So what I am trying to do this vacation is post at the end of the days, since we will be here for 8 days and thats just a bit too much for me to write on one day11
Our hour and a half flight went pretty quick. I'm taking this trip with Kara, an American from the Midwest. As we were going through customs of the surprisingly nice Phnom Penh airport in the capital city o Cambodia, We saw on the news station that bin Ladin was dead. Of course there was no Internet so I didn't get to see anything more. It was sooo hot when we got outside. It's in the low 90s with about 80% humidity and it's dry season. The air was filled with heat haze and dust. We got into our motorized tuk tuk to our hostel where were getting picked up by the bus for an exciting six hour bus ride across country to Siem Reap for a few days.
Immediately this place looks like Vietnam. Try drove on the right side o he road and the building style and street set up was Vietnamese. The french controlled this country during the colonial era so the rarely used secondary translation was French. We drove a good spam of the city and got to see the highlights. The streets were sandy and dirty and it wasn't very crowded. There were a few multiple story buildings along the road by the airport but most were abandoned during or after construction. A few of these buildings had signs that read they were government buildings including, ironically, the department of labour building which was abandoned during construction. As we got closer to the city center, Which was very small and consisted of low rise buildings for a capital, the new government buildings towered and were quite pretty. Everything just had a layer of dust and sand and trash. No green and very dry.
We got to our hostel Where we were picking up and waiting for the bus. It's was lovely with a pool good prices. Everybody uses America money but only bills. All purchases or change under a dollar was dealt in reils, the Cambodian currency. We got onto a bus an hour later bit was slightly air conditioned and two stories, us at the top. There is a large river and lake that connects the two cities. The bus road, unpaved but bring paved, runs to he north east of the lake which has almost no cities. There were a few very poor and small villages with stilt houses up against the raised road overlooking a large dry plain of nothing. There are small farm squares for rice and other things but it's out of season and it looks like I could be in Africa or something. There was a hill and a few other spots inherent distance where u can see temples towering which was pretty neat. As the day went on, things did get greener as time went on. There were lots of Lilly pads growing in puddles. There were lots of little naked babies running around with dogs and cows. There seems to be lots of happy animals and kids running around. It was nice at night, seeing the stars since Singapore is just so bright.
Siem Reap was very quiet when we arrived. We are staying at a 3 star hotel for $6.50 per night with free tuk-tuks everywhere in the city. We went out for dinner, eating some weird pizza with free beer. As soon as we got to the food area of our part of town, a small boy carrying a baby came and grabbed by side, pleading he needed to eat. Common ploy, but still sad none the less. The market here is insanely awesome. Real gemstone jewelry for dirt cheap and silk everything. this will be a fun trip :) Keyboard on this computer sucks and driving me nuts, will write more tomorrow!
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