Birthdays in Cambodia

Hi Everyone! I bet you thought we fell into the Mekong and had washed away to sea by now... Still here, we've just spent many days in a row on busses with not much blog posting time. Tough to keep up these days, so we're dividing the job between our blog crew. Sarah will get back to you soon with a recap of some other Bangkok activites, Megan and Michelle will shower you with photos and stories from the wonders of Angkor Wat and the strange city that is Siem Reap, and I'm going to pick up with continued Cambodia adventures in Phnom Penh.





Sarah and I said goodbye to Megan and Michelle on April 25th (miss you guys!!), and made our from the tourist cluster of Siem Reap to the big bad capital. We found some tasty snacks along the way -











Boiled turtles! Yum. We also made friends with this little naked boy on the bus.








Phnom Penh did not seem to be as gritty as people say.
It was dirty and bustling, but at the same time friendly and welcoming. The Cambodians are always looking to make a buck off tourists, it's true, but they are honest and smiling as they do so.




The next day was my birthday!! We let all our friends know, hoping for some birthday discounts from tuk-tuk drivers. After exploring a bit of the city, we decided to hit the first order of business for the day, a birthday haircut!! Mom, Dad and Grandparents, you might want to close your eyes for this one -


I shed most of my hair weight! Feeling much cooler now :)

Sarah got her 'do freshened up too. She even got three lines shaved into the side of her head, because she saw this little boy with the same thing and thought it was super cool. The Cambodians pretty much love her hawk. They smile and point at it and say, boy haircut?!

The city was hotter than the seventh ring of hell, as Sarah likes to say, so we decided to continue birthday celebrations at the Phnom Penh water park!!
It was no Water Country, but the two slides and bathtub warm swimming pool kept us occupied for a few hours. It appears that Southeast Asians do not believe in swimming suits. Whether they are dipping in the Mekong, bathing under a waterfall, or in a pool, there are no changes of costume to get in the water. Jeans, long sleeve button down shirts, belts, earrings - all come into the water with them. Needless to say we felt a little out of place in our bikinis, but no one else seemed to mind.

Outside the park was a little street fair, and Sarah popped two balloons with her expert dart throwing skills and won two prizes for me - a tube of black herb toothpaste and a shuttlecock (one of those children's toys that you kick up in the air). Happy Birthday to me!!



We had a nice dinner that night to celebrate - fried frog legs for me! Strange and wonderful birthday in Cambodia came to an end.

The next day we decided we'd been having way too much fun, and it was time to sober up the visit with a few depressing doses of reality. We started our day at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, the prison used during the Khmer Rouge dictatorship to torture and kill dissidents. Pol Pot and his gang pretty much wanted to get rid of all city folk and anyone with an education, because they did not support the grand plan of putting all Cambodians to work in collectives and increase rice production for export. Pretty ingenious plan.


The prison was a converted school building, and still had chalkboards hanging next to the torture cells. People were killed here from 1975 to 1979, when the Vietnamese expelled the Pol Pot regime. Strangely enough, the UN continued to recognize the Khmer Rouge government for another ten years, until enough people came forward with stories of opression that they recognized the new government. At the prison they forced 'confessions' out of citizens, and then killed them on the spot or sent them off to the killing fields, the next stop on our Pol Pot tour. Choueng Ek killing fields were just outside of the city, and yet during the regime no one seemed to know the extent of the torture that was going on until much later. Thousands of people were brutally murdered here, and dumped into mass graves. There was a tree where soldiers bashed babies heads before throwing them into a ditch. The memorial built in the center of the killing fields was a collection of skulls, bones and clothing from the mass graves.




After a nice pretty tuk tuk ride to clear our heads,


we were ready for the next emotional part of our day - a visit to a Cambodian orphanage. We came equipped with a 25 kilo bag of rice as a donation to the orphanage, recommended by our tuk tuk driver who used to volunteer at the Lighthouse Orphanage.


The kids were incredibly sweet, and obviously used to having visitors. They immediately took our hands, decorated us with the glitter they were playing with, and showed us around their dormitories and school rooms. They spoke English fairly well, played so nicely together, and smiled all the time. It was hard not to be in awe of these kids.

Sarah even got to show off her soccer ball skills, though these guys had her beat.


We hit rush hour on the way home! More motorbikes than I thought existed in this world.


I continued to pursue my babies on bikes photo collection.



Our tuk tuk driver So Marly insisted we shouldn't end the day without buying him a beer, which turned into two pitchers of beer and papaya salad with unidentifiable marine life in it. He told us a lot about his life growing up on an island in the Mekong. It is strange to chat with people and know what they have gone through in their lifetimes here, and that war was just a few short decades ago and still so fresh in their minds.


Time to take a load off after an exhausting day. Sarah and I headed to dinner. Those of you who can read the sign in the background will understand why this place made us feel happy again.



Time for us to get out of internet cafe! For your short summary of the next few days, we headed to Sihnoukville on the coast of Cambodia. The sunsets were beautiful and the breeze much needed.

However, there were many of these guys in the water.
Plus lots of trash, and local kids crying until you buy their hand woven fishes, so after a night we decided to head back to Thailand in pursuit of beautiful beaches and solitude. We bussed for quite a few days, the scent of durian following us all the way.

And now to the beach! We'll be back to you in a week with stories of relaxation and suntans.