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

From rice to gelato?

We're going to ITALY!!!!

We planned four months for just SEA with a quick hop to Bali at the end but everyone we met at the beginning of the trip wasn't impressed with Bali so we decided to cut it out and were looking for a replacement. It came down to South America or Italy. South America is much cheaper but we've never been to Europe. Since our future in the States is unknown with Michael starting his PhD in the fall we felt now was as good of time as ever. Since we'll be on that side of the world we just might make a stop to see Mom and Dad before heading back to the west coast.

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.