More from Cambodia

Dave here, coming to you from Phnom Phen. Our time in Cambodia is almost up. I had some spare time before our bus trip to Vietnam tomorrow so I thought I'd upload a few more photos of interest.

Here's a few more from the remarkable ancient temples:

There are hundreds of statues throughout all the temples, but they are all headless. Sadly, people with nothing better to spend their money on love to illegally buy up these ancient artifacts. Its too hard to sneak out and transport the whole body so they pay someone to sneak in and break off and steal the heads. This has gone on for a long time. If you do see any heads still there then they are most likely modern replacements. But those even often get stolen. You can see one headless statue here at this temple entrance:

Yesterday we spent much of the day browsing the Central Market here in Phnom Phen. It is a huge, yellow, domed, Art Deco building that looks like an old train station inside. There are counters and kiosks set up all throughout the inside and all around the outside of the building selling everything from clothes, jewelry, and electronics to fresh vegetables, meats and kitchen supplies. The place is mostly for the locals but there's a few touristy T-shirt shops as well. We loved just walking around and watching the locals go about they daily business.

This shot shows the center and just one of the four wings of the building:

This woman must have had a rough night. Actually this is not an uncommon sight. We saw many people napping in their kiosks. They must spend so much time there, with seemingly few customers, that sometimes they just need to get a few Zs.

There were so many stands with meats just haning out in the hot air with flies buzzing around. This rack doesn't look too bad but a lot of it looked really dried out. I can't believe they can let it sit out for so long unrefrigerated. It was gross to think about how long it might hang there collecting bacteria before someone buys it. Then we realized we are probably eating this stuff every time we go to a restaurant here. Yuk! It makes me think that since we haven't gotten sick and since they probably have done this for a long time with little or no problems, that maybe we are a little too germ crazy back in America. I don't know. And this woman looks like she just woke up from her nap and is still wearing her pajamas. But this is actually a fashion trend that Lynette noticed. Many of the woman wear these matching patterned outfits that look like PJs.

You always see these shrines outside the modern Buddhist temples where the locals go to "worship." (for lack of a better term). Sometimes there are several and they are very big and elaborate and sometimes they are smaller like this one.

This buidling across from our hotel looks pretty rough. It is not representative of the majority of the city. Most places are in better shape. I just thought these shots looked cool:

These photos give a better idea of what we've seen of the city:

Again, most massage places here are much nicer than this one. I just thought this was an interesting shot. I can't imagine going in there for a relaxing massage. Seems you might get a nice deep tissue massage in the gut with a rusty prison shiv instead.

We took a 6 hour bus ride from Siem Reap back to Phnom Phen the other day. I was horrified when I got on the bus and saw the seats. There was only about six inches of leg room. Obviously not built with the comfort of larger foreigners in mind. I could not imagine being able to fit in there, let alone be able to sit there for 6 hours. But somehow Lynette and I wedged ourselves in. I could not move my legs one bit. They were wedged in one uncomfortable position, and my body was stuck in a very erect posture the entire way. When a leg went numb from lack of blood flow or my back got sore I'd stand for a bit. From the photo it may look like I could just swivel to the side and put my legs in the aisle, but there is a very solid, immoble armrest pressed against my right leg. The seats backs were very tall also. So I could not see over them to look out the front window. And looking out the side windows made me nausious. So I had a view of the back of the seat for the 6 hours. I don't know what it is about the buses in Cambodia but they have not figured out how to keep the ear wrenching noise of the horn blast on the outside of the bus. The driver blows the horn constantly as he passes the slower traffic, and it sounds like I'm standing outside with the horn up to my ear. That, along with my inability to recline meant no napping. So needless to say it was a long ride.

Here's a few shots from the bus of the countryside:

It is the rainy season here now, but it actually hasn't rained all that much yet. A few times in the evening we got a downpour. Like yesterday while we were sitting at this street cafe and I got these cool shots:

That's all for now. Next time we should be writing from Vietnam. Wow, Vietnam!!!

Dave & Lynette

dbuck242@yahoo.com
lschimpf@gmail.com