We are doing fine here in Sihanoukville the beach capital of Cambodia. The sand is nice and there is plenty of crowd free beach and tons of food options. Our first full day at the beach we over did it and Jasmine got sun burnt. The hawkers can get annoying but if you want for anything as you lounge on the sand it can be delivered to you (prawns, squid, fruit, jewelry, sunglasses, charity cases, spring rolls, souvineers, massage and the list goes on), for excape our hotel has a quiet pool. The place has a slight feel of being spoiled [View Full Entry]

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We spent a couple nights in Kep which is on the coast about 25km from Kampot. Kep was the seaside resort town for Cambodia before the civil wars left most of its fancy seaside mansions destroyed. Now its a very quiet place to relax and watch the sunset. For the first night though Ethan and I took a boat to Koh Tonsay (Rabbit Island) and roughed it a bit on this undeveloped paradise. We had our own little bamboo bungalow and basically lounged around eating fresh crab and fish, playing chess and cards, swimming. Also did a little beachcombing and Ethan [View Full Entry]

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We have had a couple enjoyable days in Kampot. Our hotel reservation went wrong and when we arrived on the slow bus (read: should have taken a taxi) from Phnom Penh had to settle for a musty double for Trudy and Jasmine. We "men" got a triple with suspitious looking turds on the bed covers and thin walls, actually opon cracks to the next room. The guest staying there was kind enough later to light up one of Cambodia's finest, "Dad, what's that smell?" Sure enough in the wee hours of the morning was the familiar sound of scurrying rats, memories [View Full Entry]

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We are back in Phnom Penh again this time on our way to Kampot in the south. While preparing for this trip it was apparent there was a great need here. Cambodia is a country only just beginning to emerge from the ravages of war. American bombing in the 60s, civil war, genocide, and more civil war pretty well sums up the previous 40 years. We have been witness to a building boom here, much of it being generated for and from the tourism industry. However once the hotels are built then what? Not everyone can drive tuktuk or clean hotel [View Full Entry]

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Today we took a taxi two hours north to Kratie with hopes we would see the endangered Irawaddy dolphins. It was a very scenic drive starting out on new pavement and ending with dusty potholed dirt road. Our taxi driver, the typical Cambodian variety, was king of the road with the force he exerted on the horn second only to the force he exerted on the accelerator. We were rewarded with amazing views of the dolphins three of which surfaced right beside our boat. [View Full Entry]

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Another travel day. From Battambang we caught a bus which took us back to Phnom Penh in 6 hrs. We got Cambodian music videos which we thought were bad until the Cambodian standup comedy came on. That was followed by a bad Chinese vampire movie! We were only in Phnom Penh long enough to find transport to Kampong Cham. Of course we were met by a barrage of tuktuk drivers and so we enlisted one to take us from the bus station to where the taxis for Kampong Cham were waiting. With the five of us and our bags that makes [View Full Entry]

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Our six hour boat trip ended up being ten hours, not counting over an hour picking up people and getting to the water. The first couple hours were quite cold crossing the Tonle Sap lake, who would have thought of bringing windbreakers to Cambodia? not us. After crossing the lake we travelled up river the first part of which was very nice floating fishing villages and mangrove forest. We actually saw more floating village life than we did during our Mekong trip. The river got quite narrow, shallow and winding to the point where we bottomed on occasion and also bumped [View Full Entry]

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We walked around the ruins of Preah Khan today then took a baloon ride up to get a birds eye view of the area around Ankor Wat. After kunch we visited the land mine museum. Run by a former Khmer Rouge child soldier who has dedicated his life to removing land mines and unexploded ordinances from Cambodia. Very eye opening. I added a few pictures to the last entry. You may have noticed I have reduced the quality of the pictures quite a bit to make them easier to load with the slow internet here. Tomorrow will be our last day [View Full Entry]

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Having a great time here despite the boys having a little tummy trouble. Trudy blames the street food we have been eating but I like to think its the more expensive meals that are doing it. On Saturday we took the Mekong Express bus to Siem Reap, lots to see along the road. Got checked into our hotel and had a swim in the pool. We lined up one of the hotel tuk tuk drivers Lim to take us around for the week. Later in the afternoon Lim took us to buy our passes for the ruins and we climbed Bakheng [View Full Entry]

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We had one day in Phnom Penh before proceeding to Siem Riep and the temples of the Khmer empire. More recent Cambodian history was to dominate our day today. We started by meeting our tuk tuk driver Tha outside our hotel. Tha drove tuk tuk for friends of ours who were in Cambodia last year so I had his number and called him the night before. First we went to the Tuol Sleng Museum. Up until 1975 this was a high school but then the Khmer Rouge turned it into their security prison S-21 where they detained and tortured over 17,000 [View Full Entry]

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