greetings from the kingdom of cambodia

ive just arrived in siem reap this afternoon and ive been having a great time here in cambodia. im hot and sticky and i dont have my usb cord so im just gonna speed-type up what ive been up to. i think the last time i posted id just arrived in phnom penh and we had so much fun there. its hard to recall exactly what we did but let's see....

one of the days we went to the killing fields which is where the khmer rouge murdered thousands upon thousands of fellow cambodians and it was quite disturbing. there's still bits of clothing and human bone jutting out of the dirt in the fields and there's a large stupa housing something like 9 levels of human skulls and bones. i took a couple of pictures and felt kinda morbid doing it but well i did it anyway. then we went to s-21 which is the high school the khmer rouge turned into one of the most gruesome prisons. classrooms were turned into tiny tiny cells and torture chambers and they had tons of pictures of the prisoners who were kept there. also super sick. so that day overall was grossly disturbing but i guess its one of those things you have to do in cambodia.

we also spent one day walking around in the extreme heat which was lovely. we went to the royal palace which was beautiful but you're not allowed to be sleeveless in the palace so i had to rent a stinky t-shirt to wear over my clothes. this was unpleasant and ever so slightly hindered my palace-going experience. by the way, i totally dont recall the timeline of what ive been doing so im just tossing out things i did but in no particular order. it probably doesnt matter anyway so í shall continue!

on another day, i dragged mini out for a day of shopping. we went to the new/central market which was like a giant maze of stalls and it was super intense. you can buy just about everything in the markets over here, with piles of shoes right next to live fish, right next to dresses, watches, electronics, jewellery, food. you can even get a manicure/pedicure next to the meat section of the market. anyway, i was on a mission to get a skirt cause its fucking sweltering hot here and a skirt is perfect for that. a skirt is also perfect for squat toilets. anyway the market was fun, i got shirts for like $2 which is always good cause all my clothes that i brought over are either cut up or tossed. then we went to what was basically a mall as it was air conditioned and had like 6 floors or somethign like that. i couldnt actually find anything in the mall which was upsetting however it had a supermarket. the best supermarket in the universe! oh but before i get into that, i wanna just say i found A&W root beer over here. how immense is that!? the guys im travelling with thought it tasted like shit and cant understand the wonder that is root beer but thankfully i found a fellow vancouverite who very nearly started drooling when i told him i had a can lying in the fridge in my hotel. aaaaanyway, the supermarket is fantastic and you can buy everything from brie cheese to cheetos (that may not sound thrilling to you , but it is. trust me, it is.) i bought a clay face mask there and made my face feel actually clean for a full couple hours that nite.

but the best day in phnom penh is when we hired a tuk tuk driver to take us around for a full day. we went to the russian market (im not sure why its named that, we think its cause you used to be able to buy ak-47s there) which was just another giant market but i actually found two skirts there and i was super pumped over that. we also went to the seeing hands massage which has fantastic blind masseuses (not sure of spelling and couldnt be bothered right now to find out but apparently i can type out this whole blurb of how i dont know the spelling) and i just got worked like never before. my woman was super strong and basically beat the shit out of me. muscles i didnt know could hurt hurt like a bitch but then i felt great afterwards. we also saw an elephant and a monkey eating an ice cream bar (and yes, i was jealous of the monkey) in the park. we also went to see free style khmer kickboxing! it only cost 300o riel which is like 75 cents or something and it was crazy intense. i think the only rules are something like no biting, kicking in the groin, no hitting when the other person's down. they also play this crazy khmer music that i dont know what it sounds like, maybe like snake charmer music (that sounds so wrong but perhaps that'll give you a general jist. i have it on video anyway, i'll post it soon) and the fighters kinda bounce around to the music before they kick the shit out of one another. it was fun times.

im not doing my time in phnom penh justice with this post but it'll have to do for now! so after 4 nites in PP, we were off to battambang. on our bus we were the other foreigners which was kinda cool. anyway we arrived there, got mauled by people that worked for the hotels and ended up at one hotel but eventually switched the next day. apparently the 2 hotels are total rivals complete with sabotage and beatings. anyway we wanted to go on motorbike tours in the areas surrounding battambang with the guides from the chhaya hotel cause apparently they're the best (and they sooo are) but they couldnt take us cause we were staying at their rival hotel so we ended up moving and it was so a good decision. me, mini and ed went with 3 guides and they were a total blast, it was one of the best days in a long time. they took us through the countryside, through small villages and to a bunch of sites around. we saw buddhist temples, a buddhist school, we climbed something like 350 stairs in apparently 41C heat to reach this little baby angkor wat. we also went up a mountain that had a buddhist temple that was turned into a prison by the khmer rouge and also the killing caves where people were just hurled into and left to die. very sick yet again.

but it was tons of fun, just insanely hot which i'll have to get used to anyway. i think i sweated more yesterday (sorry, i forgot to mention this moto tour thing was yesterday) than ever before in my life. i now understand the term 'sweating buckets' cause im pretty sure thats what i did. it was sick. plus we were extra gross cause we were covered with dust from the dirt 'roads' (i say 'roads' cause really, they barely were that. more like dirt paths wich potholes and tons of bumps). the sweat was the perfect adhesive for said dirt. and then we got caught in a quick rainstorm so the dirt on our bodies turned to mud. we mustve looked so hot. anyway the highlight though was the bamboo train. basically its like a bamboo platform with an engine and there's only one track so if another train is coming towards you, the train that has less stuff on it has to get off the track. unfortunately we didnt have the pleasure of running into another train but it was still a crazy ride. it goes pretty quickly and the track is crazy bumpy so it was some good times.

anyway, our guides were the shit, they were so much fun it was sad to leave them. we took them out for beers and shakes (by the way, its like a way of life to consume ridiculous amounts of fruit shakes over here) and one of our guides apparently never drank before and got kinda tanked after 2 beers. it was a fantastic day.

and then today we took a boat up here to siem reap cause apparently its the most scenic route in all of cambodia. our boat was small and crowded but its true, the scenery is lovely even though i fell asleep a couple of times. but gimme a break, it was over 7 hours long! it felt for disneyland jungle cruise (i suppose it should be the other way around really) and it was fun. we saw floating villages and the surrounding jungle is beautiful. however it's dry season here so the water's very low and we crashed into the riverbank a few times but it was all part of the fun and games. anyway, there's not much to do in battambang itself but the cutest kids in the entire universe live around there so if you're a kid-lover, head on over. they're not trying to sell you anything and are just so happy and are always smiling and waving and yelling hello. i dont like kids and i still liked them so there you have it. so now here we are in siem reap and were off to angkor wat tomorrow which is something like the largest religious site in the world. and for my angelina jolie girls back home, tomb raider was filmed there so yeee-haw.

anyway, hopefully i'll post pictures soon. but in the meantime do check out ed's blog; its under my link's section (edsanoz). he's totally dedicated and has posted roughly a kajillion pictures so that should tide you over.