Cambodia in Nutshell (Unfortunately)

The trip through Cambodia has been short and sweet, a bit too short though. We crossed over the border from Bangkok about a week ago. The first Cambodian town we saw was Poipet, and it felt as though it could have been hell. It was like walking across the US Mexican border and finding yourself in Jaurez....maybe a bit of an exaggeration. In any case, it was dirty, hot and everyone was trying to rip us off. Every tourist who crosses over gets latched on to by a man who will not leave your side. After they herd all the tourists to the "bus station"(not of the local variety) the man who has followed you tries sell you a bus ticket to a bus that will drop you off directly at his guesthouse in Seim Reap. It was horrible and being the stubborn girls we are we spent 2 hours, along with 5 Spanish girls, haggling to get a mini bus to take us there. We finally got a good deal and after 6 hours on a bumpy dirt road and a dinnerstop where our driver preceeded to drink about 5 8% beers, we arrived safetly at 10 pm. We found a hotel room with a bathroom and TV fro $5 a night!!!! We were quite happy since we were paying twice that for our bathroomless bungalo in Thailand that only had electricty for a couple hours at night. Angkor Wat was really amazing. It is the biggest religious structure in the world, and Khemer people take a lot of pride in it....even their beer is named after it. We rode bikes there which was quite an adventure especially weaving in and out of cars, motorbikes, richshaws, and pedestrians during rush hour.

We have spent the past four days in Phenom Pehnm, the capital. It is a busy, dirty, exiting city with lots of motorbikes. you would not believe what they can carry on those things, includingdead pigs, trees, babies, or maybe a months worth of groceries. It kind of reminds me of Kathmandu; no traffic lights, no rules, dead by 9 pm. We have some friends from our TEFL course who are teaching here and it has been nice to visit with them and catch up. Today we went to school with them and it made me pretty excited to get in the classroom.
Food here is interesting, last night we went to this place where you barbque and cook your own soup on your table. One thing that Cambodians rave about, are duck fetuses. They fertalize duck eggs and then boil them at a certain stage...I don't think I could stomach it. One girl told us you have to be careful because eating them gives some people pimples. We also ate ice cream on a hotdog bun.

We spent yesterday learning about the genocide that took place here in Cambodia in the late 70s. It was so disturbing I don't even want to write about it. I will say though, that the US government backed the Pol Pot regime which was responsible for killing about 2 million Cambodians (mostly intellectuals, the educated and their families) in the name of creating a communist state...does that seem ironic to anyone else?

Internet in Cambodia is painfully slow so I will try and post some pictures in Vietnam.