Somala

Today we drove to the Tonle Sap Lake and took boat tour of the Chong Khneas floating village. It's very interesting to see these floating houses on the lake. It was a whole village of houses just floating on the lake. The village was complete with floating shops, restaurants, elementary school, pool hall, boat repair shops. We even passed by a wedding reception. Yup the women were dressed up very nicely and getting into boats on the river. It was very fun and very interesting. For the rest of the day, we spent at the Khmer Cultural Village. There were presentations of different Khmer dance and traditions of different villages and minority Khmer cultures. The shows lasted the whole day. Each show was 10 minutes apart and it was treachorous to go from one presentation to ... read more

Today we toured the temples of Angkor Wat. It is so much more impressive in person that any picture that I have ever seen. The details of the temples are simply amazing. There is just so much detail on the architecture and it the carvings are just beautiful. It was raining off and on, but when it wasn't raining it was really very hot. We hired a tour guide for the day which cost us $20 and we tipped him $5. He showed us around and told us the stories of the carvings on the walls. It was well worth it. If there was one place that we wished we had more time was here. We could wonder the ruins forever. It's just so cool and Jeff enjoyed the "Indiana Jones" feel of it. We started ... read more

Finally arrived in Siem Reap after a torturous 7 hour car ride from Phnom Penh. It wouldn't have been so bad if my tummy wasn't cramping the whole time but I survived. Once again, the scenery on the drive was just amazing. I couldn't imagine how some of these people live in those little huts with no electricity. We stopped at some relatives houses on the way. It was nice to meet some of these people and to see their houses. We will be here for about 4 nights, so I will write more when we do more things. Today, we are just going to relax and have dinner by the pool.... read more

We drove about 4 hours to a small resort town called Koh Kong. There is not really much to do here except eat, relax on the beach/pool and gamble at the 5 star resort next door. There aren't many tourists around here, so we have lots of privacy and the resort practically to ourselves. Unfortunately, because of the lack of tourists here, many of the hotels are also closed. Today we went to Safari Land where we saw many interesting animal shows. The most impressive was when the man dared to put his arm and head in the jaws of a live crocodile. I was very scared. We were very dissapointed to discover that the chimpanzees were not feeling well and the chimpanzee boxing match was cancelled today. Jeff was the most disappointed out of all ... read more

Friday is our last day in Phnom Penh. My cousins decided to have cereal for breakfast so Jeff and I were on our own. We crossed the street to the cafe and ordered 2 bowls of beef stew with bread. Guess what the total for our breakfast was... $15000 riel... which is about $4.75. That includes coffee! I can't believe how cheap it has been here =) We packed all of our things and went to the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum. Eveyone got in for free except Jeff. This is actually an old elementary school that the Pol Pot used to torture and imprison people. The buildings were 3 stories tall, and there were some left over bones of victims that were found there. Each of the victim's rooms had paintings and pictures of what they ... read more

Mostly went to family's houses on day 3 & visited the Tuol Tompong (Russian Market). We bought many crafts and gifts for people. Bargaining was kind of fun and I was surprised that I was able to get away with the prices. Mostly they see Jeff and start with the highest price possible. We talked someone from $25 to $12 on something. My favorite thing that I bought here is a necklace of my name in Cambodian in Silver for $15. The best bargain that we didn't even ask to lower their price on was t-shirts for $2. I followed my mom's advice on not paying for anything over 50% of their asking price. The most challenging thing we did so far was crossing the street. Pedestrians do not have the right of way here and ... read more

On our second day in PP, we woke up around 4am. The sun was just coming up over the Mekong River and it was just beautiful!!! Luckily our room had the PERFECT view! I kept trying to take pictures through our glass doors, and the pictures were just coming out terrible. Jeff wouldn't let me go outside because he was afraid of mosquitos. I went out anyways to get better pictures. It was just stunning. We visited the Royal Palace today. Wow that place is cool. Some rooms made up of pure silver tiles. Some statues made of pure gold and diamond inlays. We hired a guide and learned a lot of history about the place. We didn't meet the king. We also went to the National Museum which had some very cool stone artifacts and ... read more

We've arrived at the Hong Kong airport. It was a very bumpy ride considering we passed over the top of a Typhoon. It is humid & cloudy here. We only have about 2 hours of layover until our flight to Phnom Penh. I'll write more when we get there hopefully! Just wanted everyone to know we made it to Hong Kong at least =)... read more

Awesome time in Phnom Penh (PP) so far! We were greeted by an entourage of family - faces that I have never seen before, though they knew all about me. They packed in all of our luggage onto the bed of a pickup truck and we were on our way to our Hotel - the Blue River Hotel. Driving around PP was definitely an experience. Very similar to driving around India or Sri Lanka. The road lines are there, but can't figure out the system around here... though it's not as hectic as I imagined. The hotel sits on the bed of the Mekong River and our room has a beautiful view. Our relatives waited for us while we freshened up and treated us to a great lunch at a restaurant overlooking the river. It was ... read more

Our last day of our honeymoon. It's so very sad! But at least we get to spend it in Sydney! I love this city! I said the shopping in Brisbane was good.. well Sydney beats it! If you are a shopper, you have to visit the Pitt Street Mall. The place was just a huge maze of shops! We didn't have too much time to spend there since we only have 1 day in Sydney but I got a taste of it when I told Jeff I had to "go to the bathroom" and we got to walk around the mall trying to find one :) Oh I would have loved to have more time in Sydney. It was definitely an International city. We stopped by the Opera House of course, and they happened to be ... read more