June 14: Saigon

It's my last day on the road and, though I'm having a great time in Saigon, I'm ready to go home.

After a walk around town today, I did some gift shopping, mailed a few postcards and spent an hour or so having lunch in the local equivalent of a Starbucks, where I had a glass of "lime mixed with ice" and a croque monsieur sandwich, both of which were quite good but rather expensive for Vietnam. (Still, they cost less than $5 altogether, so it's not like I went out and splurged.)

It's interesting being overseas during the World Cup, which seems to garner almost no interest at home. I considered watching the U.S.-Czech Republic game on Monday night, but couldn't stay awake late enough for its 11:00 p.m. Vietnam time kickoff. Considering how badly we lost, that turned out to be a good decision, I think.

But the interest level of the World Cup here is remarkable. Everywhere I go -- not just in the foreign tourist areas -- are signs advertising that the World Cup will be on at this bar or that restaurant. In Cambodia, it was the same thing. I couldn't believe the number of Cambodians who were asking me about which team I supported, even before the World Cup had started. For the record, it appears that English-speaking Cambodians have a soft spot for England, who they will be cheering for over the coming weeks.

Although I haven't really caught football fever this year -- I would have stayed up late Monday, if it had -- I think I do have a mild case, after all. The first thing I did yesterday morning was turn on the BBC to get the football results.

June 13: Saigon

I crossed the street today.

If this doesn't seem like a big deal to you, you've probably never been to Saigon, where crossing the street can be harrowing for a visitor.

Saigon is overrun with motorbikes. Add in a multitude of taxis, busses, private cars, cyclos and hand-pushed vendor carts; a dash of let's-ignore-the-traffic-lights; and a city full of traffic circles, and you've got a situation that, at first glance, is scary as hell.

The key to crossing the street in Saigon is simple: watch the locals, then do what they do: Find an opening, no matter how small, and start walking. Don't wait for the street to be clear or you'll never get home. Once you start walking, don't stop. Walk at a steady speed, making eye contact with the oncoming drivers. As long as you move predictably, they'll flow around you. It feels kind of like Moses parting the Red Sea.

Had a great day today, despite getting rained on three times. I visited a museum I hadn't been to a decade ago, and another museum that had been enlarged since 1995.

I don't believe the Ho Chi Minh City Museum was open the last time I was here, though I do remember the helicopter and airplane parked in the front parking lot, so I know I've at least been by the building. Inside, there are eight different exhibit rooms, including a couple on the geology and biology of the area, and many more devoted to Ho Chi Minh City's famous namesake.

(In case you're wondering, Ho Chi Minh City and Saigon are used more or less interchangeably, though technically Saigon refers to a small area within the sprawl of HCMC. Many locals tend to call the area Saigon, I've noticed, while the government predictably refers to it as HCMC.)

More interesting was the War Remnants Museum, which has been renamed since I was first here, when it was called the American War Crimes Museum. Frankly, I think the original name has more cachet, but perhaps it was a bit too much for some of the tourists. In addition to a variety of captured military hardware on display in the courtyard, the much enlarged museum displays photos of what are said to be American war atrocities. Some of the photos almost certainly are of nasty stuff we did during the war, but others give you the feeling that they have been rather creatively interpreted by the museum staff. There's also a new exhibit honoring the photojournalists killed covering the war, which I found particularly interesting.

At the museum, I heard one of the most interesting things I've heard on this trip: vans full of tourists which play music as a way to alert pedestrians and other cars when they're backing up. What's interesting about this? The music, on three different vans, was a medley of Christmas carols.

I finished off the day with a visit to one of Saigon's many markets, where I bought some candied ginger. Tasty, but amazingly spicy. I'm not really sure I'll be able to eat the 100 grams I bought. Maybe my wife will like it. (She hates ginger. I know she won't like it.)

June 12: Saigon

I'm back in Saigon for the first time since 1995. The bus from Phnom Penh dropped me off a block from the guest house we stayed in 11 years ago.

Had it not been for my map, I would not have recognized the neighborhood.

Oh, the venerable Kim's Cafe backpacker hangout is still there, but where I remember quiet, dusty streets are now towering hotels and streets jam-packed with shops and tourists and motorbike drivers.

I wandered down to Bui Vien Street, where in 1995 we stayed in a guest house that had just a number for a name. The problem is, I don't remember if it was number 62 or 64 or something else, and none of the humble guest houses from a decade ago exist any longer. They've all been replaced with hotels -- granted, hotels that only charge ten bucks a night, but hotels all the same. I think I'm staying within a building or two of where I stayed last time, in a swish new room with a refrigerator and satellite TV, amenities I know we didn't have last time.

Found the Philippines Airlines ticket office to change my flight to one a couple days earlier, then went to the Notre Dame Cathedral and Post Office -- which, remarkably, look much like they did 11 years ago. I was actually in search of a cyclo driver I knew from 1995. Armed with very little information about him -- he used to hang out in front of the post office, and he a big Batman decal on his cyclo -- I didn't actually expect to find him, but I was hoping to find a group of cyclo drivers who might know him. Occasionally, you'll get lucky and find a cyclo driver who served alongside U.S. servicemen during the war and has a good grasp of English.

A few abortive attempts at conversation with moto drivers went nowhere. I told a postcard-selling kid that I was looking for a friend who used to drive a cyclo. "Oh, he died," the kid said. "Want to buy some postcards?"

Umm....right.

I wandered into some pricey boutiques and a very upscale shopping mall -- with delightfully cold air conditioning -- and did some window shopping, then drank some Orangina and walked back to the hotel in the rain.

June 11: Phnom Penh

Back in Phnom Penh for the night, so I'm catching up on e-mail and blogging before heading out for a late lunch or early dinner at Friends, the restaurant I wrote about last week and then an early night. I'm not sure what time my bus leaves tomorrow, but I think it's on the order of 6:30 a.m.

Hopefully tomorrow's trip will be less interesting than today's was. That's not to say it was a bad trip today, just not what I was expecting.

On my way to Kampot, we took a direct route from Phnom Penh, covering the 144 km in something like 3.5 hours. Naturally, since I was coming back to Phnom Penh with the same bus company, I assumed we'd take the same direct route back.

No such luck.

Ten minutes outside Kampot, the bus came to a stop, and everybody got off. Then they grabbed their bags from under the bus. The two other foreigners and I followed suit, not really knowing why, but understanding that the bus wasn't going any further. With backpacks slung over our shoulders, we crossed a small wooden bridge that apparently is strong enough to carry an empty car -- they were discharging their passengers before going across the bridge -- but not much else, and certainly not a bus.

Fortunately, there was another bus waiting for us on the other side of the bridge, and we were once again on our way to Phnom Penh via Kep, on Cambodia's southern coast. I'm actually glad we went via Kep; I had thought about paying the city a visit, but in the end decided it was more of a Shelly thing than a Greg thing. Shell would have loved the beaches there, and I would have enjoyed exploring the old French villas that still dot the shoreline.

After stopping every ten minutes to pick up or drop off passengers, our driver, who bore more than a passing semblance to Steve Buscemi, took offense at something on the shoes of one of the French women who had just gotten on the bus. He shooed them off the bus, made them change their shoes, got out a bottle of water and a roll of paper towels, and scrubbed down the aisle before letting them back on. What Steve saw is a mystery to me, as I didn't see or smell anything.

Eventually, we were back on track, onto a gravel road, and picking up passengers left and right, eventually turning onto a new highway with a marker showing we were now actually eight kilometers further from Phnom Penh than we had been at the beginning of the day. An couple hours later, about the time we pullled into our rest stop, the driver was on his cell phone complaining that he was having trouble shifting into gear. (This is just my interpretation of the call, of course, based on the fact that he was having trouble shifting, and he was on the cell phone.) Good thing, I thought, that I don't have any plans for this afternoon.

But after half an hour, we were back on the road, speeding towards Phnom Penh, apparently doing just fine in high gear, when we came upon an empty bus coming our direction. This caused our driver to pull over, the other driver to execute a U-turn in the middle of the highway, and all of us to shuffle back off the bus, pick up our bags again, and carry them to the new bus, which was now parked a few meters in front of us.

We were all of 30 km from town at this point.

The rest of the trip went smoothly, the hotel met me a the bus station, and I walked into the Internet cafe just as it started to rain. Let's hope I don't get too wet.

June 10: Kampot

I had a hard time finding any tours with an open slot, so I ended up hiring a car and driver for today, at a higher price than I really cared to pay. However, the only option seemed to be to wait around until Sunday and see if something opened up. I decided that was not really an option after all, so I forked out the cash for a driver.

The old Bokor Hill Station was worth the trip to Kampot. The road in the national park was spectacularly bad, the air was naturally cooled (the first time I've felt that since, what, October?) and the abandoned buildings were amazing.

At an elevation of nearly 1100 meters, the hill station towers over everything nearby, which is primarily sea level forests and fields. The highlight of any trip to Bokor is the Bokor Palace Hotel, built -- along with most of the other buildings -- by the French in the 1920s as a cool retreat from Cambodia's hot, humid lowlands. Abandoned since World War II, crumbling and almost 100 percent accessible, the old hotel is straight out of The Shining, especially when the clouds start to roll in. I've got a great series of photos of the hotel being hidden by the clouds that I will post when I get home. Another traveler's photos are here, if you're curious.

Back in town for the evening, I found the bus station and bought a ticket back to Phnom Penh, found a traditional song and dance school that welcomes foreign visitors (but was, unfortunately, not having any practice sessions) and ended up back at my guest house for dinner, where I met a student who was preparing to become an English teacher next school year. It was fun chatting with him, but some of his questions tended to be of the same variety that stumped me in Japan, on archane bits of grammar that I can answer, but can't explain why it's the answer.

Back to Phnom Penh tomorrow, then on to Ho Chi Minh City on Monday.

R.I.P., Mister Tanaka

Shelly and I had Mister Tanaka put to sleep today due to his continuing illness. (Technically, Shelly took him to the vet and had him euthanized, but it was something we had discussed at length, so while I wasn't there physically, I was there in spirit.)

Shell wrote me a very touching e-mail about Tanaka's last hours that found me here in Kampot. Naturally, I wish I would have been able to see Tanaka one more time before he died, but I didn't want him to be in pain waiting for me to get home. I think he had a good couple of weeks with Shell before he died today.

June 9: Kampot

The rest of yesterday went well. I got back out into the city, and discovered -- now that I'm feeling good again -- that I am getting comfortable in Phnom Penh. It's crazy, smelly, noisy and chaotic, but I sorta like it, too.

I checked on bus tickets to Ho Chi Minh City, walked by the new U.S. Embassy (a handsome building, actually), and went to the Sorya Shopping Center, the 20th Century equivalent to the old markets.

One of the things Lonely Planet promised me was "escalator trainers" in the mall. While this was not true, I did get a fantastic view of the city from the top floor, and a taste of Cambodian fast food from BB World, where I had some decent fries and a surprisingly good burger. If you scroll down a bit on this link, you'll see that BB World has only kind of stolen from McDonalds...

Today found me back on the bus, heading to Kampot, where I am tonight. Tomorrow, I'll visit the old Bokor Hill Station and see what I can of this small town. The riverfront area is quiet and peaceful, and the town is much more laid back than Phnom Penh. Not that that is a surprise, but it is a nice change.

June 8: Phnom Penh

Due to my lack of decisiveness earlier in the week -- borne of a perfectly reasonable lack of desire to travel while sick -- I'm stuck in Phnom Penh for one more day than was strictly necessarily.

Being holed up here forced me to choose between the 14-hour train ride to Battambang or a leisurely weekend in Kampot, coupled with a trip to the old abandoned Bokor Hill Station. The train ride was always more interesting in concept than I thought it would be in reality, especially after spending 12 hours on a Thai train ten days ago. Plus, the train doesn't leave until Saturday, while I can leave for Kampot any day I choose.

So, two days ago, I decided to leave for Kampot today. However, now that Battambang was out, I needed to get my Vietnam visa in Phnom Penh. (The Vietnam consulate in Battambang was far more convenient than the one in Phnom Penh, so I had decided to get it, in person, in Battambang.) But, I waited too long to apply for the visa, and my passport now won't be back until later this afternoon, delaying my departure for Kampot until tomorrow.

After a bit of a walk and some time reading, I sought shelter from the noon sun in the Internet cafe, prompting an e-mail from Shelly that read:

Get out of the Internet cafe and explore the country instead!

Not bad advice, of course, but keeping out of the sun wasn't a bad idea, either, so I ignored her for a while, and will head out after posting this.

I'm off to Kampot tomorrow, and will be online from there at some point.

June 7: Phnom Penh

Got up early this morning -- part of a trend I wish to establish again -- and headed off with a tuk tuk driver on a grim genocide tour.

Fifteen kilometers south of town lie the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, where, between 1975 and 1978, more than 17,000 men, women and children were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. The remains of 8,985 people were exhumed from mass graves in 1980; the remaining bodies have been left untouched.

The Khmer Rouge went to great lengths to keep their mass killings secret, my tour guide told me, from using quiet methods of killing -- smashing in heads, for example, or sawing heads off with the heavy, sharp edge of a palm tree -- to playing patriotic music over a loudspeaker "to hide the sounds of the moans."

Despite the efforts to keep the killing secret, my guide explained that the killing fields -- like others across Cambodia -- were easy to find. "After the Khmer Rouge, we knew where to find the bodies," he said, "because of the smell."

Prisoners were shackled, 30 at a time, to a long, steel bar and led to their graves, where they were killed. Even today, thirty years after the killing began, the prisoners' clothes, and their bones, work their way to the surface whenever it rains. Keep your eyes peeled, or you're likely to step on someone's shirt. Just as easily, you could be walking on their femur.

More than 8,000 skulls of the victims have been arranged behind glass in the Memorial Stupa.

Before being shipped to the Killing Fields, prisoners were kept and tortured at a Phnom Penh high school, renamed by Pol Pot's forces as Security Prison 21, or S-21. The Khmer Rouge kept thorough records of their prisoners: each was photographed, and a complete biography taken down upon arrival. Many of these photos are today on display at the school, which is now a museum. Many former classrooms in Building A depict the instruments of torture used by the Khmer Rouge, from metal chains to car batteries. Photos in the rooms, and throughout the museum, don't shy away from showing the violence visited upon the prisoners.

Building B houses an exhibit of photos, while Building C is much as it was left in 1979, with brick cells on one floor, wooden cells on the second, and "mass detention" cells on the third. A thick web of barbed wire remains over the front of Building C today, a sign stating that it was used to keep inmates from killing themselves. Building D holds more photos of the victims, as well as photos of a nearly abandoned Phnom Penh during the late 1970s. Coupled with the Killing Fields, visiting S-21 was thoroughly depressing, especially knowing that in other parts of the world, genocide continues today. It's a cliche, but all day I kept wondering how man can be so cruel to his fellow man.

While several of those who ran S-21 are awaiting an international war crimes trial, those who did the killing are largely free men today, my guide explained. "In 1979, they just disappeared. We know that most of those who worked in the killing fields are in their late 40s and they can't read or write," he said. "We believe most of them are farmers."

June 6: Phnom Penh

Slept late again today as I shake this bug. No point in being miserable since I have time to do things leisurely. I seem to be in good shape today, aside from sleeping way too late this morning.

I started my day with lunch -- did I mention I had slept too late? -- at a place called Friends, a restaurant run by an NGO that helps street kids stay off the streets. It's also staffed by many of the same kids, wearing either "student" or "teacher" t-shirts. Many of the program's graduates have gone on to work in some of the best restaurants in the city.

The food was great, from the green apple - lime freeze to the Chinese spinach and cheese ravioli and cucumber salad with mint-yogurt dressing. Without question, it was the best food I've had since arriving in Cambodia.

Just a block away is the National Museum. Unlike the Laos museum, there's no politics at this one, which means it was, for me, row upon row of old rocks and things. Okay, not really, but I'm not so much into museums of artifacts. However, this is an important stop on any tour of Phnom Penh, so I stopped. Plus, it's on the way to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. The Palace grounds weren't open today, but the Silver Pagoda was. Named for its solid silver floor, the pagoda was beautiful to look at.

By the time I was finished there, I was planning on heading out for a walk. The sky had clouded up and it was nice and breezy and cool. Which is exactly when I picked up a tuk tuk leech.

For whatever reason, this guy would not take no for an answer. I crossed the street, he crossed the street. I changed direction, he changed direction. He got off his tuk tuk and came to talk to me.

"Why won't you take my tuk tuk? I haven't had a passenger all day," he would whine.

"It's a nice, cool afternoon and I feel like walking," I said, as if I owed him an explanation. I kept walking. He got back on his tuk tuk and continued to pace me.

"I'll drive really slowly next to you," he called.

"You're wasting your time," I yelled back.

My tuk tuk avoidance scheme caused me to miss a turn and get somewhat off course, which meant I had to get out my map, a weakness I didn't want to reveal to the driver. He immediately parked his tuk tuk again and sprinted over.

"Where you want to go? Go by tuk tuk?"

"No, just walking," I said. Where does he get the idea that pestering me will make me more likely to ride with him? I know it's low season and there's not much work right now, but I'm walking, dammit!

I ended up reversing the order of the shopping I needed to do, but I did get back on track and, after a kilometer-and-a-half or so, the tuk tuk driver finally gave up.

My shopping took me first to Lucky Supermarket, and I felt like I was back in the West. Or at least in the Philippines. My real reason to hit Lucky was for the ATM I knew was inside. It dispenses U.S. dollars, and I needed to stock up for the rest of my time in Cambodia, but also for Vietnam, as I don't know if the ATMs in Saigon dispense in dollars or dong. Two hundred dollars richer -- most of it in 50s, which are of limited use in a place like Cambodia -- I was on the showroom floor, ogling all the imported goods, marked conveniently in dollars.

Jar of Skippy? $5. Bag of Doritos? $3. Tube of clove-flavored toothpaste from Thailand that says "It's black because of the herbs"? $0.30 Well, I bought that -- who could turn down toothpaste that's intentionally black? I passed on the peanut butter and Doritos, but added a can of Pringles, a can of Orangina and a couple big bottles of Aquafina Water from the Pepsi Bottling Company of Vietnam and got one of those fifties turned into tens and twenties.

Stopped by one of the city's used book stores to trade in two books and get a new one, and then headed back here to have my photos burned to a CD and get online. It wasn't a particularly long afternoon, but it seems like I got a lot crammed in to such a short period.

June 5: Phnom Penh

Another boring day for me. I've caught something, from somewhere, which has lodged itself firmly -- or maybe not firmly enough -- in my gut. In the past 48 hours, I've walked (a little), slept (a lot), read, watched TV, drank water and Sprite, and tried to get healthy again. What an exciting vacation! But, that's the downside of traveling in places like Cambodia. Unless you're hyper-careful, you're going to get sick.

I, obviously, have not been hyper-careful.

My layabout nature in Phnom Penh will probably alter the rest of my trip, though I'm not yet sure what will get axed. I walked to the train station yesterday, a beautiful French building, and found an open gate to the ticket windows, where everything was locked up tight and land mine victims -- or people who were missing limbs for other reasons, I suppose -- had set up camp. Eventually, I found a guard who spoke enough English to confirm that, yes, there's only passenger train still running in Cambodia and, yes, it only runs once a week in each direction.

After my reporting yesterday of the offer of "lady boom boom," I met another tuk tuk driver who also offered me the same experience. In defense of Cambodia, when I told him that I'm married, he apologized for offering me boom boom.

After telling Mom in an e-mail today that it hasn't rained in a week, the skies opened up and I've been holed up in this Internet cafe for two hours, waiting for the rain to end. It's one of those long, soaking downpours that seems to have no permanent end in sight. Every time it slows, I hope that the streets will empty of their runoff. Before that can get close to happening, it's raining again, and I continue to hide out on the Internet.

***

Transportation Update:

So far, I've traveled by:

Airplane (1)

Taxi (4, including once for four hours)

Subway (4)
Elevated Train (2)

Train (1st class sleeper: 1, 2nd class seat: 2)

Tuk Tuk (more times than I can remember)

Van (1)

Bus (3)

Small Boat (1)

Medium Boat (1)

Large Boat (1)

Elephant (1)

Escalator and Moving Walkway (several)

And, of course, feet.

June 4: Phnom Penh

I've been in town for almost 24 hours now, and have only received one offer of "lady boom boom."

"Nah," I told Ali, the driver who said he would procure the aforementioned lady for me. "I'm married."

"Is your wife here? No. She is in your home country," he countered. "She doesn't have eyes that can see into Cambodia."

"Ah, but she does have eyes like that," I said. "She somehow knows everything that happens!"

"Okay," he said, passing me his business card. "But if you change your mind, you call me, okay?"

Assuring him I would call him first if I found myself in need of any extramarital boom boom, I walked away, just as he asked the inevitable next question. "Where you staying?"

"Um, yeah, you don't need to know that, Ali. I have your phone number, remember?"

"Okay, okay," he said dejectedly. It's low season, and everyone is hustling hard to make a buck, and I'm sure I cost him a healthy boom boom commission.

Although I'm staying near the center of a city of 1.2 million people, I woke up at 5:30 this morning to the sounds of crowing roosters. I've had an interesting wander around the city, though I couldn't find a church to attend this morning. The Phnom Penh yellow pages, though in English, were not terribly helpful in pointing me towards a particular church, so I ended up not going.

Internet access is incredibly cheap in Phnom Penh. After spending $1.25 an hour in Siem Reap, I'm now paying just 50 cents an hour for a relatively fast connection. Phnom Penh doesn't have a big backpacker ghetto like many southeast Asia cities, which probably accounts for the better, more local, rates.

June 3: Phnom Penh

Not much to report today. Had a 5.5 hour bus ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia and a city that has always intrigued me.

Of course, I've never been here before, so we'll see if the intrigue remains after a few days.

I'm staying in a hotel just two blocks from the Tonle Sap river, in an area that is supposedly safe to walk around in after dark. That said, however, there appear to be very few streetlights in Phnom Penh, which will probably give "after dark" a whole new meaning!

I've been resting today, not wanting to over do it after yesterday's heat exhaustion, but will hit the streets tomorrow morning for a walking tour of the city. I'll probably spend Monday visiting a couple of Khmer Rouge genocide sites. From there, I'm not sure what will happen next.

June 2: Siem Reap/Angkor Wat

Today was the day to visit Angkor Wat, the magnificent ancient temples that brings most of Cambodia's foreign tourists to this country. Angkor Wat is actually justthe name of one temple in an area full of temples and a magnificent walled city.

They weren't anywhere close to my main reason for coming to Cambodia, though I can't put my finger exactly on why I have wanted to travel here for more than a decade. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that, Angkor Wat aside, "nobody" comes to Cambodia.

I hired Bunny for the day to drive me to the temples and ferry me from one to the next. They're well spread out, and walking from temple to temple would be too exhausting on a short visit. As a point of reference, there are two "courses" for visiting Angkor Wat, the mini course and the full course.

The "mini" course is 17 km.

That's more than 10 miles, just for getting from one temple to the next.

The temples are truly amazing, and I enjoyed visiting them, though one day was enough for me. A one-day admission ticket is $20, three days cost $40, and a week sets you back $60, so it's clearly a better deal to stay longer.

From sunrise over Angkor Wat itself to the immense size of the walled city of Angkor Thom to the crumbling temple of Ta Praham, where parts of the 2000 Angelina Jolie movie Tomb Raider were flimed, my day was full. Like the ancient rulers who built Tikal, the kings who built the temples at Angkor didn't suffer fat, out-of-shape tourists kindly. Steps to the top were, to say the least, steep.

Throughout the day, I had the chance to talk to many Khmer -- most of whom were trying to sell me something -- who live and work around the temples. I met a girl named Sri Kreung, or something close to that, who I talked with for probably 30 minutes as she tried to sell me a tablecloth. The truth of the matter is, I did like the tablecloth, but I was enjoying talking to her and she seemed to enjoy talking to me. She's cute, smart and a good businesswoman: she anticipated all of my reasons for not buying -- don't worry, I have a plastic bag for you so it won't get wet if it rains! don't worry, your driver can lock it in his tuk tuk so you don't have to carry it! don't worry, if your wife doesn't like it, you can tell her that you're a better person because you bought it from me!

She's also talkative: She told me that her parents and teachers tell her that she talks all the time. Having this particular affliction myself, we made a good pair for a conversation about, essentially, nothing.

Sri Kreung told me that she is in 9th grade and that her whole life will probably be spent hawking stuff at Angkor Wat. She had started selling flutes and bracelets when she was 5 years old, and had graduated to shirts and tablecloths after people started telling her she was too old to sell bracelets. She said that most tourists won't talk to her aside from "no thanks" and "go away." I knew this was the case, and wanted to actually talk to the people. What's the point of traveling if you don't meet the people who live where you are traveling?

Eventually, I bought the tablecloth. When I travel to developing countries, I would rather support people who are working, rather than those who are begging.

Another aspect of the temples is that it pays to be there early. I arrived at 5:30 for sunrise; by 9:00, I was being overrun by Korean and Vietnamese tourists. By 11:30, I had the temples mostly to myself again, as the package tourists headed back to their hotels for lunch and a rest.

In retrospect, a rest might not have been a bad idea. By the time I finished at 3:00, I was beat and probably had a small case of heat exhaustion. By 6:00, I was shivering with a fever, taking cold showers, drinking icy banana shakes and eating salty food. After another 11 hours of sleep, I woke up Saturday morning with everything back to normal.

June 1: Siem Reap

Thanks for all your nice e-mails, which I have read this afternoon in an Internet cafe in Siem Reap. I slept until 9:30 this morning, the first time that has happened in days, or maybe weeks. I'll need it tomorrow, when I'll be up at 4:30 to head to Angkor Wat for sunrise.

I met Bunny, the man who drives a tuk tuk for the guest house where I'm staying, last night. His English is great and he seems like a really friendly guy. So after breakfast this morning, I hired him to take me to Aki Ra's land mine museum north of town. It's a fascinating place, supported entirely by donations, where a small group of land mine victims live and study. I met Chet, a 16-year-old former street hustler from Phnom Penh, who gave me a tour of the museum. His biography, printed and laminated and hung on the wall at the museum, says he's "a better dancer with one real leg and one plastic one than most people are with two real legs." The museum itself was sobering and depressing and reminded me -- and probably everyone else who visits -- how cruel we can be to each other. If you have a moment, read the link above. The history of the museum and its founder is truly interesting.

Bunny dropped me off at "E-Cafe," reportedly the only Internet cafe in town to have DSL access, where I've caught up on a week's worth of blogs and am soon going to head out to the market. I'll meet Bunny back at the guest house at 4:30 to head to Angkor Wat, about 6 km north of town, for sunset. If you buy your ticket after 5:00 p.m., it's good for sunset and the next day, so I'll be able to squeeze in a little more time at Angkor Wat. Then, we'll leave at 5:00 tomorrow morning to be there for sunrise. I'll visit the main structures during the day and will, in all probability, be exhausted tomorrow night. One day isn't enough to visit Angkor Wat, I'm sure, but I'm not really in Cambodia for the temples. With the other places I want to visit, one day will have to do it.

I'm planning on heading to Phnom Penh on Saturday for a few days, where I'll organize my onward travels. Next week, I plan to be in southern Cambodia and Phnom Penh, primarily.

May 31: Travel Day, Bangkok to Siem Reap

Wow...Cambodia is so different than Laos. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Up at the ungodly hour of 4:45 this morning to pack and make a 5:55 train to Aranyaprathet, on the Thailand-Cambodia border. Bought a third class ticket for 48 baht, or about $1.25, and upgraded to second class on board for another 63 baht, bringing my ticket price for a 5.5 hour journey to something like $2.50. The train was comfortable, and better than the air conditioned train I had taken the day before. With the fans running and all the windows open, it was actually quite cool inside.

An ambitious tuk tuk driver in Aranyaprathet started running beside my window and negotiating with me even before the train stopped, so I hopped in his tuk tuk for the 6 km trip to the border. He picked up a guy in a kind of brown shirt on the way. I had read about these guys, though I'm not clear on who they work for. His job seemed to be to shepherd my through the process, but frankly, even though the the border is a chaotic mess compared to the border we crossed into Laos, I really didn't need the help, as it's really a very straightforward process to get out of Thailand and into Cambodia. Bought a visa on the border for 1000 baht, which is actually more than the official price of $20, but the guys in the visa section will issue a 1000 baht visa in two or three minutes, but often sit on the $20 visas for hours. It's only five bucks, I reasoned, and while I knew I was making it harder for future travelers, I didn't really want to hang out on the border for two hours, either.

In literally two minutes, I had my visa and was on my way to the checkpoint, where I was quickly stamped into Cambodia then put on a free shuttle bus to the transportation depot. Once there, the guy who had been escorting me tried to sell me a bus ticket (maybe that's his angle?), but I got in a $50 taxi with two Americans and a Korean instead. The bus wasn't leaving for more than 90 minutes, and the $12.50 I paid for my share of the taxi had been planned for in my budget. I was in Siem Reap by 4:30, or just over 10.5 hours, which is considered good for this trip.

While the visa and entry process was easy, Poipet is a stinking, rotting mess and not a good introduction to Cambodia. Neither, for that matter, is National Highway 6, which is in pretty good shape right now, but deteriorates badly in the rainy season. Still, imagine a gravel road after a rough winter, then multiply that by 150 km, and you'll have an idea of the trip. There's a picture of the road, in last year's rainy season, here.

Arriving in Siem Reap, the contrast between the poverty seen on the road here and the huge new hotels being built is stark. Siem Reap seems to be on the expensive side, due to the many well-heeled tourists who are visiting Angkor Wat.