The monks have already come and gone — the ceremony for your passing lasting most of the morning. Perhaps you know this. Perhaps you don’t. That’s the big mystery, isn’t it?

I’m glad to have met you this past week. For once it was nice to speak with someone who didn’t come to Cambodia to find the youngest woman, or the one with the most-well connected family, or to find an ever-changing cast of taxi girls. You spent your time and your money on Srey Mom, who, at 37, has one of the most heart-breaking life stories I have ever heard. For that I respect you much.

You told me just yesterday morning that you were very ill. I didn’t know how to respond then, and less than twelve hours later, you were gone.

And now, Srey Mom is standing alone, chest heaving, inconsolable.

You are missed. Farewell, buddy.

Life is back to normal, if that’s what you’d call this. Where I live is not far off the beaten path here, but far enough so that I’m a curiousity to my neighbors, as they are to me. I have a very pleasant apartment with a small patio, if that’s what you’d call this concrete slab, and very kind and pleasant neighbors. It’s far from luxurious, but one person taking up this much space to the Khmer seems extravagant. It’s just two large rooms and a bathroom, really. It was a bit disconcerting the first day I moved in — about ten people followed me through my front door and collected in my front room before I had even put my bags down.
They all removed their shoes before entering, so I also knew they were entering with respect – but awkward? A touch. I spoke with a few of them, but I’m still only able to understand only 25% of what I hear (unless people speak to me like a child). My vocabulary hasn’t been expanding as rapidly since I’ve started to practice reading and writing.

Every night, the neighbors gather in one neighbor’s backyard/volleyball court/restaurant for a few hours of karaoke and beer. I was invited to join them tonight, but I’m waiting patiently for when I can do it the right way.

I now have all but one of my classes running smoothly. I say this tentatively, because you all probably know how delicate the balance is.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of my private university students – if they had a collective work ethic anything like my private grammar school students, it could have spelled disaster. Given only a course title, “Communication Studies” and a Cambridge Book on cultural studies to teach from that’s essentially People Magazine with a glossary, my professorial career was launched.

Come to think of it, it’s more like if People Magazine were an audiobook with an accompanying photo pullout.

And you only had the pullout.

The university I work for doesn’t have the audiotape/cd required for any of the student exercises in the photobook. But there’s the glossary, and counts for something.

So for my two classes, I prepared a survey on “communications” and had my students answer with a show of hands.

The results:

Have you ever….?

Mailed a personal letter? (1 of 35 students)

Mailed a postcard (0/35)

Sent a business letter (0/35)

Written a resume/CV (4/35)

Filled out a job application (4/35)

Sent a letter of inquiry to a company or organization (0/35)

Applied to a selective school (1/35)

Applied for a scholarship (1/35)

Written a letter of complaint (0/35)

Sent a fax (0/35)

Sent an email (20/35)

Called a family member in another country (12/35)

Called someone other than a family member in another country (1/35)

Chatted online with friends (6/35)

Chatted online with a friend in another country (3/35)

Chatted online with a stranger (6/35)

Used a webcam (4/35)

Built a website (1/35)

Read a blog (0/35)

Blogged (0/35)

Played an online game against other players (1/35)

Traveled outside of Cambodia (0/35)

Do you….?

Have a website/blog? A page on facebook/myspace/hi5/other social networking websites?(2/35)

Speak any languages other than English or Khmer (4/35 (all French)) Fluent? (0/35)

Can you write in any other languages other than English or Khmer? (0/35)

Have a personal computer in your household? (1/35)

Have an internet connection (0/35)

Know how to use a personal computer? (35/35 – the University requires all first year students to take a computer competency class)

The results were so poor in some areas that I dropped questions.

So, instead of People Weekly, I’ll be giving my students projects throughout the semester, based largely on the list above. All my students are extremely bright, and pay very good money to attend school, so it’s disconcerting to see what administrators are willing to pass off as a university education.

This may be random, but have I mentioned the Coca-Cola? Any soda for that matter, but Coke particularly.They don’t use corn syrup in the Coke here, just palm sugar. It’s not nearly as heavy as the Coke in the States has become. I’d kill for a decent slice of pizza to go with it.

I’ve been renting a canoe/kayak about every three days from another tremendous Khmer family. Aside from the pleasure of going out to the islands and snorkeling around the coral reef, it’s been paying for itself – all it takes to catch fish here is a line and a lure dangled off the back of the kayak. And any Khmer family living/working along the shore will cook up what you catch with rice and veggies if you’re willing to share.

I was warned to steer clear of the nearest island, as it’s the private island of Sihanoukville’s governor. Stories were told of the Governor’s goons scaring foreigners away with vague threats. As fate would have it, I had to take refuge there on one of my first kayak trips as a storm formed inland, stirring up the Gulf, and threatened to head my way. When I landed on the small beach there, a well-built man sitting in a lawn chair was having his hair preened with chopsticks by two comely women, while two buddies and two security guards (one in a boat just offshore) looked on. As soon as I landed, the man in the chair said something to one of the women, who then ran off to the shack that would presumably be the Governor’s residence and returned with a bottle of water. I explained why I had landed there, pointing to the storm a few miles away and thanked everyone for the water and the hospitality. Despite the cool winds of the storm, Cambodia’s heat makes a 3/4 mile canoe trip pretty exhausting, so I sat down at the water’s edge to catch a breath. Not more than two minutes or so had passed before the man in the lawn chair came and offered me a cold beer and sat down. I told him where I was from, and he asked me many questions but my ability to speak Khmer only goes so far. He told me the best areas of coral reef to snorkel, and then he was back in his chair, having his hair preened again.

His two buddies and one of the guards then set up a fishing net offshore and beat the water around it with branches to scare fish towards the net. The catch was clearly abundant from the moment they started to gather the nets. Five of us were necessary to eventually haul it in. I was invited to stay for dinner, and did what I could to repay the favors by digging up a pound or two of clams for them to throw on the fire.

I never asked the man if he was the Governor. I didn’t want to let on that I knew anything about the island before getting there…

Many days are like this… heading out solo or with a friend or two and ending up in a much larger group in some entirely unexpected place. Unfortunately, most days require getting home by late afternoon to teach well into the evening.

I’m now prepared for my third New Year’s celebration this year, as the Khmer New Year approaches. It’s a week-long National Holiday punctuated by water and talcum powder fights in the streets. I have a feeling the fun of being plastered randomly will wear out quickly, so I’m planning to take refuge on one of the islands for a few days of camping and fishing.

Finally, a personal note:

This one goes out to Andreas.

Andreas is a Swedish fellow (a Swedish redneck, I really should say) who stayed for a week at the hut/restaurant on the beach where I usually launch the canoe from. As I was on the shore preparing my canoe two days ago, Andreas swiped my iPod and a few other things from my backpack just before he left for Bangkok, on his way back to Stockholm. I barely knew him, but I saw him just about every day when I’d hit the beach. Other than the fact that he chain-smoked pot every day for over a week, there isn’t much else to say about him.

Dear Andreas,

You confound me with your stupidity. You confided in me that you had amassed prescription and non-prescription drugs to smuggle back to Stockholm because you didn’t have enough money to pay your rent when you returned. You even showed me your quite sizable stash. Well, the Cambodian border guard is awaiting your arrival at Poipet and the Thailand Civil Aviation Authority is expecting you in Bangkok, so“paying the rent” should take on a whole new meaning for you soon. Good luck with that, fella.

Though I have no expectations of the subject of this note to see it anytime soon, I do hope that it’s one of those things that he somehow finds on Google a few years (of hard time, SE Asia style) from now.

Want to know about the educational system in Cambodia? I’m a good man to know. Public grammar school? Gotcha. Public university? Uh-huh. Private degree factory? Mate. I’ve removed the names of the schools from my previous post in exchange for some freedom to speak about them.

The experience has been as broad as it sounds. The Khmer traditional shyness in the classroom for fear of losing face was a tough nut to crack at first, but I’ve since figured that one out… use the Khmer love of karaoke against them. Trouble is, I’m often finding out what lesson I’m teaching less than 3 hours before class, making advanced preparation nearly impossible.

I’m fairly certain that given enough time, I could contruct an entire core English curriculum using only Beatles tunes (if someone hasn’t already). The titles alone are a treasure trove of material for tense instruction: the conditional (If), simple future (I Will), present continuous (You’re Going to Lose That Girl), et al. Defeating the simplistic Khmer sense of time in terms of grammar has proved a tougher foe than I anticipated, but strides are being made.

I’ve had it relatively easy the past few days, since Khmer people generally don’t show up for school for the three or four days following a test. This practice is so widespread and accepted that many schools have stopped scheduling classes for the week after every test.

I’ve also learned that when one’s class is scheduled to be on prepositional verbs, one should come to class ready to teach prepositions, verbs, and prepositional verbs as if they had just been invented moments ago. That first class on the Passive of the Future Perfect Continuous was traumatic for everyone involved, and my thoughts go out those who lost loved ones in the fray.

Oh, and my Khmer is coming along just fine. I’ve got a written vocabulary of about 100 words, mainly because my spoken vocabulary needs to relearned now that I have some understanding of the alphabet. It’s much more straightforward than it first appears. A post on Cambodian script is definitely forthcoming.

I’ve been working hard, but haven’t been at a loss for adventure. Not at all. An inordinate number of stories contain or spiral from flat moto tires in the darndest of places. The experiences have been so great that I laughed as I pushed my moto the first few inches after my last flat, not quite sure how far down the red dirt road I had to push it before I came across a ‘mechanic,’but completely comfortable knowing that when it has happened before, the first person I’ve come across has graciously gone out of the way to help me before I’ve even asked.

Today, my birthday, I’m making a day of kayaking to a few of the nearby undeveloped islands, coming back to my apartment and having a traditional Khmer dinner with my landlord and her family, then teaching for two hours, and then some completely irresponsible drinking, most likely. I’ve saved a special treat (or trick) for myself tomorrow and a post about it will be accompanying this.

Okay, so yesterday was my birthday, and since I didn’t get to post the video before now, I have to write a bit more… I can’t leave the birthday stories untold.I made my way to the beach to rent my kayak, but only a few minutes after I had arrived, a few friends showed up completely unexpectedly with a birthday cake and a present in tow. They knew I was headed to the beach, but the beach stretches for five miles in each direction. They spent the better part of two hours walking the beach in the hopes of finding me. So incredible, and so unexpected. When they eventually found me, we shared my cake with the family whose shack I frequent. So beautiful and perfect. That one of the world’s best birthday cake icing fights broke out later should also be mentioned. I’m still trying to get icing out of one of my ears.

We spent the better part of the day at the beach, but by late afternoon I had to head home to prepare for my night classes. I changed and grabbed my supplies for school and headed to the café I go to almost every day before classes. My best friend there, Sai La, and the other employees made my usual iced coffee, but the wait seemed extraordinarily long. It wasn’t until ten people came from the back of the café with a birthday cake that I figured out that I was in for another birthday party. Sai La and I had talked about our ages and birthdays a few weeks ago, and it was mind-blowing that he had somehow remembered. Sai La doesn’t actually know when his birthday is (The Khmer Rouge destroyed all of those records and anyone who could have told him). Little Sorya, Sai La’s niece, threw on a karaoke disc with Happy Birthday on it while Sai La dimmed the lights in the café and brought out a beautiful cake. The singing seemed unusually loud, and it turned out the father in a tourist family in the café shared my birthday. So we shared the cake, coffee, and beer, and soon enough I was off to class.

When work was over, I visited my friends Mom and Srai Mom at their restaurant/guesthouse. They had offered me a drink made from a very special family recipe less than a week ago, and I decided it was definitely something to save for my birthday. I knew the recipe involved Chinese medicine and whiskey. The rest wasn’t clear until the contents of the jar eventually settled enough from being carried to reveal silhouettes in the murk, and I choked back enough of my horror to ask what it was that I couldn’t see. For the record, this recipe contains:

5 bottles of 90 proof whiskey
1 bottle of Hennessey
21 Tarantulas
1 Cobra
1 section of Elephant Lung
1 portion of Tiger Arm
16 Crickets
5 Frogs
3 sections of honeycomb with accompanying Bees

In all possible cases, the animals were placed in the whiskey while still alive, in order to capture their spirit. I don’t know how comfortable I am knowing that I now contain the spirits of 21 Tarantulas and a Cobra, but it’s too late now. Mom had told me that one glass was enough for six months, and to take it like medicine.

So I did.

Afterwards, a few Khmer friends took me to a Khmer dance club/restaurant where the house band consists of two very beautiful women, two handsome men, and a homely looking ladyboy. The five of them were told it was my birthday, apparently. Midway through dinner, one of women led me to the middle of the empty dance floor while one of the guys introduced me to the crowd, announced it was my birthday, and invited all the single ladies to take turns dancing with me while the crowd joined the 5 hosts’ bizarre take-off on the Marilyn Monroe Happy Birthday schtick.

I don’t feel much different, post-special drink, but the past twenty-four hours have been as fortunate as yesterday. Maybe more so. I found my newest apartment, and I couldn’t be happier with it. It does have a primitive bathroom, but I can deal. On my way back to my current place from my new one, I stopped my Mom’s to thank her for that godforsaken drink and an Australian man overheard our conversation and asked about the concoction. He didn’t want any, he just seemed fascinated by it. We chatted for perhaps fifteen minutes, and as I went to leave, he asked me to wait while he retrieved something from his room. He came back in a minute’s time, and dropped a1 carat diamond in my hand. It’s a man-made diamond, but it is no cubic zirconia — it is absolutely brilliant, with 96 facets.

He explained that he buys them relatively cheap in Hong Kong occasionally, and felt compelled to give me one. He didn’t explain any more than that. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so dismissive of the awesome power of Cobras and Tarantulas after all.

I’m busy working on the next phase of this website thing, but I’m doing it amidst a whirlwind of other things which require priority. Please stand by.

For anyone out of the loop, I’m now in Sihanoukville, Cambodia and will be for some significant time. As of Monday I’ll be teaching classes at both of Sihanoukville’s Universities (U of C. School of Management and Economics and Build Bright University) and a private grammar/high school called “The Home of English.”

Sihanoukville is what Cambodia has as far as beach resort towns go, and it is on the cusp of booming development-wise. It has incredible natural beauty – the muffin top islands you see in some photos are all easily and cheaply accessible by boat, and there are National Parks just to the North and South of here. It has tourist traps, for sure, but there are more than enough escapes, if necessary.

I went to one of those escapes today – Ch’naya Otres, which lies just a little too far to the south for most tourists to venture to when perfectly nice beaches are much closer. Anyway, shacks that double as homes and restaurants line the beachfront, and I stopped at one of the last ones I saw after a little girl screamed “Hello, Mister” from inside. After a swim and a coconut, I introduced Pic (the elder brother), Rok’hina (the cousin), Sara’ha (the middle of three daughters), Alin (the younger brother) and their aunt ______ to the Aerobie. Now, playing Aerobie along a dusty road along the beach in Cambodia was pretty damn special to begin with, and doing it with this family made it all the better. But here’s the thing, and forgive me for the schmaltz: Rok’hina is 8 years old, deaf, and has no ability to speak whatsoever. She has a few basic noises she makes – one kind of screech to get your attention, and a grunt to emphasize an instruction she is pantomiming you. She’s so bright, and she can even be a little bossy, as she often has to go to great lengths to get newcomers like me to understand her. When she first saw us playing with the aerobie, she would start to screech the moment it left someone’s hand, and wouldn’t stop until it was caught or hit the ground. Soon enough, she was making her own soundtrack when she finally got the nerve to join us, and freaking out in that way kids do when they’re having more fun than they can handle. She is now the owner of my spare aerobie.

She also grabbed my camera, assembled the tripod and shot the three portraits of her cousins in this photo batch.

My camera battery finally died just as she started posing, sitting on her mother’s lap with the aerobie around her neck, a puppy in her lap, and the sun setting over the Gulf of Thailand behind them.

As with any area experiencing a boom in tourist dollars, a lack of law enforcement, and some extreme poverty, there is trouble here as well – but that’s a story for another day.

I’ve moved apartments, and it’s a good thing. Though I miss the patio of the old apartment, two adjacent buildings to mine suddenly added fourth floors, bringing the noise of construction within inches of my apartment on two sides.

I’m now living in a small apartment by Beung Kok Lake.

There’s a tiny restaurant run by a Chinese woman and her daughter on a balcony/rooftop that overlooks my patio. I was sitting out playing guitar the other evening and they asked if I’d sit on their rooftop and play while they cooked below on the balcony, offering iced coffee in return. I accepted the offer once and I guess somewhere in the space of that evening agreed to a lifetime contract, because I can’t simply be left alone on my patio. It’s actually a nice problem to have, as you can see in a few of the pictures I’ve posted.

***

I’ve posted some photos of Angkam and Dragonfruit. I had heard rumors of the Great White Dragonfruit, but somehow had only managed to buy magenta ones until now. They’re definitely among the most expensive fruits at 75 cents a pop… but so worth it. Angkam are 2 pounds for a dollar. You can see that most of the spines have broken off these – meaning they’ve been bounced around a bit and they’re not as fresh as they could be. Angkam don’t strike me as the kind of fruit that goes bad easily anyway.

So I’ve also included a couple of photos of the last storm that passed through. What amazes me here is how hard the rains come, yet the streets are still always busy. Children run into the street to play or “swim”, motos and tuktuks keep rolling along whether the driver and passengers have ponchos on or not, the Egg Man still makes his rounds. The flooding on my street actually forms strong currents, which I’m surprised I have not had to save a small screaming child from yet. I am not joking about this.

Anyway, here’s a small sample of pics:

I head home in less than two weeks.

There are few things I will miss as much as the way I’m eating here.

First off, Cambodia has the most incredible variety of fruits: some I was aware of but had never tried, others I had no idea existed until now – almost all of them have become quick favorites. Winter melon, dragon fruit, papaya, mango, pineapple, and water melon are standard end-of-meal snacks. Dragon Fruit seem to be best when frozen – the super-bright magenta meat inside makes it’s own sorbet! As good as dragon fruit are, my favorite (by far) is what the locals call “Angkam.” I have not found another name for it, nor have I found any pictures of it on the intarwebs. It’s dark red, shaped somewhere between an oval and a diamond. It has long red spines and a thick, almost pine-cone-like casing. In fact they’re attached to the branch like pine cones, but come in bunches like bananas. Anyway, when the casing’s peeled, it reveals one to three sections of a chestnut colored fruit, with a pit inside. They are sweet and sour at the same time, and somehow just exude healthiness. I can easily eat a kilo in one sitting. Does anyone here have an English name for them?
Tagalog?
Thai?

Then there are the meals. The two most ‘famous’ Khmer dishes are Luk-Lak and Amok. Luk-Lak is beef in a brown ginger/garlic gravy served (most often) with green peppers, onions, and rice. Good, but the quality of the beef makes all the difference. Amok (which is best served with fish, as opposed to the chicken, beef, or pork that may be offered) is a hearty stew of cubed fish, potatoes, carrots, and other veggies in an insanely good green and yellow curry sauce, and it always comes with blades of lemon grass. It’s beyond delicious, and at $2 to $3 a plate, never disappoints.

I want to make special mention of the road-side stands. It amazes me how fearful I once was of them because they are now a mainstay. As I’ve become friendly with the owners of the stands and continue to practice my Khmer with them, my portions keep getting larger, and the prices keep getting lower. My favorite of the stands (St. 51, next to Howie’s Bar) serves the most delicious BBQ pork with tomatoes and cucumbers over rice, alongside a chili/vegetable salad and a bowl of soup for $1 (I’ve seen other Westerners get charged as much as $3 for the same plate of food). My second favorite stand serves skewers of BBQ beef, along with green papaya/vinegar slaw and toasted bread smeared with sweet butter (which looks like rubber cement). Only after I had eaten the first time did I notice that most Khmer make a beef/papaya sandwich from what they’re given. That discovery has brought me much happiness since, at 1000 riel per skewer and matching buttered bread (eat as much papaya salad as you want). Find this one at the other end of St. 51, a block south of Psar Thmei.
Another of my favorite snacks are the deep-fried spinach cakes with an accompanying citrus sauce for 500 riel (12.5 cents) on Street 178 (West of Street 13). It sits across the street from the stand that sells four deep-fried frogs for 500 riel. I haven’t bought frog for myself to eat, but I have shared others’ often. They’re good. Trust me. Especially the roasted ones that get burned like a marshmallow on the outside. They function just like chicken wings when you’re watching a game at a bar. And at 3 cents per frog, how can you go wrong?

Another joy is the Egg Man. Egg Man pulls a wooden oxcart of boiled eggs on sticks around town, chanting a sing-song come-on line. At first I couldn’t fathom why anyone would be trying to sell eggs that have been dragged around dusty, smoggy Phnom Penh in the afternoon heat. But then I noticed how strong a local following he has, so I broke down and tried one. Inside the eggs are plenty of aromatics. Curry, basil, garlic, and cumin are definitely among them, but I can’t even pretend to know what else is in there. In any case, they’re delicious. And 2 eggs for 25 cents is a deal (with the devil).

Then there are the pair of Indian restaurants on the Boeng Kak Lake Strip… both excellent, and both offer all-you-can-eat deals (three or four entrees, rice, nan, purified water) for $1.50 to $2.00.

The Khmer aren’t too big on dessert. A sweet cake or fruit suffices most often. Sometimes it’s a piece of iced sugar cane, or ice cream, or a palm sugar drink. In any case, it’s the least important part of the meal.

Ordering coffe at a restaurant here often results in receiving an odd combination of Nescafé and what everyone here seems to call Ovalmatine. Yeah. Oval(ma)tine. Sucks for me.

It’s funny because the Vietnamese are quite good at growing coffee, but the Khmer seem uninterested in learning how to brew it.

I do love that every Khmer Restaurant serves fruit shakes… this has given me the opportunity to scientifically deduce that banana shakes are the best of them when it comes to turning the heat down on some of the Thai Chilis that appear in Khmer food from time to time.

Oh, and one quick note to travelers: When eating with Khmer, you will find endless amounts of communal food in the center of the table, and a plate of rice in front of you. Take only as much as you can eat in one bite from the communal bowls and put it on your plate of rice. Then pick it up again and eat. Repeat very, very often. Also, do serve rice from the communal bowl to anyone who is about to run low. This is a shared responsibility, and it seems that it is never in good taste to serve one’s self rice.

So does anyone know if the Cambodian Restaurant that used to be in Fort Greene has re-opened anywhere? Where else can I practice Khmer while I’m in New York?

I wiped out about a third of the way up the mountain, bruising my hand, cracking the LCD display of my camera, and sending the ring on my left hand flying off the hillside. Undeterred, I got back on my bike and rode no more than 20 feet before James wiped out right behind me. I stopped to help him, and after he recovered, I got back on my bike which then refused to start. A truck coming down the mountain that night stopped to help, and when no one was able to start the bike, we arranged for the truck to take it to a mechanic at the bottom of the mountain. We knew as we waved goodbye that it was the last truck coming down the mountain that night, but James and I decided we’d both get on his bike and soldier on. Only after the truck had disappeared around a bend did we realize that James’ bike wouldn’t start either, and the other realizations set in quickly: that it was getting dark quickly, and that we were only a third of the way up the treacherous mountain path. And it was starting to rain.

James and I spoke of the sense that the mountain simply did not want us there. That it had kicked our asses for being so cocky about the ride up.

We desperately called the driver of the truck to urge him to come pick us up, but his phone went unanswered for over an hour before James and I decided to start the long walk down the mountain; James coasting on the broken bike, and I walking carefully behind. It grew dark quickly. It rained harder.

As I walked alone on that jungle path, unable to see much, and with little idea of how much progress I was making downhill, I wondered if I had made the mistake that was going to get me eaten by a tiger, or worse, by a pack of bad monkeys with small mouths and sharp teeth.

Eventually, the driver called James and told us he’d send his friends to come help us. We had only traveled a few miles down the mountain, so we stopped and waited. The night turned black and sounds from insects and animals I’ve never heard before filled the air.

We found a guest house for the night, had the bikes fixed in the morning for the princely sum of $8, and vowed to tackle the mountain again. This time, we paid the mountain proper respect by praying to it for safe passage, we carried a traveling monk totem, and we lightened out backpack loads. After two or so hours of white-knuckle riding, we made it to the top.

We set up camp in one of the abandoned villas at the top. The views would have been spectacular, had we not been as high as the thick cloud layer covering the region.

Over that night and the next day, the mountain revealed itself to us slowly. We ventured around in the thick mist, often having little sense of where we were or where we were headed. We sought out an abandoned casino/hotel at one point, and frustrated, I turned to James and asked aloud, “How can we be missing something so enormous?” The mountain immediately responded by lifting the mist enough for us to see that we were standing no more than thirty feet away from it.

The mountain seemed to choose what we would see and when we would see it. Between the four of us, we spoke very little while journeying atop it. It was a thoughtful place; not spooky or threatening.

These pictures should give you some idea of what this journey was like, but it is unfortunate that I had no ability to see what I was shooting.

Sunday’s trip was to the hilltops of Udong, where there are several Pagoda and stupas dedicated to Buddha and to Kings of yore. From the 409 steps to the top of the hills to the vast green countryside, Udong was a beautiful departure from the grime of Phnom Penh. Most importantly, this weekend gave me the opportunity to try out my Khmer-speaking skills on the rural population to varying degrees of success and failure. I can’t wait for the next one.