A few more cities...

Hi again!!

When we last left you a few days ago, we were in Siem Reap heading to the floating villages... The village was pretty incredible. We hopped on a boat and rode past all the different floating homes, churches, schools, pool halls, fish farms... everything you could imagine. We even stopped at a crocodile farm. On the way back from the floating villages we stopped at a hammock bar. (Genius idea that needs to come over to the U.S.) We laid in hammocks until sunset and had a few Angkor beers and even snacks - snake, eel, and turtle. Quite a relaxing and enjoyable evening.

When we got back to the hotel, a few members of our group discovered they were missing money... the "security box" at the front desk (sealed manila envelope in a locked drawer) was clearly opened. Over $1000 was gone from 5 different people. After trying to get the police to the hotel and finding out the owner is the police... the resolution was to go to the Buddhist temple and tell Buddha how much money you lost, then the owner would compensate believing that your word to Buddha is honest - like a hand on the Bible. Bad experience but interesting resolution. We were smart enough to know better.

From Siem Reap we went to Kampong Cham, a city on the Mekong River. We were just there one night... just enough time to take a sweaty bicycle tour of the Man and Woman Hill Temples. We saw a Mormon missionary and chatted briefly. And we also stopped at a Buddhist English school and got to converse with the students. Brad naturally jumped right in between the child monk and the shy girls.

From Kampong Cham we went to Takeo for our homestay. We enjoyed a home cooked dinner of soup, rice, and pork. The family was very nice and the accommodations were probably above average... we slept on a bed with a mosquito net in a hut above the cows. It was a great experience but I think one night was enough. Without much else to do after dinner, we introduced the group to some drinking games from college that they absolutely loved and hated in the morning. We slept well and felt fine in the morning, guess it helps to be 23...

That brings us to today. This morning we had breakfast at the homestay - bread, pineapples, bananas, and instant coffee with condensed milk. We left after breakfast to head to Sihoukville... along the way we stopped at our guide's hometown to see his family. We stayed for about half an hour - just enough time to teach the children hopscotch. They were very shy but very interested in why we were there.

This afternoon, amidst the pouring rain, we arrived in Sihoukville - our beach town. We got some lunch and a much needed shower and laid low waiting for the rain to stop. It's finally cleared so hopefully tomorrow will be perfect! We had dinner on the beach tonight and enjoyed BBQ barracuda, squid, and prawns. We'll be here for three nights relaxing and playing on the beach....

Happy Fourth of July - hope everyone was safe! Love you!

(We were unsuccessful in uploading pictures - too slow of a connection, you'll just have to wait till we get home.)