Phnom Penh, Cambodia

March 7-9
I have been in Phnom Pnh for 2 days now. The trip here was hilarious. I left Trat at 6am for the border town of HatLek/Ko Kong which is at the narrowest point of Thailand, literally less than 50m from the road along the border is the ocean, it's beautiful countryside. I was immediately bombarded by Cambodians at the border who want to help you with EVERYTHING from carrying your bag across to helping you fill out your visa forms and get you a moto ride, ANYTHING to make a buck. This behaviour only gets more overwhelming in the cities, where they will come right up to your dinner table on the patio and try to beg, sell you books or sunglasses, or simly ask for food (children do most of the begging); is a clear indication of the fact that Cambodia is still one of the poorest nations in the world. The van from the border to Phnom Penh was the hilarious part as there were 7 travellers on board and about halfway there the driver pulled over in the middle of a round about where we were supposedly "switching buses". He proceede to HAIL buses down and try to herd us into an already full minibus of Chinese tourists! Luckly the American boys with us forcefully refused and put all our bags back onto our bus, until the driver flagged down a big bus and we all piled onto it, assured we wouldn't have to pay. Very strange idea of integrity from some of the people here... I guess the driver wanted to go to the beach for the afternoon or something.

Anyways, Phnomn Penh is quite nice along the riverfront with many ritzy hotels and patios combined with the usual rustic traditional restaurants. My hostel is very nice and within walking distance, plus i'm paying $1 US for a dorm bed- a steal!! Things are actually relatively expensive here (relative to the standard of living and to prices in Thailand); I think this is because of the high usage of US $$ but no small US coins, so things often get rounded up to 1$ when they really should be much cheaper, especially moto and tuk tuk transportation!

I met a guy from SFU at my hostel on the first day, and isn't the world SOO small that he was on Sandy's rowing team!!! THese surprises never cease to amaze me. I made a Cambodian friend (Poun)who works at my favorite local restaurant where I have eaten 3 times already (I feel kind of bad but I've checked out menus all along the river and this seems best!) and he drove me around the city one afternoon on his moto, we even went to the mall where Lacoste shirts still cost over $70 US!!! The contrast is Asia gets more and more obvious everyday, especially here in Cambodia with all of the outright begging.

I went for a run along the riverfront yesterday morning for a change of routine and all of the local people stared at me like I was absolutely MAD- obesity is defintely not a problem in Cambodia so I don't think the idea of running in the heat for pleasure has really occurred to them. I also visited the s-21 genocide museium, located at the compund in the city where Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge housed/tortured prisoners before there were executed during his regime. It was good to see, although sometimes I feel guilty that I'm not incredibly moved by these kinds of displays; it seems that humans have always done (and continue to do) incredibly horrible things to each other and I feel somewhat jaded to the whole thing.

I am very excited to get up to Siem Reap and the famed and ancient temples of Ankor Wat (my main interest in Cambodia- Phnom penh is just a stopover to get money changed and get my Laos visa processed). Write more from there and hopefully post photos soon too!