On the road...

Hello!!! It is Sunday afternoon and I am sitting in an internet cafe in Bangkok. On Tuesday (St. Patrick's Day!) I leave to go to Vietnam for about two weeks! Hopefully the next couple of days will involve some relaxing/enjoying Bangkok, and also some time spent researching for the Vietnam trip...

Let me give a brief rundown of my trip to Cambodia. Overall, it was awesome and I am so glad my friends and I decided to visit. But it was weird too how much we missed Thailand. It was different/tough to be in a country where you can't speak the language, and also where you are pretty much a complete tourist (whereas in Thailand, I feel like we are a step above a tourist since we have been here so long and know at least a bit of Thai).

I'm also so glad we traveled to Cambodia because I learned so much about the tumultuous history of this country. On our first day, we stayed in Phnom Penh and walked around the city in the morning and then visited "Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum" in the afternoon. Tuol Sleng was a interrogation/torture camp during the Khmer Rouge (1975 - 1978). The Khmer Rouge was an awful communist regime and almost two million people were killed during the three year period. As a result, over 60% of the Cambodian population is under the age of 24. It was so sad and so awful see visit this museum, but it was so important to learn about it.

After two nights and a full day in Phnom Penh, Karen, Zoe, and I traveled to Seim Reap to visit Angkor Wat. We decided to go for the more expensive travel option between Phnom Penh and Seim Reap (by boat) which was such a great way to see the country side (and also a great way to get a nice tan...or rather burn). We arrived in Seim Reap in time to visit Angkor Wat at sunset. It was so gorgeous and amazing and humbling it is impossible to describe. Angkor Wat is the largest religious structure in the world and it is almost one thousand years old. You could spend hours just wandering around...and Ankgor Wat is just one of several temples in Seim Reap. The next day, I think it was a Tuesday, we spent the whole day going from temple to temple (one of which was the setting for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider!). It was a long, but fabulous day!

On Wednesday (March 11th), we returned to Phnom Penh by the regular mode of transportation (bus) just in time to catch our flight back to Bangkok. On Thursday and Friday, we had our final grant meetings for Fulbright...which marked the official end of the English Teaching Assistantship grant in Thailand. I still can't believe we are done teaching, and I think it will take me some time to process it all.

Well, my internet time is almost up...but I hope you enjoy the updates! I miss you and hope to hear from you soon!

Good Luck! ไขคดี