily sings some Cambodian song while displaying the largest smile on the planet. There is clearly something wrong with him since the sun has only been up for 2 hours and he's smiling.

0745-0800: speed around town picking more people up. Chat with the other backpackers about our various travel experiences.

0800: arrive at the 168-sorya bus terminal. 168-sorya is the bus company we're taking to ho chi Minh city today.

0802: load our bags underneath the bus and climb aboard. Carolyn is not happy with how I'm handling the bus tickets so she retakes that responsibility. She complains that we're sitting in the rear of the bus but I happily remind her that we'll be further away from the driver and hopefully out of range of the horn (which they use every 2 or 3 minutes here!!!!!). Bus is older looking with no bathroom but the A/C is kicking!!!!!!! I predict atleast 13 hours of Cambodian karaoke will grace the tv screen on the buss.

0810: depart bus station which is really just a random crappy store in downtown Sihanoukville.

0816: make a random stop at the 'real' bus station. I think we pick more people up but my powers of perception are still foggy.

0849: another random stop on the side of the road. The driver chats up one of the passengers for a couple minutes as we head off again.

0855: bus driver uses horn for the 36th time this morning.

0919: stop in random town to pick up local passengers.

SIDE NOTE: the towns we pass through all look pretty much the same. Filthy stores, trash all over the place being sifted through by cows, chickens, and dogs, smiling faces and of course the ever present fashion trend of Cambodia: women all wear pajamas! We've seen a couple bonus instances of a women wearing Angry Birds pajamas! Score.

0949: pick up and drop off some local peeps.

0956: Cambodian karaoke starts. Our driver must be a closet gangsta cause he turns up the bass to painful levels.

1045: bathroom / food stop. Incidentally, Cambodia is the only country we've been to that doesn't charge you to use the bathroom at bus stops.

1100: back on the road. The person in front of me has taken advantage of my absence and leaned his seat back. Now I get to enjoy the rest of our bus trip with filthy, dirty, oily backpacker hair inches from my face.

SIDE NOTE: why do backpackers generally refuse to wash themselves? Friggin disgusting. I'm routinely grossed out by the lack of personal hygiene displayed by backpackers here.

1126: driver really really loves that horn.

1239: Carolyn leans over and whispers that we have a 30 minute layover at the Phnom Penh bus station. I immediately see where she's going with this. You see the bus station is a hop skip and a jump from the Lucky Supermarket which just so happen to have cool ranch Doritos!!!!!!! We formulate a plan where Carolyn scouts out a defensible position to look after our bags while I make my way over to doritos heaven. I say defensible because the tuk-tuk drivers are particularly aggressive in phnom penh. So much so that the bus companies place a mobile barrier up to help protect passengers as they get their bags.

1300: arrive at the bus station. Operation Cool Ranch begins. Carolyn maneuvers to a corner table and I make my way to the grocery store.

1320: The store is packed but I succeed and return triumphantly with our Doritos and a chocolate croissant bonus!!!!

1340: board our bus which is super nice and grab our seats. The bus has a bathroom but it's built for midgets as its about 3 feet high and maybe 1.5 feet wide. Emergency purposes only I think.

SIDE NOTE: we purchased our tickets from one of the ubiquitous travel agents in Sihanoukville. The tickets had our seat assignments. We got our follow on tickets this AM which also had seat assignments. Keep in mind that not once did anyone go near a computer. People simply called someone and viola, we have tickets and seats. Not once have we had any issues of double booking or lost booking or anything. Things just seem to work out.

1345: depart Phnom Penh for Ho Chi Minh City.

1400: bus attendant passes out water for everyone ... VIP what what!!!!

1530: take ferry across Mekong river. Double decker VIP bus on a rickety ferry over the Mekong. Exciting!!!!!!

1600 - 1648: snooze.

1730: stop at bus station for bathroom break and snacks. Carolyn finds a western toilet stashed away at the rear of the place. Carolyn 1, squat toilets 0!

1736: order vegetarian rice (i.e. rice with only vegetables). Get pork added as a bonus. Explain that I want NO meat and learn that there is no such thing here.

1738: order 2 waffles from a guy on a motorcycle. Who knew breakfast came on 2 wheels???

1750: depart bus stop.

1754: pass the first pawn shop we've seen in SE Asia. Shortly after we see a ton of casinos. I guess gambling is a universal problem.

1803: stop at Cambodian border. Get off bus.

1805: pass through Cambodian immigration, get finger printed.

1807: Carolyn persuades Cambodian driver to mail our postcards. Winning!

1820: drive to the Vietnamese border.

1823: exit bus, collect all bags and enter immigration building. Stop for quick photo :)

1829: pass through Vietnamese immigration. Bags go through x-ray machine.

1831: exit building officially in Vietnam!!!!!!

1832: begins to rain .... We're still outside.

1845: bus pulls up and we get onboard Waiting for our passports.

1850: passports are handed back.

1853: Vietnamese immigration officer comes on board and checks our passports.

1855: depart border.

2110: arrive in Ho Chi Minh City!!!! Of course it's pouring out!!!

2113: grab our bags and orient ourselves to where we are.

2114: cross street and go to ATM. Put rain covers on our bags.

2116: start walking, looking for our hotel (which we did not Pre-book).

2129: find hotel in back alley. They have 1 room left for $20/night including breakfast. Win!

2133: put our bags down in our new room approximately 15 hours after we left our last room.

2140: walk to a nearby pho place (noodle soup). Still raining by the way.

2200: finish dinner. Walk around the area.

2211: get the best fruit shake I've had in SE Asia; Carolyn gets a damn fine hot chocolate.

2217: see our first circle K!!!!! It's not seven-11 but it'll do!

2224: offered marijuana for the 2nd time in 3 minutes.

2249: in for the night. We're both pretty wet and in need of a good hot shower.

So there you have it. A travel day in SE Asia, complete with a border crossing!!!


Pics:
1) us leaving The Cambodian side of the border.
2) me with our first bowl of pho in HMCM!
3) bus station in Sihanoukville.
4) Vietnam border crossing.
5) our first bus from Sihanoukville to phnom Penh.
6) Mrs Blue after the ATM in HCMC.
7) Mrs Blue in our new hotel!
8) our bus from phnom penh to HCMC.

Farewell Cambodia

Tomorrow we head out bright and early to Vietnam so today we regrouped and did some future planning. Picked up the laundry and passports and searched the Internet. It was gloomy all day and we've seen a few good thunderstorms so we waited and waited but it didn't come until 2130 and of course we were kinda far from our hotel and had to run back. Good to know the lungs still work after two months of no running. There are a few 'movie theaters' in town so we got a room and watched The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. We both read the book and just like in most cases the book was way better then the movie.

We ran into our new friends today as they were heading back from Koh Rong. Meeting people is by far one of the highlights of traveling and we really found gems with these two. They had a wealth of travel and life knowledge and we just had an amazing time with them.

I'm still covered in bug bites and it's so darn itchy, I have so many it's like having chicken pox. Michael's been a sport and helped applying the anti itch cream to the 50+ bites on my back and arms. It should go away soon!

This is what happens when military members don't dispose of their uniforms properly. We saw these drying at someone's house. It not as bad as all the BDU tops men were wearing in Laos with name tapes, rank and US Army or Air Force still on them.

Swiss Family Blue

3/30/12:

We made it back to civilization!!!!!

We spent the night of the 28th at a place called Paradise which was a bit farther down the beach. It was nice but clearly older than our first bungalow at a place called CoCo's. I think we slept alright but as usual, a hideous mosquito managed to breach our mosquito net and wreak some havoc on our tender skin. Anyway, got up had breakfast and moved to the highlight of our trip to Koh Rong. We found a place on another beach called the tree house bungalows and thought 'we HAVE to stay here.' So we booked 1 night there for the astronomical price of $30/night. However, this has to have been one of the coolest, most amazing places we've ever stayed in. They've built bungalows high up in the trees literally on the ocean. Ok, not actually on the ocean, but about 3 meters away. Our bungalow was about 30 feet high and had a bathroom half way up the ladder. The bungalow itself had a nice bed, some windows and a table. The porch had a hammock a papazan chair, a wooden bench and table. It was truly amazing. Just sitting up there listening to the waves crash on our own beach. Ain't life grand?

Anyway, we spent yesterday (29th) just lazing around our tree house and ended up going for a walk to another deserted beach nearby called 4k beach. Why? Cause the beach is 4 km of untouched white powdery beach with some stunning water to boot. Played in the water for a bit, annoyed some crabs and snails, you know the normal stuff.

Had dinner with some fabulous new friends and consumed the best pizza we've tasted in a while.

Sleeping in our tree house was über romantical except for the temperature. We opened all the windows and even the door but the ocean breeze just have us the finger. Stagnant, hot air is all we got. Not easy to sleep when you're sweating all over yourself as the bed. Not fun at all. But listening to the waves all night sure was great. Oh did I mention that a cute puppy slept on our porch all night? And we saw the coolest water buffalo walk by our tree house? Awesome!

So the treehouse was great except a couple minor issues:
They only had running water at night and didn't really have a reliable time table for said water.
The towels provided smelled like they came from a high school gym's dirty laundry.
Ants. Heaps and heaps of ants. Luckily they didn't carry us away during the night.

In case you couldn't figure it our from our posts ... Koh Rong is amazing. If you're looking for a stunningly beautiful island with huge, completely deserted beaches then put koh Rong at the top of your list. It isn't going to stay this way for long. rumor has it that development is starting to make its way to this wonderful island. Plans are in the making for an int'l airport, ring road and $1600/night resorts. But there's still time to experience koh Rong. We just can't say enough about this island!!!!!

We hopped on the 2 hour ferry this AM and made it back to civilization. Got a room at the Beach Road hotel for $20 with A/C and a hot shower and a pool!!!! Then we made arrangements to get our Vietnam visa which is a whole lot easier here than anywhere else on the planet. Seems the further you get from Vietnam, the more this mythical visa costs and the the longer it takes. Here in Sihanoukville it costs about $45 per person and takes 30 minutes. In phnom penh it was closer to $50 or $60 and would take like 3 days. If you're completely paranoid and get it in the US before leaving it costs over $100 and takes weeks. So all this of course means we're heading to Vietnam in the next couple days. Should be a great time!

Spent the rest of today doing refit stuff: laundry (2 weeks worth), snack shopping, foot massages, etc etc. we'll spend tomorrow hanging out at the hotel pool planning for Italy and maybe watch a movie later.

Pics:
1) view from inside our treehouse
2) our treehouse
3) Carolyn on our porch
4) our treehouse is the middle one.
5) close up of the treehouse

Scuba

3/28
Day three on the gorgeous island of Koh Rong. We signed up for two fun dives and I was looking forward to a day away from the sand fleas and mosquitos.

We started getting our gear together at 1030 and loaded up around 1115, by 1120 the boat was barely out of the dock and Michael was already bleeding. I was sitting in the front of the boat with our new friend Kathleen and we made room for Michael when he got on but he wanted to sit on the other side and while navigating over there he has a major run in with the anchor. I see someone getting the first aid kit and I see a bloody foot but I had no idea it was Michael. Finally Kathleen realizes, I yell over to ask if he's alright since we can't see each other and everyone seems to think ill be running over but lets face it Michael hurts himself often. The beta-dyne made it look far worse then it actually was but he did still take off an entire layer of skin on his pinky toe. How that boy still has toes is beyond me.

Michael's cut was probably the most exciting part of the day because the dives were pretty boring. Call us dive snobs but going 8 meters for an hour and seeing a few fish isn't all that great. Plus my attention span doesn't last that long, I get bored quick and prefer deeper, shorter dives. The second dive was better, we saw some huge starfish, and more fish. There were 3 young dive masters in training on the boat with us. They are stowaways not planning on leaving for months and think this is the best diving ever, it's not. It crappy diving, it just cheap to get certified so a lot of people do it.

The good part was that we were on the boat with our two new friends and we met another guy so the evening was a blast. There is an Italian restaurant on the island that someone recommended so we all headed out for dinner and spent a few hours eating pasta, drinking beers and chatting with our new friends with the waves crashing around us. The other good part was that we hadn't dove in two years and it's a perishable skill so it was nice to get back into it. I had a really hard time clearing my ears to begin with but the second dive was much better.

Just another day in paradise!

Koh Rong

3/27/12:

Grabbed the 8 AM ferry to the island of koh rong yesterday morning. We'd read that this is one of the most beautiful beaches in all of SE Asia so we were pretty excited to get here. Well to say its beautiful is an understatement. You can't even believe this is Cambodia. It seems like there are about 50 people on the island total which means you pretty much have the beach to yourself. The beaches are probably the most beautiful we've seen in SE Asia. Think the panhandle of Florida or Clearwater beach Florida. White powder sand that goes on and on and on. The water is turquoise and completely clear. I just can't say enough about the beaches here!!!! The beach at Koh Phi Phi was the most spectacular, but this place may have the better actual beach.

Anyway, coming here means you're camping. No power (except for a couple hours at night) and of course, cold showers. We stayed at a place called CoCo's for our first 2 nights which has been super nice. We have our own bungalow, bed, shower and mosquito net! From our porch you can just see the beach and we even have a hammock. Just an FYI though, the hammocks only hold 1 person. We attempted to get in it together which ended with both of us on the ground writhing in pain. Carolyn now has a lovely blue'ish, green'ish, yellow'ish bruise on her arm and I have an extremely large bump on my hip bone which makes me look like the hunch back of Notre Dame.

Our room also came with a large family of Mosquitos and some other creature who dearly loves to eat soap. The mosquitos have figured out how to infiltrate our mosquito net and consequently feast on our tender legs all night. The soap eating creature takes a few nibbles out of our soap just to let us know he's watching is and then during the night he takes the rest of the bar. Not very nice.

Yesterday we spent lazing around the. Beach and just playing in the water. Today we tried to trek across the island to a beach on the other side. We were told we could just walk through the village (which had like 3 houses), through the jungle and then we'll come out to a beautiful beach in about an hour. Well after trekking through the jungle and mountains for about 1.25 hours we came out to very lovely, familiar beach. Yes, somehow we made several wrong turns and ended up about 20 meters away from where we started!!!!!! So we had a couple laughs and just ran into the water.

Tonight we booked a dive trip for tomorrow and I went out for a night dive. It was Awesome!!! Saw some truly amazing creatures and had a great time. Came back and had dinner and a couple drinks with the Mrs and some new American friends. What a great night!!!! Really loving it here except for the sleeping part.

Pics:
1) Carolyn in our room
2) the beach!!!!
3) Carolyn on our 1 person hammock.
4) view from the restaurant.
5) us on the ferry.

Sihanoukville

3/26/12:

We're still in recovery mode so we took it slow and easy today. Walked around the town and checked out the beach. The descriptions we read about this place are pretty spot on: seedy, dirty, grungy, etc. but it isn't that bad really. It's clearly in need of tourism to kick start some infrastructure development and maybe a facelift or two but that's all. Our map showed some bars on the beach and labeled the west end ones 'tourist bars' and the east end ones 'Khmer bars', Khmers being the ethnic majority in Cambodia. Sounded kinda funny until we got to the beach and saw that the map was on the money.

The tourist bars had plush chairs and lounge chairs and beach chairs all laid out. The Khmer bars all had 80's style beach chairs surrounding large communal tables. The tourist bars had old fat western men cavorting with their Cambodian trophy ladies. The Khmer bars had families here on vacation with cases of there own beer. Big difference.

Anyway, nothing exciting happening today. But tomorrow we're heading to the island of Koh Rong for 4 days. This place has electricity for about 2 hours a day which means no A/C, no fan, no hot water, no tv and certainly no Internet. So we'll be off the grid for a bit. Don't worry of you don't hear from us for a few days. We'll post as soon as we get back.

Oh, one more thing. It rained tonight. Like the end of the world type rain. Something we definitely miss about living on the east coast. It just doesn't rain nearly enough (or hard enough) in SD.

Time for the beach

We are well enough to move so we're on the road again. I know Michael made light of the situation but it was really awful. If we hadn't booked tickets to Italy I think we might have just skipped Vietnam and headed to the western world.

We took a 6 hour bus ride to Sihanoukville which is a dangerous but beautiful beach town. Since we were laid up for so long we had time to research and in this case it wasn't good. The biggest crime seems to be bag snatching/burglary. Usually two people will drive by on a moto grab a woman's bag and take off, if the bag is attached to her then there have been cases when the woman was dragged too. Once we arrived we realized how this takes place so often, for a beach town it's spread out and all the roads (even the main roads) are poorly lit with lots of hidden areas. Let's just say we'll be on our toes while we're here.

There is a desolate island Koh Rong in the area that has a few guesthouses which you can book in town and then take a ferry to. We went to inquire about them tonight and heard the travel agent telling the couple being helped that most are booked. Once it was our turn the only thing left was a newer bungalow near the town with only generators so we booked two nights there and then one night at a place literally on the beach that runs on solar power. We are heading there on the 26th. Tomorrow we're going to check out the beach, pick up some books and try to find a badminton set for our island stay.

Ebola

3/23/12:

The war has been raging for 6 long days. Sometimes we beat 'em back with a bloody nose. Mostly we get a solid beating on an almost hourly basis. Generally we sit in some neutral stance waiting for the next attack. The apprehension of this next attack is so terrifying that we sit paralyzed in our room ... Wondering if we'll be able to make it to the 'safe place'. On the rare occasion we brave the outside world the savage attacks beat us right back to our room.

6'ish days after the war started, we're finally at a point where the tide seems to have turned in our favor. Just as night seemed to have fallen for good, we sallied forth a final time. Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more.

We're quite certain that our enemy is the little demon known as Ebola. Hahaha, just making sure you're paying attention. We really think it was Salmonella. After an exhaustive epidemiological study of our every move and meal, we've narrowed the potential death vectors down to a small eatery in Siem Reap or breakfast at our hotel in Siem Reap. We can't pinpoint patient 0, but we're almost 100% sure we caught the bug either the 17th or 18th. Regardless of how it started, luckily Carolyn didn't get the worst of it. I on the other hand wasn't so lucky. But, we fought the good fight an are still standing (or slightly leaning on Carolyn). So the show goes on.

Ventured out for the longest stretch in a while. Perused the central market for a bit and then made our way to get Carolyn a fabulous massage. The people at the massage place were the nicest ever. Just seemed genuinely wonderful. Had dinner after that and watched a pretty righteous rain storm!

Heading down to Sihanoukville tomorrow. We're planning to be in Vietnam by the beginning of April so we've still got a week to go in Cambodia.

Pics:
1) us at dinner.
2) us at dinner with lightning in the background.
3) view from dinner.

We're alive...barely

We've been in the trenches for the last 48 hours taking sh$t grenades, today we managed to leave the room a few times. We are assuming food poisoning and holy cow it was ruthless. Michael had another ferocious fever that just broke this morning. He told me today that he was in such bad shape he didn't think he was going to live through it that he was mentally preparing to tell me what I needed to do in case of death. I managed to get to a mini-mart to get us some gatorade and crackers, neither stayed down but it was worth a shot. Luckily we've been planning everything day by day since our 2 nights in Phnom Penh turned into 5. We almost bought our bus tickets today but neither of us are 100% and Michael still hasn't kept any food in. If this keeps up tomorrow we're going to the clinic.

This afternoon we made it to the Russian Market where you can buy Western clothes and motorbike parts. We finally saw our first garment factory on the bus ride here. All those clothes that say made in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos we were wondering where they are actually made. Michael picked up two pairs of plaid shorts and a Burberry wallet which he's so excited about. Mr. Blue loves his plaid and he's always drooling over Burberry so now he's got it. He also picked up what he read was the best ice coffee in Cambodia and it came in a bag, double score!! After some rest and a few trips to the bathroom we decided to head to the indoor air conditional mall and were able to catch a movie. We saw The Grey which wasn't very good.

Tomorrow will be another recovery day and if Michael can't keep any food in we'll seek medical attention. I've got a massive headache, we are in bad shape.

Pics: Michael in the fetal position always placing himself in the middle of the bed!
Fever broke or weather? I'm going with both but Michael sweat right through his clothes today, locals were pointing and laughing
New digs

Khmer Rouge

3/19/12:

We've read a lot about the history of Cambodia recently and checked out quite a few blogs about various historical sites. Tripadvisor.com has been a huge help with just about everywhere we've been and so we certainly consulted that site before coming to phnom penh. The major things to see here are the royal palace, silver pagoda, the killing fields and S-21 prison. The last 2 being sites used by the Khmer Rouge for detaining and butchering the Cambodian people. For everyone who slept through history class, the Khmer Rouge was in power from about 1975 - 1979 and killed between 1.7 and 3 million people out of a population of 8 million. There's a whole lot more to it than that so you'll have to consult the all knowing google for more info.

Anyhoo, after some negotiation and haggling we decided to take a semi organized tour to the killing fields and S-21. The tuk-tuks were trying to charge between $10 and $15 while the tour was charging $10 and had the trump card of A/C!!!!!!

We went to the killing field first, paid our $5 / person entry fee and got an audio tour device. To say the place is emotional would not do it justice. Seriously the brutality committed there against humans is so upsetting ... Nauseating is how Carolyn described it. Walking around you can't help but wonder about the contrasting scenery. The place is peaceful now with birds happily chipping, children playing nearby and farmers working on a nearby rice field. Flowering trees are all over the area and several shade trees protect it from the heat. But every so often you notice scraps of clothing peeping out of the ground from a mass grave. A couple times we almost stepped on a skull and some bones the rains have unearthed. In the center of the area is a memorial pagoda with around 9000 skulls in it from the few mass graves which have been exhumed. Horrific.

We drove to S-21 next which was a Khmer Rouge prison used to detain, torture and execute people suspected of crimes against the government. Surprisingly it was originally build and used as a high school. Upon entering you're greeted by 14 graves which you're told are where the last 14 people killed at S-21 are buried. As the Vietnamese army liberated Cambodia and Phnom Penh, the guards at S-21 only had time to kill these last 14 people where they lay. So their bodies were left tied to the torture beds. Walking through the concrete buildings and rooms it's hard to imagine to atrocities that happened here. Several rooms house pictures of the former prisoners (of about 20,000 held here only a very small number made it out alive ... Maybe 100). Age didn't matter as we saw children who couldn't have been over 5 and old folks probably in their 70's. The old classrooms had been converted using brick and wood to house as many people as possible. Some of the torture devices used were on display as well as several pictures of the dead. As we were waking through a group of pictures of prisoners, Carolyn remarked that it was like a horror movie only this actually happened.

Needless to say we left both places pretty depressed. These places are evil beyond comprehension but in order to understand Cambodia you have to understand what these people have been through.

Completely unrelated: we're both currently suffering from intense gastro right now. Luckily it's affecting us differently so there's no competition for the bathroom. It's dinner time here but we can't seem to fathom eating anything. We may give it a go just because we need some form of nourishment since our last meal was over 10 hours ago.

Pics:
1) trees at the killing fields. These
Mark where the mass graves start.
2) Mass graves at the killing fields. This is where we saw clothing and bones in the ground.
3) building at S-21. The barbed wire was used to prevent the prisoners from trying to commit suicide.

6 weeks to realize

On the road again for a 6 hour bus ride to Phnom Penh. We arrived at 1600 and fought off 50 harassing tuk-tuk drivers and just walked the few blocks to the main area. We generally walk if it's less then 3km and we have our bags, if we don't have our bags then we walk until I start yelling at Michael which he claims is about 30 minutes in midday sun. A lot of times people have no idea where they are so the tuk-tuk driver charges double or triple what they charge a local and then take a roundabout way so your not mad that you paid $3 to go 300 feet.

We found a guesthouse and we're being walked to our room when the kid showing us around asked if Michael was my boyfriend. I said no he's my husband, he looked at us bewildered and said oh you're so young. Well thank you Cambodian boy! We get to our room and it has two single beds which isn't a big deal about half our rooms have had two beds but what this kid said got me thinking. Many times on this trip locals have referred to Michael as my friend, I just figured their English was limited and really it didn't seem necessary to correct them but now I realize that they all thought we were travel partners. Most of the backpackers we've met have been solo travelers or single same sex travel buddies who pick up more partners along the way. Our Scottish friends left Thailand with a guy who was also staying at the same place and they travel to two countries together before going their separate ways. Nothing romanic just people to travel with, it's more common than not. So from now on I'll ask for a double bed, I just can't believe it took 6 weeks to realize this, the whole time I just assumed they were out of one bed rooms.

After assessing the room situation we took a walk around town and it was great. Along the river there were grown men playing what we think is the Cambodian version of hacky sack, badminton, some form of soccer and the best one was mass aerobics. Once it got dark there was a group of kids doing some group dancing and not even 200 feet to the left was another group of adults doing aerobics. We made our way over to the night market which was the first one we've been to that is for the locals not tourists! We loved it. We even caught a talent show of some sort. Then we did some preliminary research for our outing tomorrow and we were done for the night. There's a Russian market that we're going to check out tomorrow night, we weren't sure where it was and if you stand in one place too long you get accosted by at least 5 tuk-tuk drivers. Luckily it seems the beggars in this city are less or just in a different area. The ones in Siem Reap were bruttal, grabbing us and yelling.

Pic: Group aerobics at its finest

Big Deal

3/18/12:

Finally, the people of Cambodia recognize that I'm kind of a Big Deal ...

Walking into a restaurant during a brief bus stop, we're greeted by a young waiter who can see we're looking for a toilet: 'Sir, the bathroom is right this way.' pointing to a colorful sign with 'Gents' written on it. 'Why thank you mr young Cambodian man' I say as I quietly remark to myself how pleasant everyone is. Walking into the bathroom I'm greeted with a splendidly clean, tiled room with individual urinals along the wall. Clearly this place is not for mere mortals. Stepping up to the plate (so to speak), I realize that this is indeed a bathroom fit for a king. I mean only commoners pee into warm water. We kings of the road, princes of the hostel, knights of the scooter ... We only pee in the finest chilled water!

Everyone is Irish for a day

3/17/12:

Just another hot and sweaty day in Cambodia ... Except today is St Patrick's Day!!!!!

After waking up super early yesterday we decided we owed it to ourselves to sleep in. So thats just what we did. Left our room for a little brunch around 11:30 and were pleasantly surprise to find the temperature hadn't quite reached boiling yet (hooray for no lip sweat!). Afterwards we went back to our hotel and rented bikes to head back to Angkor Wat.

We still had 1 day on our pass left so we figured a leisurely bike ride would be a nice way to round out our trip. Unfortunately, as with most of my plans, I miss judged the distances :(. It took us almost an hour of continuous peddling to reach the first temple. It wasn't the worst thing but the roads are crap here and you have to say a little prayer everytime one of the enormous buses pass you. Anyway we made it to a temple called Banteay Kdei which was pretty cool. Certainly not the best one but cool nonetheless. We overheard a guide explaining that the smell inside the temples was actually bat poo and pee. So I retract my earlier complaint about people peeing in the the temples and put forth a new complaint about bats peeing in the temples. The smell really is putrid though. We made our way to another temple called Ta Keo after and were rewarded with a gigantic fortress-like temple all to ourselves. Apparently this temple hadn't been finished with was plain to see but the size of it was incredible!

By now it was getting a little late in the day so we took the lead out and flew over to Angkor Wat. Our route took us back through Angkor Thom which was Ah. Mah. Zing. Riding our bikes through the gates was incredible. We read that you shouldn't come to the temples before 2 pm because of the lighting. We spent most of our 2nd day under a ferocious sun which did a great job of washing out our pictures. I'm not a big photog but even my weak skills could tell the lighting was bad. Today we were there with the sun on its way to bed which had 2 wonderful effects: cool temps and great lighting. We stopped and snapped a couple pics as even ran into a family of monkeys on the side of the road!!!!! Made it to Angkor Wat as they were closing so we ran in and grabbed a couple pics. It was super eerie since the temple was almost completely empty and dark. As we left some people had flashlights to help get out.

The bike ride back to town probably took a few years off our lives. Realize that there are very few traffic lights here and even those are generally only used as suggestions. There are perhaps 77,000 people living here and maybe 500,000 tourists as well. I think every single person was out tonight on a scooter or 194 foot mega bus. People are zipping all around us, horns are honking, people are yelling and laughing, children are crying. Pandemonium. A cop pulled out in front of Carolyn and did his bet to run her off the road. She gave him a few choice words which made him think twice about his careless driving. Intersections were the worst. My strategy was to close my eyes and peddle as fast a I could.

Fortunately we made it back with no issues at all. We even stopped and got authentic NY bagels from the night market! We could tell they were real NY bagels cause the little cambodian lady said so and it was written on her hand cart!

Being St Patricks Day we put our game faces on and went to paint the town green! By this I mean we were done with dinner and ready for bed by about 10:00! Hahaha, actually we found an authentic Irish bar right here in Siem Reap and got our green beer on! Niiiice! Seriously we actually had green beer! And not just any green beer. We had Cambodian-Irish green beer which means it was dirt cheap and probably had some questionable ingredients. Oh well. We ended up chatting with a British fellow about rugby and had a grand time!

Tomorrow we head for Phnom Penh. It's another lovely bus trip but atleast it'll only be 6 hours. We'll probably be there for 3 days before heading south to the beaches.

Pics:
1) Carolyn enjoying the bat pee smell at Banteay Kdei.
2) Green beer for the Blues!
3) Carolyn riding through the gate to Angkor Thom.
4) Me at Ta Keo.
5) Our monkey friend.

Melting

Started out early with an 0800 horse back riding tour at Happy Horse Ranch. They recommended 0700 but that was a bit too early for us but I completely understand why. Between 8 and 9 the temperature felt like it tripled. There wasn't much to see since its dry season but our guide was great and it was nice to try something new. Michael has a lot of experiences with horses, he helped a girlfriends family as a stablehand in his early twenties therefore he got a brute of a horse who was ready to canter at anytime and who my poor horse was afraid of. I'm not too keen on horses and was afraid my fear would make it worse but it ended up being great. My horse was gentle and after a few minutes I felt pretty comfortable.

We spent the rest of the day running some errands. We found the post office so we could purchase some extremely overpriced postcard stamps. We didn't send any post cards from Laos because they wanted $1.50 a stamp when we paid .50 in Thailand and apparently Cambodia is no better. On the walk there we passed a random statue of a woman breastfeeding and behind it was a sign about confidential HIV testing, how those go together we're not sure. A good portion of our female friends have recently reproduced and are breastfeeding so we took a picture to show them it's really only in America that feeding your own child is taboo. There's no coverups, blankets, special boob covering contraptions found in this part of the world.

After that we changed our forward plans and then changed them again. That's the joy of planning as you go! We were going to take a 10+ hour bus to the beach and then go to Phnom Penh last since we need to get our Vietnamese visas but Michael found some information that we can get the visa cheaper and quicker at Sihanoukville (beach town). So instead we're going to stay one more day here in Siem Reap and bike to the Angkor Wat to use up the last day of our three day passes and then head to Phnom Penh for a quick two days. We haven't heard anything good about it, most people recommend going and doing a quick tour for the history of it (Khmer Rouge killing fields) and getting out since its a dirty town filled with old Western men and child prostitution. After that we'll head to the beaches where there are a few National Parks and Conservation areas that we want to see. This leg of trip has a little more planning because of the wait time on the visa and because we can only be in Vietnam 30 days but we have a flight leaving there already booked so we can't enter too early.

We spent the rest of the day trying not to melt, getting messages and Michael enjoyed .50 beers. He's still not 100%, he has an awful cough which has worked to our advantage because not as many tuk tuk drivers and sales ladies approach us :). Laughing starts a coughing fit and it seems he's always laughing.

Pic of the day:
Me on my horse Ablue
The random statue
Michael with his cheap draft, seriously who knew that a haircut could change a man

Angkor part 2

3/15/12:

Felt much better today so we headed back to see the major temples of Angkor Wat. Our tuk-tuk driver (mr ba) picked us up around 9 and we made the lovely drive up to the temple complex. I have to admit that being driven around all day for $15 is pretty nice!!!

We checked out the best of the best today: Angkor Wat, The Bayon, Angkor Thom, Terrace of the Elephants and our favorite Ta Prohm. It was hot though. Indescribably hot. We drank as much water as we could and still managed to go 8 hours without a bathroom break. This was only possible because we were constantly leaking fluid from our pores.

The temples:

Angkor Wat was amazing. There are much more beautiful temples here but the sheer size of Angkor Wat is awesome. It took us about 3 hours to get through it, though we took numerous breaks to avoid heat stroke. Oh and we didn't even get to go inside the main temple. I guess they picked today of all days to close it down for cleaning. Ugh.

The Bayon: probably in my top 4 temples here. This is the temple with all the stone heads carved on it. Its pretty tall and encompassed a very large area. Some really cool carvings all around the walls and plenty of places to get lost. Our only complaint was the smell. It seems to be a problem at many of the temples here: urine smell. I guess when nature calls nothing is sacred :(

Angkor Thom: this is just an enormous walled city with some spectacular old things to check out. The Bayon is on here as are some other popular places. The gates to get in are marvelous! Giant stone structures Just wide enough for an elephant (but the locals are able to cram an 80 passenger bus through).

Terrace of the Elephants: über-cool terrace a out 10 feet high with beautiful ornate elephants all over. The corners generally have 3 elephant heads coming out with long trunks reaching the ground.

Ta Prohm: definitely in my top 2. This I the quintessential Indiana Jones / Tomb Raider temple. The structure has been left largely as it was found last century. A jungle temple if there ever was one. Enormous trees have taken over everything and are destroying the temple. Perfect example of nature reclaiming the land. It would be so easy to spend a few hours here just getting lost in the crumbling halls and dark prasats. It also helped that we got here around 3:30'ish when the sun had started to fall and the crowds were dying down. We took a ton of pics here and did some rock climbing as well!!! Loved this temple!

We decided on a cuisine change for tonight since our dinners lately have been either pizza or fried rice. So we headed out to KFC!!! You read that right ... KFC! Had some 'real' chicken, French fries and a drink for $4.80! Oh and they had A/C!

Tomorrow we're gonna go horseback riding and maybe rent bikes. Should be a lazy day but who knows what the day will bring. Also gonna book our onward travel, probably down south I the beach somewhere.

Pics:
1) Carolyn at Ta Prohm
2) Ta Prohm
3) Rejected at Angkor Wat
4) The Bayon
5) Carolyn at Angkor Wat

Sick day

Yesterday Michael woke up with a stuffy nose and ended the day with a fever so we opted to lounge today instead of spending 8 hours with a couple thousands tourists in the sweltering heat at Angkor Wat. Luckily we have some leeway with our dates in Cambodia.

We spent the day napping, researching our next steps and doing some last minute tax prep oh and the big event was that Michael got a haircut! This was the longest he's gone since I've met him, he usually gets it cut every two weeks like clockwork. We were a little nervous and even as he was getting it done I thought it was going to be a disaster but it surprisingly came out great! Did a little souvenir shopping tonight, we've bought practically nothing since we started traveling but we picked up two awesome hammocks for $6. Now we just need a place to live so we can hang them.

1) New haircut = new man!
2) This is a picture from two nights ago if you look behind Michael you will notice an unusual but common fade going on her in Cambodia...PJs! Everyone wears matching pjs as clothes. Atleast this woman is accessorizing with a hat and she's got a tame print compared to others we've seen

Angkor part 1

3/13/12:

I'm battling an awful cold, gastro and some sort of fever right now. Needless to say I'm not 100%.

With that said ... We headed out to see some of the minor temples at Angkor today. We read that you should build up to the big daddy at Angkor Wat so that's what we did. Hired a tuk-tuk for $20 for the entire day and set out for the distant Banteay Srei and then what's called the 'grand circuit.'

Before I go any further you have to understand that anything we say about this place just will not do it justice. You have to see it for yourself to understand. It really is that amazing.

Banteay Srei is around 34km north of here so we had quite a ride to get there. Our tuk-tuk is actually a scooter with a bench thing attached to the back. It's pretty comfy but slow going which was nice cause we got to take in all the scenery. Banteay Srei isn't a very large temple but the details and colors more than make up for that.

After that we headed to some other smaller temples and just tried to take it all in. Simple amazing that these temples were all built around 1000 years ago!

Angkor is fantastically beautiful and breathtaking and amazing and any other wonderful adjective you can think of. Even if Wats aren't your thing, this place is great. Our only complaint was the heat. It's like the devil himself is breathing down your neck all day. There wasn't one second we weren't completely drenched in sweat. Oh I guess another complaint is the children trying to sell stuff all over the place. They're very pushy and won't take no for an answer. One child asked us to buy a postcard and when we said no he asked us why not. Pretty bold little turd.

Had some pizza for dinner and then called it a night. We'll see how I feel tomorrow about going to the larger temples.

Pics:
1) Carolyn in our tuk-tuk.
2) Banteay Samre
3) Us in the tuk-tuk.
4) East gate of Ta Som
5) Carolyn at Banteay Samre