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as cambodia flies by my window • 08.09.08

i'm currently in a car with a guy from germany (sebastian) and a girl from malaga (esther) who i met on the bus from saigon. they're here on holiday from classes in australia. all of the non-asians from the bus got together for dinner and drinks last night and the three of us decided to eschew public transportation and get a car to take us to siem reap. that leaves us where we are now. we were late leaving and then the driver got a phone call (ostensibly from his wife) and his rate of speed picked up dramatically. we're doing 70 miles an hour. i know in america that's not fast, but in cambodia it feels like we're weaving our way across the forest moon of endoor. so, if all goes well, i'll still be in siem reap by 8:30. btw, the guy got his back seat re-upholstered and didn't do cutouts for the seatbelts so they're trapped behind his rich corinthian pleather. for this reason i have a seatbelt wrapped around me like an anaconda right now. i'm not sure if i'm doing myself any favors with that.

oh, and we just stopped and met his family. his mom kept speaking to us even though we obviously don't know a word of khmer. they seemed nice though and they did (of course) have the requisite naked baby that they wanted us to see. til next time…..

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in the royal palace in phnom penh • 08.09.08

this guy has a pretty sweet pad, plus he's like partially "divine" (so he's got THAT going for him). the palace really was a pretty amazing complex. the national museum was pretty but small and uneventful. the toul sleng genocide museum was very interesting. pol pot took a school and turned it into a place to detain, torture and kill his enemies. they display mugshots of many of the victims and have the devices that were used next to pictures of them in use. it was hard to believe that happened in my lifetime (and also that pol pot himself lived in exile until he died of natural causes in 1998). i'm not feeling good today, so i'm going comfort food with a hamburger right now. so, i'm gonna run, but first one observation, no make it two. the "naked baby" quotient is exponentially higher here than in vietnam. u cant walk 20 feet without seeing somebody toting a naked kid. second, i saw 1 "vietnamese person peeing in public" instances in ten days there (but it was a heck of an instance as it was an old lady squatting to pee in the middle of a busy street). in less than 24 hours in cambodia, i have seen about 20 cambodians peeing – on the street, on trees, in alleys, on signs. this country is like mardi gras.

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this is my view • 08.08.08

of a dumptruck full of rocks that is taking the ferry with my bus across a lake. there are three of those trucks. i'm not that strong a swimmer. a woman at the dock had a giant platter of what appeared to be barbecued embryonic baby chickens for sale. as always, i'm not kidding.

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