A few weeks ago, we went to Angkor Silk Farm and meet Socheat, who was our tour guide. He has a car, which is not super common, and takes people on tours around Siem Reap.  Speaks English very well, and is also learning Spanish.

I am making him a website for his car service. Siem Reap Car Service It’s not even close to being finished, just a bunch of placeholder text. But since I was creating his website for him, he offered to take us on a free trip – even refusing money when offered.  So today, he took us to Kulen Mountiain, which is about an hour and half from Siem Reap.

Kulen Mountain

Our language teacher let us keep her little chihuahua for a few days to play with Caesar.  They acted like awkward teenagers who would look at each other most of the time.  But we enjoyed him.

Rio is a squinter!

Cambodia food is great. Some of the best food I’ve had can be found on the street for $1- $2. But good western foods are hard to find.   But we found a really good Mexican place AND bonus points for air conditioner.

Maybe Later Mexican Bar & Grill

Easter at church was hot.  The air conditioner wasn’t really keeping up very well. 90 degrees with little air flow.  The guest pastor was a former Mennonite from America, who has moved to a village in Cambodia, and married an Cambodian lady. They only recently got electricity!

Annika and her Easter “basket” plus her strawberries.  Strawberries are crazy expensive here.  A small carton is $12.

I see this a good bit.  I’ve seen younger holding on, but I got a pic of this little guy.  Typically traffic is moving pretty slowly, 15-20 mph.  They know to hold on!

Not a good picture, but this is how they do weddings in Cambodia. We have seen dozens, maybe 100+ wedding setups.  They will setup on the side of main roads, alleys, side roads. Really wherever they can fit. They sometimes stay up for a few days, but this one was only 1 day. This is the road we live on, so we had to take a slight detour to get around it.

They set up large tents, and decorate all the tables inside. This wedding took place at night, so it was 20 degrees cooler than the typical 100 degrees F we have in April.

Added a new seat on the scooter. $4

Honda Today Scooter – 50 cc’s of pure power.  A good tailwind it will get up to 30mph!

Annika turned 16 today!  We started with a fancy lunch, then off to Old Market for some birthday shopping, then a bit of a break, off to the best burger place in Siem Reap, and finished with a movie!

Our fancy lunch 🙂

We didn’t go to Swensens, but took a pic

Annika modeling her dress she picked out for her birthday

Jungle Burger!

She got a free birthday dessert.

Some pics old and new.

Happy!

I love you!

We had a surprise dinner for Annika tonight with friends with strawberry cake. Annika ask for strawberries every time we go to the store, but every time but one I have said no.
A small carton of strawberries is $12 here. So getting fresh strawberries was a treat.

She likes people singing happy birthday to her just as much as I do.

Khmer New Year is coming up. April 14 – 16. It’s the biggest holiday in Cambodia. Looking forward to experiencing it.  Decorations are all over the city. Here are 2 pics from the resort next to our house.

Caesar with a banana leaf birthday hat!

My new “lawnmower”. I bought it at Old Market, which is near Pub Street and is a pretty touristy area.  Annika got a small ax.  When you carry something like this around the market and grocery store, you get a lot of looks.

Caesar!

A sample of one of our lunch bills.

Another planned power outage today.  This time was much longer than the last one.

Next time we will remember to eat all the ice cream BEFORE the power goes off.

The world’s greatest dog turned 7 on March 31. As always, he got a birthday party. Instead of cake, he had a piece of fried chicken from a street food vendor, which just happens to be some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever had.

Birthday Dinner

Caesar likes to take food to his blanket and eat it there.

Then he gets a birthday trim. I decided to do it myself after first attempt at grooming left him all fluffy.

I gave him a break before trimming his head.

Unrelated, but we got a wok today. Now we have 1 pot, 1 pan, and 1 wok. High Rollers!