Cambodia - Angkor What?!?

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Okay, I really am starting to slip with these blogs, so I'm just going to fire off a short one this time with a lot of pictures to try to get caught up.

As some of you may know, Jenn (my girlfriend) came out to Cambodia to join me for two weeks over New Years. She's still alive and safely at home, so you can take that as a good sign that I took it somewhat easy on her. Though I did have her trek through the jungle to befriend three very passionate leeches that all tried to giver her an ankle hickey! I'm sorry there aren't any pics of the leeches, but being the conscientious and thoughtful boyfriend that I am I decided it was best not to ask her to leave the leeches on for an extra minute or two while I pulled out my camera (though I did certainly think about it 😊 ).

Now for some general thoughts on Cambodia & Southeast Asia:

SKIP & GO NAKED - I've decided that I love naked babies / kids. They are all over the place in Laos and Cambodia. And, as a general rule, it seems that the size of the kids smiles grow inversely with the amount of clothes they wear. The seem to absolutely glow and start giggling as soon as they wiggle out of their shirts and pants.

KIDS & BIKES - There are a lot of things here that you experience but just can't quite capture on film. One of my favorites is kids on bikes. Since bikes are relatively expensive, it seems that families tend to share just one or two which means the smallest kids are often riding adult bikes. Now, this is just awesome because the kids either 1) can sit on the seat and only reach the peal when it's in the upper half of it's revolution so they're only pushing one pedal at a time, or 2) are SO short that can't sit and need to stand which means their heads maybe come up to the level of the handlebars. In the case of the kids who can reach the pedals only half the time, they have this awesome way of riding that has them slowly weaving back and forth like they are kind of drunk. And, for the shortest kids who have to stand, they have to find amazingly innovative techniques for stopping and starting - I saw one kid who jumped off while holding the handle bars and then just skidded with his shoes for breaks. Even the locals were chuckling every time they saw him!

LAOTIAN SMILES - Where I said in an earlier blog that Thais like to laugh a lot, I have to say that Lao people seem to smile the most. Wherever you go they are always have beautiful, genuine smiles.

WE ARE THE ENTERTAINMENT - For the most part, Jenn and I stayed to fairly main-stream tourist places in Cambodia. For our last stop, though, she agreed that we could visit a national park that was kind of out of the way. We spent two days in a small town (500-1000) people, and we were the only white people / tourists outside of the bus station area (the few other tourists we saw got off the buses and immediately got on boats to other places). So, for two days, every single person in town waved to us and said hello, and the kids usually yelled hello 5-6 times every time we passed. By the end, my throat started to hurt from responding to all of them and my face started to hurt from smiling!

YOU CALL THAT A KNIFE?!? - I swear one of the most common toys / items that kids carry (both boys and girls) are knives. And I'm not talking butter knives or pocket knives. I'm talking the machete kind. It's not uncommon to see a 6 or 7 year old on the front step cutting / shaping something with a 14-16+ knife (very sharp). Now, I know it makes sense since they often help out with chores and other efforts, but it's still REALLY weird to be walking along a trail to a village and see 3 7-year-old girls walking around with machetes while smiling and giggling!

FREE TOILETS - On all of the long bus rides I've taken, the buses have had to stop every two hours so people can have a bathroom break since there are no toilets on the bus. Now, when we make these stops, the owners tend to charge 20 cents or so to use the restroom. Now, to get around this, most of the men just walk to / through the bathroom and pee on the building. I don't know why but I still find it funny every time to see a line of men peeing on a restroom.

MONKS ARE PEOPLE TOO - As you've likely noticed by now, I like taking pictures of monks in their bright orange robes. As I've mentioned to some of you before, I've learned on this trip that most monks here really are just normal people who spend several weeks or months doing the monastic thing before going back to their normal lives. This point has been made very clear twice on this trip. The first time was in northern Thailand when I was in an internet cafe and there was a monk sitting next to me uploading pictures of himself to facebook (in the pictures he was shirtless and covered in body paint wearing a cowboy hat). The second time happened in Cambodia. You'll see three pictures below of two monks (19-20 years old) looking thoughtfully out over the horizon. Jenn and I didn't want to disturb them, so we stayed back and tried to take a few pictures. When they finally noticed that we were there, they asked where we were from. When I told them that we were from America, they got SUPER excited and asked if I was a cowboy (because of my hat) and then started talking about Britney spears!

Okay, the internet place I'm in is closing in 5 mins, so I'm going to cut it off here. I'm headed to Borneo in a couple of days, so it may be a while before my next posting. Keep your fingers crossed that I don't get attacked / adopted by a family of orangutans!!!

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Comments

[Mom]

Another fun blog
Hey Andy ---it's fun to see the world through your travels. It looks like Jen was having a good time too as she was smiling. yuck-leeches that would take her smile away! As usual, you looked like you were having a great time with those adorable kids. Looking forward to hearing about more of your travels in a month while you're home! Love, Mom