Please keep the questions coming--it helps me focus! You can click on photo to enlarge it. I got up this morning and figured that if I waited in the hotel restaurant someone from my tour would show up, which they did. Eventually I took several people over to the old market, where I didn't find a funnel but did find inexpensive dried kaffir lime leaves, which are hard to find in the US these days. Our tour first went to Sala Bai, a training restaurant, for lunch. Here's their blurb: Created in 2002 by the French NGO “Agir Pour Le Cambodge”, Sala Baï is a free hotel school based in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Each year, the school, trains 100 young disadvantaged Cambodians to the four main professions of the hospitality industry: restaurant waiter/waitress, cook, receptionist & ... read more

Early this morning I head back to the airport for the 1-hour hop to Siem Reap, Cambodia. "Siem Reap" means "Victory over Thailand" ("Siem" = "Siam"), which tells you something of the region's history. I could sleep later, but my goal is to get to the airport early enough for breakfast. I had no dinner--there's a market that sets up outside the hotel some nights and it seemed to have distracted all of the staff away from the restaurant. I'm sure I could have found somebody, but dusk was falling and the idea of eating outside with the mosquitoes wasn't appealing (nor, after wandering through the market, was the idea of eating meat). This market has a stall that plays the same 3-minute, repetitive loop of shouted exhortation plus musical snippets over and over from 2:00-7:00 ... read more

Thanks to those of you who have commented. Please let me know when you do if you don't want me to post it! One person said, BRAVE You are seriously brave.... I have TERROR of feeling like I can't "escape' any situation i.e. ENCLOSED PLANES, foreign countries etc... I doubt there is enough XANAX on the planet to see me through a flight...especially LENGTHY flight. But I can imagine how interesting your trip is. There are a few places in the world i would like to see...someday:). I suspect it will be "down the road." I don't see myself as brave. I'm just not claustrophobic in planes (I actually find MRI machines cozy). I also believe, like a good little capitalist, in the power of money and travel insurance to get me home. It might be ... read more

4:45 AM at the airport. There's some chance of thunderstorms along my route, but I don't care much once I get to the departure port for my international flight. My gear weighs 37.5 pounds, which is a little more than I'd like. While I'm not carrying textbooks on this trip (I have a DVD I promised the university last year, and a letter and two CDs from students who have visited the university), the exomesh backpack cover adds a little weight, and all the tiny electronics add up: *ASUS eee computer, charger, Targus travel mouse *Olympus recorder, 4 AAA batteries, lapel mike, USB drive *Phone, charger *iPod, connector, splitter, earbuds, charger *Canon camera, spare battery, spare SD card *Solar charger, USB connecter, charge connector, iGo tip (more about this later) *Alarm clock *Book light Nothing heavy ... read more

I've got a pile of potential trip items to sort through this evening, clothing air drying nearby, and a liter of water being treated with chlorine dioxide tablets so I can find out how that tastes. I'm aiming for a greener trip, which means, among other things, decreasing the number of plastic bottles I use. In Cambodia, a lot of plastic waste is burned, which is quite toxic, but the tap water is not potable. Potential solution for people who can't boil water: Iodine or sodium dioxide tablets. Iodine is quicker but tastes terrible. Vitamin C (like Emergen-C, for example) not only improves the taste but causes the iodine to precipitate out. Others on my tour are using iodine, but I've opted for sodium dioxide for noble empirical reasons and selfish personal reasons--Emergen-C has sugar, and ... read more