My parents visited me last week. They were more enamored with the traffic in cambodia than anything else, especially me. We went to Siem Reap and visited the temples at Angkor Wat. They were cool, beautiful, etc but they were in really bad shape and nobody has any real idea about what the artifacts and carvings mean. Truthfully, I wasn't blown away like expected. Perhaps my expectations were too high, perhaps i needed a tour guide, i'm not sure. But I'm returning this weekend, will be seeing some of the lesser-known temples and hopefully when I again wake up at 4:30am to catch the sunrise over angkor wat i'll actually be able to see the sun.

This was my monday (It should be noted that his day wasnt completely normal, but it wasn't ridiculously atypical either.):

5:30am - wake up (i almost feel cambodian), and throw on my suit. Thankfully I actually brought a suit from the states. It's been sitting in my closet collecting dust since I got here. at least I get to use it.

5:45am - breakfast is on the table, waiting for me. This generally isn't a big deal anymore, but my cleaning and i didn't go through our normal morning routine, which consists of me walking downstairs in my towel, saying hi to her, and dropping off my pile of laundry. It was so early, i just took a shower and got dressed. She must've sensed my presence or something.

6:10am - the taxi, with 3 of my colleagues picks me up. The 4 of us have to get to work early b/c the British Ambassador is coming to the Court to check out my office. I get to show him around. Hence the suit and waking up before sunrise.

7:00am - 4:30pm - work. I show the Ambassador around a bit; he's inaugurating a week-long training session for my office, everyone tries to talk to him. Everytime i walk by any of my friend's they all point, giggle and make a comment about me being all dressed up. i love maturity. I also meet and greet the presenters whil will be lecturing us for the next week.

4:30pm - I convince my boss that I need to escort the presenters to their hotel, which is conveniently the same hotel that our "happy hour" will be taking place. Free drinks from 6 - 8, and I'm get to the hotel bar at 5:15, so for me it's free drinks from 5:15-8. The Elephant bar is probably the nicest bar in phnom penh, and because I can't really afford to go there (drinks are between $4 and $6, and beers cost about $2.50 - cambodia is amazing) I'm taking full advantage of the open bar. This is probably a good time to mention my new fascination with exotic cocktails. They're loaded with booze, are always cheap and are rather refreshing. Because of this, I generally drink a couple everytime I go out and tonight is no exception.

8:00pm - happy hour is over, so i can either stay at the bar and pay for my own drinks or go somewhere else. I plan to head home, meet up with my roomies and since i'm already a little tipsy, keep drinking. As I walk outside the hotel i see that phnom penh is in the midst of a monsoon. No problem, the tuk-tuks have canvas walls to keep the westerners dry. Unfortunately the canvas walls don't keep the driver dry. the 20 minute trip home takes almost an hour b/c half the roads are flooded. The driver is constantly driving up a street, stopping, looking to see if he can navigate the flooding, shaking his head and turning around. He does this literally 10 times. You would think that the tuk-tuk drivers would know either a) which roads flood first and avoid them or b) if all the roads are flooded, stick to the major raods b/c they tend to be more driveable. apparently my tuk-tuk driver never got that memo, b/c he keeps trying to drive on these side streets.

9:00pm - I get home, the water is up to my knees. My security guard, Hoa, opens the gate and I see that he is having a dinner party with his friends. He invites me to join them. I sit down and am immediately poured a glass of "Special Muscle Wine." They have billboards for this stuff everywhere and I've never had it. It's apparently made from rice (but it's not sake) and is chinese but produced in Cambodia. Hoa tells me that I need to be careful drinking it b/c its 30% alcohol. Then the table toasts something and everyone chugs their muscle wine and soda water. Not wanting to be culturally inappropriate, I do the same. As soon as my glass is on the table, its full again and within a few seconds there's another toast and the glasses are emptied. The cycle repeats itself. I'm also being served beef soup, which is very tasty. The only problem is that the meat they're using is stuff like the trachea, intestines, liver and other innards. Organ meats are pretty much the only things I don't eat here (actually the salted, dried eggs taste like leather, literally, and have hard areas that feel like bones. I don't eat them either). While at the table I get invited to bachelor's party and a wedding - of course i'm in. Turns out that they won't be taking place until March - this is the worst part of my day.

10:20 - Ok, now i'm hammered and still haven't really eaten dinner. I thank hoa and his friends and head inside. my aussie roommate is making some egg rolls and offers me one. "Yeah, thanks I say" and head into the kitchen ready to sink my teeth into fried goodness. however in australian "egg roll" means a sandwich with lots of salad ingredients, a ton of mayo and a chopped up hard-boiled egg. This is what i deal with on a constant basis. After that ordeal, I go out to the balconey drink some wine with my roommates until i pass out.

Movie theaters don't exist in cambodia. it's impossible to go to the movies. so when I needed to kill a day in bangkok before heading off on my scuba adventure my buddy and I decided to spend the day at the movies. We decided to see Transformers even though I saw it the day after it came out in america. Cambodia may not have movie theaters but it does have a fabulous black market where bootleg dvds cost a dollar and are sold in every market in Phnom Penh. The highlight of the thai movie experience is definitely being forced to stand and honor the King before the movie starts, while a video montage of the King posing in front of all sorts of wildlife scenes plays on the screen. I think we should implement that in America. but not with anyone of any importance, just random people. How great would it be to honor Mike the auto mechanic or Joanne the grocery store clerk? They would wear their uniforms complete with patches and name tags, and their images would be super imposed in front of the Rocky mountains while random music blared. If this happened, I'd feel like I was getting my $10 worth.

To get to Koh Tao from Bangkok, I had to take an 8 hour night bus and then a high speed catamaran. The bus trip was rather uneventful and we arrived at the port around 5:30 am and we all hop onto the catamaran. Within about 15 minutes the first passanger booted. About two minutes after that, a second person threw up. After the first 30 minutes the ride deteriorated into a cacophony of spew. The chorus of wretching continued for the next 2 hours, as I sat in my aisle seat praying that no one would puke on me. Luckily I made it to Koh Tao vomit free - unfortunately some other patrons weren't so lucky.

I aced my diving test and I'm now a certified scuba diver. According to the instructional video I watched as part of the course, I now have more fun than every other group of people in the world. Diving was incredible, a little indescribable and a lot of fun. There's really nothing like floating next to and between massive schools of fish. I saw a shark, a sting ray, a giant puffer fisch, a bunch of different types of fish (i can't remember any of the names) and i held a sea urchin. I can't wait to go diving again.

The rest of my time on the beach was spent relaxing. Even though you move as little as possible when diving it's extremely exhausting. I also spent a fair amount of time drinking heavily. There's really nothing like a $3 bucket of thai whiskey, red bull and coke. fantastic.

Vacationing to a beach in thailand after living in Cambodia is like living anywhere in America and vacationing to the Jersey Shore. The people look very similar, but really they're different. The language the natives speak sounds the same, but yet it's really hard to understand them. You eat foods unique to the place - in thailand its pad thai, in jersey it's fried cheese balls. The similarities are endless.

After spending tuesday night at the bangkok airport, I made it back to Cambodia without any problems.

I've stopped shaving in Cambodia. Instead I go to the barber every few days and have him shave me. It makes sense economically. I figure it takes me about 10 minutes to shave. It only costs $1 to get a shave. Since I value my time at more than $6/hour, it's cheaper to go to the barber shop and get a shave. (I have no idea why I value my time at more than $6/hour, especially since I don't get paid. But I do. I also have no idea how much my time is really worth or the exact price I think my time is worth, but I'm going with more than $6). So last night I headed to my barder for a shave. He normally just uses his buzzers and I'm out of there in about 15 minutes. Last night for some reason, I decided I wanted a real shave. When I told him, he eyed me curiously and looked a little scared. He asked if I was sure and undettered by his demeanor I said yes. Everything started out well, but by the time he got about half-way down my right cheek, he needed to change razors. A few more strokes and then another change of razors - this routine quickly became comical. It took him about 45 minutes and he went through at least 5 razors. Everyone else in the barber shop constantly looked over, laughing that he was still shaving me. By the end of it, I felt bad for the guy. I had no idea it was such a laborious process. I ended up paying him $3 and he did a pretty good job. Still, I think next time I'm going to just have him use the buzzers.

i just arrived in bangkok for my diving trip. i head down to the island tonight and with any luck i'll arrive around noon tomorrow and then i'll start my diving class on friday. i'll let everyone know how that goes, but according to the people running the dive shop, it's impossible to fail the test. I'm not sure if that's comforting.

This past sunday I went on little bike trip with my roommate luke and our friend tom. We rode up to this place called Uodong mountain, its about 33 miles north of phnom penh. its more of hill than a mountain really, but there are couple buddhist temples on top and a few previous kings of cambodia have their remains up there. all in all the mountain was less than impressive, but the bike trip out and back was great. Literally every villager stopped what they were doing as we approached and waved to us, shouted "hello", etc. One kid, maybe around 16, even jumped on his bike and road with us for a few miles. i'm not quite sure why all the villagers were so thrilled to see us - my guess is they were really laughing at us for riding bicycles when we could spend $1 and take bus.

Time for an update:

the wedding i mentioned in my last post turned out to be just a birthday party for one of the residents on my street. I did however manage to share a couple drinks with the birthday boy and my security guard, who is apparently best friends with everyone on my street.

the day after the party, i caught a bus down to the beach for the weekend. The ticket cost $4 and of course i had sit next to a mother with her 8 year old child. The kid sat on her lap, which was great because its not like the seats are incredibly small.

the trip is going well, and by well i mean uneventful. We get about half-way there and then the bus pulls over. Now this isn't a big deal b/c the bus stops every so often to pick up/drop off people in random places. The problem this time is that the driver gets out. Soon everyone files out of the bus. I follow suit, get outside and realize that the bus won't be going anywhere for a while. All of the passengers head to a nearby house to sit under the shade of a porch and wait for another bus that is supposedly arriving imminently. Imminently in Cambodia means many things, however it doesn't mean fast-approaching. I grab my stuff, walk to the side of the road and throw up my thumb. Within a couple of minutes, an empty van pulls up, I jump in with a bunch of khmers. For $2 this guy agrees to take all of us to the beach. After that it was a great weekend consisting of swimming, drinking, reading, sleeping and eating.

The following weekend was my planned trip to bike ride up Bokor mountain. It got cancelled on account of me and my friends having to work. I am never going to plan another trip in this country. Although I do have plans to go to an island in Thailand for 5 days to get certified in Scuba diving. I guarantee something will get fucked up.

getting my cleaning lady to make me breakfast 3 days per week was by far the greatest decision i have made here. (side note: I don't know her name - she refers to herself as "bong srei." Bong srei means "elder sister" and khmers don't usually refer to each other by name, but they all have names and introduce themselves by their names. not bong srei though.) anyway, my morning routine is thus: i wake up, and bring my dirty laundry down to her. i jump in the shower, get dressed and waiting for me at the dining room table are two perfectly cooked eggs over-easy, a couple pieces of bacon, two pieces of lightly buttered toast and a big cup of coffee. I now dread waking up on the days she's not there. For all you single ladies out there, this is the best way to man's heart. get up early and silently make him breakfast every morning.

all of the meat here comes with the bones in it. you'll order a plate of chicken curry, and bite into a seemingly huge chunk of white meat only for your teeth to crack against a giant bone. it ruins the meal. the other day, while at my favorite khmer restaurant and the one i eat lunch at everyday, i ordered sweet and sour pork. then i asked "can you make without bones?" the waitress said "pork have bone."

This is cambodia.