Leaving the giant security fence...

Yep, I go outside... and do laundry! I'm so adventurous...

Yes, you read the title right - I am leaving the house (ya, I know, I posted about a walk I took. This is the one with all the sightseeing pictures! Just roll with it, ok?). A couple of days after arrival, we took a tuctuc out to Phnom Penh to take a look around and run some errands. Mind you, this is day 3 living with Jet Lag (I'll stop capitalizing it when it stops treating me like a chew toy), so feel free to applaud.

Okay, how bout a smile?

Tough crowd.

The Mekong. Not what you were expecting from watching all those 

movies, is it?

So we headed out on our journey. I expected to be amazed and awed... or at least shocked. Truth be told, I had a blast. Despite having someone try to jack her phone, my wife loved it too!

We drove by the river - you know, where all the river monsters live? We didn't see any, but I'll keep looking.

Independence monument. No sparklers or hot dogs, but cool!

Next up, the freedom monument. This massive tiered structure thing (yes, I teach English. Shush!) is a building/sculpture built to celebrate Cambodia's independence from the French in 1953. One would think that's pretty recent. Keep in mind, this is a heavily war-torn nation. The Vietnam war was not that long ago, and the country suffered from unthinkable acts of violence during a civil war and very bad regime change as short as 40 years ago.

Yeah, I know... a bit heavy on the history there.

The king's palace. He doesn't actually live there though...

Onward and upward! We ventured to the King's Palace. I could give you a history of this building, but... nah. I think we should move on.

At this point, I was grinning from ear to ear. It was great to get out of the house and feel like I was doing something. People here are incredibly friendly, so riding around and having people say 'hello!' to you was refreshing. It's far better than what people did in the States when you waved to them and grinned. No one here shoots at you, yells, or makes mean or angry faces. They just happily go about playing chicken.

(Author's note: most people are good hearted here. Even the thieves do what they do because they don't know anything else. There's no malice involved at all... this is a gentle, if wounded, people)

Nice place to look at, but I won't be visiting.

 We saw a great deal more... temples (pictured), shops, markets, and people selling gas out of coke bottles (don't drink that!). We had a last errand to run, which was at the post office.

Feel free to come visit - just don't mail yourself.

What? You thought something truly momentous happened here? Not really... I just thought it was nice to see a place where I could get something from home. Still in shock, you know....






We did stop by EVA air's travel agency in town. This is where I learned a new rule of driving. You see, it started to rain. Now, when I say rain, what I mean is, don't gape at the sky unless you want to risk drowning. The stuff comes down in waterfalls, and the raindrops apparently feel like bullets if you are on a moto (so I'm told - not there yet guys and gals). What was the rule of driving?

View from our tuctuc... parked next to other tuctucs and motos.

5. When it rains, GET OFF THE SIDEWALK(!), cuz here come the motorcycles.

Yup. Parking next to a building, or possibly on a pedestrian, is preferable to being in the rain. This is understandable as Cambodia is the living embodiment of a flood plain.

Well, that's it for tonight. We stopped at Sak Saum to meet the awesome people there, but that deserves its own post.