We finally went to Burger King the other day after passing by it 100 times. It was the most authentic “western” burger we have had.  Prices were the same as US as well.   It’s a nice option to have occasionally, but still nothing beats the local street vendors for price and better tasting food.

Our language teach Channy lost one of her dogs today. It was my favorite part of showing up for class. Seeing Rio run out to greet you, and chase after us when we left. We also got to keep him for a few days a couple of times. He got caught by a bigger dog in her neighborhood.

Annika and I went out to lunch today and we were mistakenly given our order to go. So we go to a park near by to eat lunch.  We hear what we thought were birds in the trees, 1000’s of them. The were actually huge bats. I’m pretty sure they are fruit bats, or flying foxes.  Most of them were just hanging upside down in the trees.

Today, our friend Socheat took us to Tonle Sap lake today.  It’s the largest lake in Cambodia and just a few minutes south of Siem Reap.

Ticket office

Driving to the river in the dry river bed section. This goes on for a while.

Boats, 100’s of them that are sitting in the dry river bed, houses, and schools waiting for the water to rise.

Video of us driving through the village

Riding out to the lake.

There are many little floating restaurants out in the lake. From ours, we could see half a dozen others.

Waiting out a storm, which the clouds covered most of the sunset we were going to see.

Headed back

After over 300 tuk tuk rides, we got our first female driver today.

Loud music, announcements, prayers over loudspeakers are a big part of being in Cambodia.  We have experienced 2 days of a religious ceremony where prayers were played over a loudspeaker for almost 18 hours per day.

Then another 4 day session of a funeral/ceremony at a Buddhist Temple.

Weddings and funerals can run from 1 day to several days and are accompanied with music/prayers over a loudspeaker for all to hear.

It’s a normal thing in Cambodia, and it reminds me of when I lived in downtown Birmingham during college.  People would visit and comment about all the ambulances that they would hear, but after a while, I didn’t really notice it anymore.

We live relatively close to the Palm Container Night Market, a place with shopping, a soccer field, restaurants, rides for kids, and live music.

So stepping outside at night is a concert of local Khmai music, and quite a mixture of Western music – Ed Sheeran to Achy Break Heart (3 nights in a row we heard this “classic”).

None of it is really distracting and typically once inside you can’t hear anything.

Yesterday at the Cambodia’s People Party building, which is 50m from our house, the loudspeaker was playing all day.

I always try to find out why something is happening. Weddings are obvious, as is the Achy Break Heart from the Container Market. But random announcements from a political party’s office, not so much.

Turns out yesterday was Day of Remembrance, more commonly called the “Day of Anger” in Cambodia. It commemorates the killing of almost 25% of the population by the Khmer Rouge in the 70’s.  Around 2 million people died during this time.  It’s estimated that 60% of these deaths were direct executions and the rest were a result of starvation and disease.

There were reenactments of the killings yesterday in Phnom Penh.

Reenactment In Phnom Penh

Thousands were killed in “reeducation camps”. The most famous of these was named S-21, a former high school turned into a place of torture and murder.  I went to this place a few years ago. Estimate of 14,000 – 20,000 people came here, and only 7 survived.  School rooms turned into torture rooms. Beds with shackles, very small cells for prisoners, tools of torture displayed. But the worst were the thousands of photographs of the victims. Men, women, and children.

The image below is one of the “enemies” of the Khmer Rouge. Taken from a documentary on one of the photographers at S-21.

Documentary on the photographer, Nhem En, who was a teenager at the time.

Got another moto today.  A Honda Wave 110cc semi automatic.  It has a lot more punch than the little Today scooter.

This is one is still fun though.  It’s the scooter that Annika and I take to the gym every night.

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!