Cambodia - A new adventure starts

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So we left Vietnam and headed into Cambodia by boat. It was supposed to be 3 hour ride ... 6 hours was more like it. This is a fast ferry and it's packed. Inside I meet a man who is from Orinda (near my home town in CA) and he is also touring Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand (just in different order). I actually meet several people from the states and we have fun sharing stories and tips to help each other. Our first stop is at the Vietnam border. We all are supposed to stay on the boat as the captain has our passports. The captain comes up to me and tells me to grab my bag and go to up to the ramp to the authorities. Everyone is looking at me and asking why they want me. I'm a bit freaked out myself but act like it's no biggie. I'm sure someone will notify the US Authorities if I don't get back on the boat. It's really no big deal - it's like a random security search at the airport but when I got back down to the boat, I told everyone that I was stripped searched. I wish I could have captured the look on their faces. Too funny. Everyone is back on the boat and then we go about 20 feet to the next dock - Cambodia. Everyone off the boat and through customs. This takes a long time but it was good to just get off the boat. We finally arrive in Phnom Penh - 3 hours later than planned and meet our guide for the day. We go and have lunch and then off to the Genocide Museum. This was very interesting but emotionally difficult. It's hard to believe that this happened not that long ago. The museum is the actual S-21 (which use to be a school before they turned it into a torture camp) so you can see the devices they used. There is a room where they have on display all of the photos of the people they tortured before they killed them. They killed children, babies, old and young - I had to leave and sit outside as I couldn't stop crying. Over 2 million people killed for no reason. I'm glad that we didn't have time to go out to the Killing Fields as I just don't think I could have taken anymore. I will say that viewing that museum has changed the way that I look at the Cambodian people on this tour. My heart goes out to them in so many ways.
We finally check into our hotel. It's so beautiful - on the outside - and a good location, across the street from the King's palace. I'm sure you picked up on the key word "outside". The room itself wasn't bad but somehow we were the only ones on the second floor and we didn't have any lights or water. That's right, no water until you turned it on. We had to turn on our water with the knob next to the toilet because if you didn't turn it off the water in the sink would run all night. We also had a leak in the shower - so we put a towel on the shower floor to protect our feet from the pure "ick" of it. I finally lost it in the morning when the toilet wouldn't work. All I ask for is that the room is clean and I have a working bathroom. I was just ready to get the heck out of dodge but let me tell you....that wasn't easy either. We rode our bikes through busy traffic (almost got taken out a few times from various types of vehicles and pedestrians). Snaw, our bike guide for Cambodia, told me that we would be on "off road'' paths with shade ... he lied!!!! Oh how I miss Vietnam bike paths. In Cambodia I was on a red dirt road (like Georgia red clay) for 27km - there was no shade and by the end of it, my mouth felt like I licked the dirt road. We were told that it's only going to get worse. Thankfully Margaret was with me and kept me laughing the whole way ... she kept saying that we need to pray harder for a Pagoda so we could stop and breath. Where's a Pagoda when you need one???

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