“One night in Bangkok…”

That’s the song that has been playing in my head all day. I was supposed to be traveling to Hanoi, Vietnam today. But I had noticed a month or so ago that the company who processed my visas got the date wrong on the Vietnam one. It’s valid for tomorrow instead of today as I had submitted. So I figured my flight got in around 7:30 pm so I’d just be hanging out in immigration for four hours until midnight and they let me in then. I wasn’t too psyched about missing my transfer and having to get a taxi after midnight in notorious Hanoi where a cab driver drove off with Karly’s bag in the trunk a few weeks ago! But nor did I want to pay hundreds of dollars to cancel and rebook a new flight.

But turns out the airline didn’t even want to give me get a boarding pass for my flight because they weren’t sure they would let me wait or make me return to Thailand. Given all the issues and not feeling that excited about the late night prospects in Hanoi, I decided to play it safe and asked if they could rebook me to a flight tomorrow morning instead. They kindly made the change at no charge! Of course, I have to pay for the extra night hotel, Bangkok transfers, etc but I suppose it is better to be careful. I may try to recoup something from the visa processing company that made the error in the first place. But either way, Bangkok isn’t a bad place to spend an afternoon and night.

So I revisited the Royal Palace (which interestingly has a model of Angkor Wat!) and Wat Pho and just stuffed myself on yummy Tom Yum soup and Pad Thai and am feeling quite happy to be in my comfy clean hotel instead of trying to charm the Vietnamese immigration officials!

It’s hard to believe my Cambodia part of the trip is now behind me! And it’s been a packed couple of weeks. I know you're all dying to hear the latest in my battle with the ants and you'll be pleased to know that my DEET war and ant carcass warnings did the trick! I've seen virtually no ants for a couple of weeks...they've all moved over to Jen's room instead! Sorry Jen!

We visited the Land Mine Museum which was a fascinating and sobering place. As a fan of the Tintin books, I was surprised to see a Land Mine version of Tintin as part of the exhibits.


Last week at the orphanage and our first school, we did Halloween masks out of paper plates and various creative supplies. The orphanage crew really got into it and had such a blast! We took them “trick or treat”ing for candy in the different rooms.


Then later last Friday, my co-teacher Chantha had a field trip with his students to Angkor Wat and asked me to join. It was such a blast riding on the back of Chantha’s motorbike with about 12 other motos filled with two or three students each zipping all around us!

The actual temple part was a bit tough for me since our guide was speaking in Khmer. And I must admit I almost dozed off during the shady sitting on the grass time. But we were up quite late playing Pub Trivia with our new buddies, Stephen and Per from Sweden. It was a very fun night and I was happy to find a trivia outlet on the other side of the world. We even placed second! Jen’s Facebook knowledge and my Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid random info came in very handy. And of course we had to celebrate at our regular bar, the Warehouse.


It was sad to say goodbye to Chantha and the kids from Khmer Help Khmer school. Since the water festival kept schools closed until last Wed, Chantha had given them all the week as holiday. So I had to say goodbye to some of my students earlier than expected. I took a bunch of photos, though I think it’s funny how serious Cambodians can look in their pictures when they grin and laugh all the time in real life. They can treat pictures as a very formal occurrence! Looking at most of the pictures of Chantha on his motorbike or the classroom, you’d never guess how huge his grin is usually!

Saturday we went to Laos, and had a really awesome four days. Our first night was Halloween and we had an entertaining time dressing up a fellow traveler in drag for his “costume.”
We picked a central hotel located right in the middle of the amazing night market. It was filled with lots of really nice stuff and went the length of the street. Laos in general was fabulous. A bit cooler than the non-stop heat of Cambodia, but still beautiful. We rode elephants (and sat on their heads like the mahouts do!), went kayaking and survived the baby rapids, trekked through the mountains and swam and climbed beautiful turquoise tiered waterfalls. We also ate loads of awesome food! And did WAY too much shopping! All in all a great mini-vacation during our travels!

We flew back Wed morning and swung right into school. The last three days have been a whirlwind getting ready to depart Cambodia. I shipped a box home and the DHL cost was almost as much as the stuff in it!

We has planned to visit the orphanage for my last time on Friday, but Thursday, Jen and I had stopped along the side of one of the road trying to snap a picture of a monk on a motorbike (we see them on the backs of bikes in their orange robes all the time, but never manage to get a picture!) While we were there, Mr Tong from the orphanage pulled over when he saw us. I love being here long enough to be recognized! Turns out the kids were going to Phnom Penn for the weekend. So thank goodness he saw us and let us know or we would have missed them! (Bummer the only pic I got of monks on motos was far away behind a telephone pole! So the quest continues!)

And I really wanted to give my final surprise to the orphans in person. I’d printed out some large group shots along with the individual baseball card type pictures of each of them in the Red Sox shirts. So I was able to give those to them that night along with some coloring books (which they always love!) It was great, but really sad saying goodbye. They are just the sweetest kids and the people who work there take great care of them. There may not be much money, but the kids seem very happy, bright and engaged.

Thursday Jen and I had set aside for our last night watching The Amazing Race and ordering pizza. I’ve got her hooked on the show now! It was such fun, but bizarrely later that night I had my first really bad stomach issues. Usually if I’ve had any twinge, one prescription pill does the trick right away. But Thursday night I was just miserable and up half the night alternating between sweating and freezing. Not fun! And strangely Jen felt absolutely fine and we’d had the exact same food. Very weird. I was supposed to have my going away lunch with Mr. Paulie from the second school and didn’t want to be rude and not go, plus it was my last day with the kids at the first school, which I couldn’t miss! So I slept half the morning and rallied for lunch, though didn’t eat much of the yummy Khmer food. Then I had to lie down a little while before school so Jen started class without me. I did still manage to bike though! I was determined!

At school, it was so sweet! Many of the kids had made me little gifts or written goodbye notes of how they will miss me! Lots of hugs all around. Even our chicken friend came into the classroom to say goodbye! We played one final game of Hangman and my message was “I will miss Cambodia and all of you!” Which is absolutely the truth.

Last night was one last Khmer goodbye dinner with Meng and Jen. I was feeling a bit better but still not 100%. We made a last stop at the Warehouse, but my stomach issues kept me to Sprite. Bizarre that I’ve been in Asia for over nine weeks with no real problems and my last day in Cambodia, I’m sick!

I still can’t believe the time went so quickly! I’m going to miss Jen a ton! We had such a blast together. Well I know I’ll see her soon when we do the Amazing Race together! You know we’ll win it “Jenny!” :)

One moment will stay with me from Cambodia. Jen and I were in the night market one night and I was bargaining over the price of some earrings. The woman started at $4, I said $2, etc. As we chatted, she asked about my being in Cambodia and I said we were teaching English to local kids who couldn’t afford to pay for classes. When she heard that, not only did she give me the earrings for $2 but gave Jen and I both free bracelets as a thank you for helping her country. We both were so touched by the gesture! That is pretty much what we found across the country…wonderful people.

Now it’s on to Vietnam and the last two weeks of my journey…