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.

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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.