Cambodia Pt 1

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The border crossing into Cambodia was pretty funny. We pulled up on the bus, were instructed to get out and went through customs. They called our names and we were allowed to get back on the bus. I thought it was pretty uneventful. Then we drove about 20 feet and stopped again. They instructed us to get off. They checked our passports yet again, but they still didn't give them back. We all got back on the bus, we drove for about one minute and stopped at a rest stop and had to sit there for about thirty minutes. Finally we got back on the bus and they returned our passports. It was a lot of on and off for no apparent reason that I could see. Anyway, we made it into Cambodia.
Phnom Phen was a lot more mellow than the cities in Vietnam. There were still a ton of people hassling us to ride their tuk-tuk (motorbikes with trailers attached so it can hold like six people), but it was a lot friendlier than the Vietnam motorbike drivers. We found a tuk-tuk and headed to the area with the most guesthouses. By this time, we all had the routine down to find the best guesthouse. We split up and cruised the street with out heavy packs. We ended up finding this guesthouse for $10 a night for all four of us. It was right on the lake and had this really cool outdoor area with hammocks, a boat on the lake attached to the dock that you could chill in, couches, a pool table and movies playing. The room was slightly less than desirable. It was like a portable building they use in schools. The walls were all thin and looked like they were going to blow over and when we moved the beds so we could all get hit by the ceiling fan we were all afraid of what might be lurking beneath. Luckily there was nothing there.
We ended up in the outdoor area of our guesthouse trying for our first time 'buckets'. Buckets are really popular here. For $2 they fill a small bucket with alcohol and a mixer. Vodka, Red Bull please. I was fortunate enough to have someone to share mine with. Some people consume a whole one themselves.
The guesthouse we were staying at had these kids that were playing traditional Khmer music. When I inquired about it I found out that they were from the orphanage and the guesthouse has them come twice a week and preform. I started asking a lot of questions about the orphanages in Phnom Phen and found out some pretty terrible things. A lot of the orphanages have too many kids and no money. It only costs about $1 a day to feed one child, but tons are still going hungry. The girls are often going into prostitution at a really early age and there's a huge issue with AIDS. It's not pretty. I would love to be able to do something to help. I'm thinking about going though a Non-Profit to get some funding to the orphanages. The problem is you don't know what they will do with the money. They could buy rice, or they could buy drugs. The people running them are not all bad, but I was told of some instances where they used money for food and toys for other things.
Our second day in Phenom Phen we went to the Killing Fields and to the National History Musuem.

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Comments

[bejimda]

please please
please please do not stop with these. we love to read them and really need them. guess who wrote this? bandj