Cambodia

Well, our time in Asia started off with a bang when we unintentionally hired two moto taxis to take us from the airport to downtown Phnom Penh, rather than the more traditional taxi-with-four-wheels-and-doors that we thought we were getting (sorry, moms!). Our drivers escorted us to our vehicles, stuffed our bags into the frame between their legs and instructed us to hold on (which we did - tightly!). The surprisingly low speed ride right through the center of town will definitely be a highlight of our trip.

Along the way we saw a microcosm of Cambodia: kids playing a game similar to hacky-sack, but played with a feathered shuttlecock; little roadside moto repair stations; a number of cell phone outlets right next to stalls selling live chickens; and ox carts packed with fruit on their way to the local market. We were most impressed at how a family of four can ride a single moto, all without really holding on (unlike us).

After an afternoon of wandering and watching the city's activity from the balcony of our hotel, we met up with Jesse and Christy, our friends who are currently living in Shanghai. We caught up over our first yummy taste of Khmer food (very similar to Thai) that night.

The next day was spent touring Phnom Penh, a busy city with lots of street markets and relatively few tourists. Sadly, many of the key sites that we saw were not necessarily that uplifting. We visited both Tuol Sleng Prison and the Cheung Ek "Killing Fields" where thousands of Cambodians were tortured and killed in the late seventies during the reign of the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge. Tuol Sleng had been a high school prior to the take-over and amazingly sits right in the middle of town. The killing fields are still being excavated and you have to be careful not to walk on half buried clothes that litter the paths between the pits. The two "museums" are very rudimentary. Not very surpising when you think about it since the history is so recent and Cambodians are themselves just coming to grips with it.

Early the next morning, we headed north through the countryside to Siem Reap to spend three days touring the HUGE site at Angkor. Wait, HUGE doesn't even describe it. There are HUNDREDS of sites in addition to the well known and quite crowded Angkor Wat. Almost everywhere you walked, you ran into some amazing monument just sort of half buried by the jungle, Indiana Jones style. Highlights included spending a whole day on rented bikes tooling around in the dust seeing the sites and watching the sun rise over the rice paddies from a tower that we had entirely to ourselves.

After three days filled with lots of rock (beautiful rock, but rock just the same), we visited a small landmine museum run by a Khmer man who teaches villagers how to spot and avoid the many millions of mines that still exist in the country. It was unnerving to see the piles of landmines that this small group has disarmed in the last few years, but also inspiring to see the work that they have accomplished with few resources.

Cambodia has an extremely turbulent recent history that has impacted nearly all Cambodians. At times, we have been overwhelmed by some of the poverty that we've seen and by the inequity between our lives in the U.S. and the daily lives of many Cambodians. And yet, we are trying to be careful to not put our lens for what equals happiness onto a completely different part of the world. Then again, we see so many kids working in street markets during the day, and the teacher in Sarah just wants to scoop each kid up and plop them in a classroom.

There is a lot of construction in both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, and you get the sense that tourism within Cambodia will soon explode. We feel very lucky to have had the chance to visit before this happens and to experience Cambodia as we have. We also feel very lucky to have been able to spend our time here with Jesse and Christy. We couldn't have asked for better travel companions, and we can't wait to meet up with them again in China!

Due, once again, to a slow connection, photos will be postponed for a little while. But we have some great ones!