Goodbye Phnom, Hello Siem We wake up early and go for breakfast before getting on the boat to Siem Reap. PP is actually quite pleasant at sunrise, the locals are setting up the market stalls, and the colors on the water, cooler temperature, and slowed traffic are refreshing. We are told the boat ride takes 6-8 hours. It costs us each $ 35.00. A bus would be $11, but would take longer, and we thought a boat would be cool. We grab lunch right by the port and get to go lunches for the trip. I'm sticking with eggs and toast for breakfast, but the rest of the crew has jumped on the Cambodia breakfast wave and are eating noodles and pineapple fried rice. We get to the boat and we are immediately swindled into paying ... read more

My sticky body eventually makes it out of the National Museum. I then decide to make my way towards the Silver Pagoda and the Royal Palace, mainly because they are very large appearing on my tourist map. Unfortunately, things are completely unmarked in PP, and I keep entering a lot of other large temples and monuments, none of which are actually my intended destination. It's unclear to me the criteria for achievement of emboldened map status. And since we all know my comically horrific sense of direction, I just bobble around and ultimately find myself in a throng of young school children all in uniform in a park type setting. After I buy a pineapple shake for sustenance, of course. Best way to spend a dollar. I follow the masses and find I have arrived at ... read more

Okay, behind in blogs and now too far out, so abbreviated end of NZ blog. Gimme a break fools. (Music: album; With a little help from my fwends - Flaming Lips) For our last full day, we set out to do a hike by the very elusive Mount Cook. We have been trying to see this mountain top from multiple cities and look outs, but clouds, timing and weather has prevented any real view. So in our minds, it doesn't really exist yet. So we drive to Mount Cook from Wanaka, and arrive at quite a posh little resort community. There's a 5 star hotel and a really nice museum at the trail heads and a gift shop. There are exhibits on the history of the mountain, including the longest, deadliest, and highest rescue efforts of ... read more

Meet Franz and Fox - Our Glaciers So we leave Greymouth and make our way to glacier country, just about a 2.5 hour drive away. We restructured our trip so that we were chasing the sun instead of the thunderstorms. We saw that the storms were headed South to the Fiordland, so we elected to do Wanaka and Queenstown and the glaciers first, and then Milford Sound after. FUNFACT: Fiordlands are carved out by glaciers, and Sounds by rivers. So Milford Sound is actually a misnomer, We drive first to Fox Glacier, the smaller of the two glaciers. We have good weather for the drive, but have to don our raingear for the hike. I'm quite the vision in my bright yellow poncho and floral umbrella. At least we weren't like the fools we saw on ... read more

Chasing that cloud. ...or a few more clouds than we bargain for... Finally on my flight to Christchurch, which is very unremarkable except for my exit row seat. I arrive and make it through customs quickly (as long as you don't have fresh produce or soil on your hiking boots there are no snags). The plan is for me to get the rental car and drive to the hotel to meet Anjali who arrived earlier. I'm looking for the rental car company, and I hear a smart voice say, "So you're just going to walk right past me?" And there is my 5'0" gorgeous smart ass best friend there to greet me. She has her chic little furlined jacket on, and looks like an Aspen babe about to hit the slopes, and I look like a ... read more