La Paz

Colca Canyon took five days instead of the planned three because of a bout of Souroche and lessons on Peruvian and Argentinian Pisco Sours. The trek was beautiful and we saw a few Condors as well as a whole lot of Llamas, vicuna, and alpaca. The Canyon is the second deepest in the world and it starts out incredibly arrid and rocky and by the bottom we were surrounded by tropical fruits and tons of vegetation. There were avocado trees everywhere and also cactus fruit. I got some moderately uncumfortable pricks in my hands trying to harvest a few tuna (cactus fruit), and spent the next few hours of trekking picking them from my fingers. That and a bit of a sundburn were the only complaints I could make about the trek. Overall it was a great chance to stay in some of the small towns around the Canyon. The culture here is distinctly different from other parts of Peru. The woman all where brigh, ornately embroidered caps, skirts, and vests and the men are usually sporting a cowboy hats and ride around on horses. Overall it seemed like a Peruvian twist on an old wild west film.
We have been in La Paz for two weeks now. After our trek we returned to Arequipa and quickly got a bus to Puno and then over the border to La Paz. The border crossing was a mess of forms, additional money we did not expect to pay, and much more effort because we are Americans. We were the last ones back on the bus because all the other gringos get to pay a small fee and quickly get their visas. We got shuffled into our own special line as soon as they saw our passports. We made it to La Paz and have a visa for ninety days so I can´t really complain.
The weekend we arrived was the beginning of Alasitas and the vote for the new constitution in Bolivia. On Saturday we went to the packed opening day of Alasitas. This is a festival devoted to the god Ekeko, the god of abundance and whatever you buy in miniature is supposed to be given to you by Ekeko. Stalls line the streets selling every type of tiny object you can imagine. There are tiny animals, each representing a different character trait, money in every denomination, passports, work permits, marriage licenses, and divorce papers not to mention an assortment of electronics, cars, and mansion. Even the food was in miniature and Lucy and I had a lunch of mini empanadas, sandwhiches, and pastels. This weekend was also a little crazy because the country is voting on a new, very progressive constitution drafted by Evo Morales. It grants universal access to health care and education. It also provides many indigenous communities with access to land and citizenship rights they were denied previously. It was voted on on Sunday. The whole city was closed down. There was literally barely a vehicle in the streets, just people walking around with their families or on their way to the voting booths. Everyone had purple on their finger to show they had voted. Our hostel is located right down the street from the President´s House so we headed over there at 6 and stood outside for 3 and a half hours to see Evo Morales come out and announce the ratification of the new constitution. We were really close. I could have chucked my shoe at him, that´s how close I was, but so far I am pretty impressed with his policies, even his reactions to the US and our stupid reactions to cocoa production in Bolivia. If George Bush had ever tasted Mate de Coca or Coca cookies he too would have a different opinion about growing coca, plus it helps with altitude sickness and upset stomachs. It is just the cocaine form that is bad, and Bolivians blame the US and other country´s demand for the illegal form of the product for the illegal drug trafficing that is causing so many problems. At the rally for Evo there were alot of derogatory cheers about the US in which we were called junkies. Hmmm...
We also met the first indigenous woman to be elected into the Peruvian Congress. She was staying at Mary Fritz´s hotel (the family friend who is hooking us up with this teaching oportunity). She is so nice and gave us her contact so when we are back in Lima we can look her up. She said she would show us around the Peruvian congress!! Mary has introduced us to a number of other people she knows from her many years living and working in the city. There is a helpful list of young people she has provided for us to show us around the city. It was also great hearing her perspective on the school and politics here. She flew out a few days ago and both Lucy and I are really sad that we can´t count on stopping by her hotel room to badger her and her travel partner, Hope, with questions and dinner invitations.
School started monday and today marks the end of our first week of work. I am in a smaller school in a suberb a 15 minute ride from the center of La Paz. Lucy and I are stayinga t a hotel right on the Prado, the main street in La Paz. It is a really great location right in the center of everything. The hotel is only used for church business and to house volunteers who come down for short trips from churches in the states so we pretty have full run of the hotel.
I am assistant teaching PK through third grade english classes with Luzmilla, one of the English teachers at the school. The kids are adorable but crazy and the disorginization of the whole school system will require another blog post.

As with everything when I travel, my plans have been adjusted and rehashed to the point that they no longer really resemble where I thought I would be when I set out. I was planning to go to Bolivia, but flights to Peru were far cheaper so I am now traveling overland to Bolivia, and I was planning to see Machu Pichhu but now I´m traveling along the coast, bypassing the highlands where Machu Picchu is. We also may not stay in Bolivia until June. We might be heading to Argentina to volunteer there for a bit. In conclusion the only plan that is set is the ones that I have already carried out. The rest is subject to change... So allow me to describe what we have done.

We spent three days in Lima, exploring the city and trying to decide where we would go next. We stayed in a Hospedaje that gave us the cheap room on the roof. So we had our own unfurbished rooftop terrace which was quite enjoyable, even if it wasn´t five star quallity accomodation. The city is located on the coast and runs into cliffs that pear out over the beach below. You can spot the tiny figures of surfers in the waves and overhead are paragliders taking advantage of the sea breezes that create thermals ideal for paragliding. Most of our time was spent wandering through Miraflores and Central Lima exploring markets, shops, and interesting buildings.

On the third day we took a bus a few hours down the coast to Chincha because according to our guidebook it is a great place to hear Afro-Peruvian music. We had no real plan regarding where we would find a performance but were lucky enough to stumble upon a hostel run by a gregarious women by the name of Carmen who was more than willing to provide you with information and opinions on everything, even if you didn´t want it. She informed us that another American was staying at her hostel and was headed to a party that night where there was a music performance. We ran across him later and he turned out to be a Tufts student who was studying Afro-Peruvian music as part of a special project. That night we went with him to El Carmen, the next town over. He had been told to come at nine, and in true gringo spirit we arrived precisely at nine to discover that nothing was ready. Eventually we wound up waiting around in the living room of the family who was organizing the event while they prepared for dinner (at around ten) and chatting to a documentary film maker who was covering the family as part of a film about Peruvian music.

The party started at midnight, by which point we were all exhausted after waiting around for three hours. The party was more dancing to raggaetone and the much discussed music performance did not take place. We did get to do our best to mimick the hip swivels of the women who invited us to dance with them. Everyone was standing around in groups of girls or boys and they would have one large half liter bottle of beer and a small plastic cup. One person would drink beer from the small plastic cup as the person beside them held the beer. The cup was passed to the beer holder, who poured themselves a glass, and passed the beer to the next person in the circle. It continued around the circle until it was done and another bottle would appear. It was a good way to pace yourself and not drink too much. When we had danced for a while we decided to head back, never having seen a music performance but at least we enjoyed an off the beaten track dance party.

We worked our way down to Pisco and stayed here for a night in order to go to the Reserva National de Paracas, where there are floating islands used by thousands of birds as a breeding ground and migratory destination. The island were blanketed with cormorants, Peruvian boobies, penguins, vulutres, and a number of other birds. This is one of theplaces where all the guano(bird poo fertilizer) that made up Peru´s main export for a while came from. The rocky beaches were also home to colonies of sea lions. These were a favorite of mine as a kid watching the discovery channel so I found these really exciting to see up close.

That afternoon we hopped on a bus along the Pan American Highway and went to Huacachina, a tiny oasis of no more than 200 people that caters solely to toursits. They come for the towns location amid the massive sand dunes that stretch between the coast and the Cordilleres mountains. Most people come here to sandboard, but Lucy and I opted to be satisfied with simply climbing the massive dunes, which offered pretty amazing views. We also took advantage of the many Pisco and Vino bodegas around the area and did a short tour and got to taste Peruvian Pisco and vino, which is a bit strong and too sweet for my taste but the Pisco tastes exellent in a Pisco sour.

We skipped Nazca, long story, and headed on an overnight bus to Arequipa, 2,000 meters up in the mountains. Things are cooler and a bit more laid back here and we are taking our time before heading to do a short trek in the nearby Colca Canyon.

Ho Chi Minh to Da Lat

For the last week of our trip we planned to go north to the Central Highlands and came across the Easy Riders while reading places to go in our guidebook. This is a group of Vietnamese motorcycle riders who run tours through the backroads of Vietnam for anywhere between a day to twenty at a time, depending on how much time and money you are willing to commit. We decided on four days from Ho Chi Minh to Da Lat so the day after we arrived back in Ho Chi Minh from the Mekong Delta we met up with Tuan, one of the guides at the local version of Starbucks, Highlands Coffee to get a briefing on the four days on the back of a motorbike that were to follow.
We started the next morning and spent an hour weaving in and out of moto-clogged roads before leaving Ho Chi Minh city behind. We stopped at a Cao Dai and Buddhist temple for a briefing on the religions, the later of which is the predominant religion in Vietnam. We then headed further into the countryside so that we could make frequent pitstops to see family run rice paper, noodle, brick, chopstick, and innumerable other factories. There were also tons of coffee pit stops to give everyone a chance to rest after sitting on a motorcycle over roads that were anything but smooth. By the afternoon we had reached the Ho Chi Minh trail, which has been repaved and is not quite the same as the road that was once used to transport supplies to support the Viet Cong. This also called for multiple stops at the gargantuin roadside monuments to war veterans.
One of the greatest benefits of the trip was being able to ask any questions you wanted to Tuan or Lee who were driving the bikes. Being able to have everything explained from communist propaganda posters to the types of crops being grown in the fields we drove past was incredibly helpful. They were also able to pick out all the hole in the wall roadside restaurants I would have never gone to on my own. Vietnam has very little vegetarian food and navigating my way through the menus that I can neither read nor understand had limited most of my dining experiences to more touristy restaraunts. This time we found ourselves eating in the dingy open faced roadside eateries. I would love to say that I tasted amazing Vietnamese food that I never knew existed, but when it comes to vegetarian fair it is hard to branch out past garlic vegetables and the occasional tofu creation.
By the second day the air had cooled off a bit and we were winding our way through coffee and cashew plantations. It was coffee harvesting season and the berries could be found drying in the yards of every house we passed and people hauling bulging sacks of berries streamed out of the fields around evening. Vietnam is the second largest coffee exporter in the world, which I found very exciting given my coffee ediciton. Vietnamese coffee is served as a thick syrup-like concoction that is brewed in a small filter that perches atop your cup. I loved it until the bike trip, when I discovered that the Vietnamese like to have their beans roasted in copious amounts of butter, sugar, and chocolate. Yuck. Although I was a little jaded it was still an experience driving through the plantations and stopping along the way to see all the processing from picking to processing of the berries.
The second day was also when the incredible views of rolling hills began and these only got better as we got further up into the highlands. The road cut through pine forests and peaked over vallies of fields that resembled a patchwork quilt of varying patterns and green hughes. It was one of the many things on this trip that I stuggle to capture with words or photos. That is probably the main reason I enjoy traveling. Finding the moments that I cannot experience unless I am there because words and pictures fall short of the beauty of the real thing.
Arriving in Da Lat on day four Kara and I got our first taste of cold weather. It reminded us that it was December and reminded me that it was almost the holidays and time for me to head home. We caught a bus back overnight the next day and were back in Ho Chi Minh for a last few days of museums, shopping, and the restauraunts we wanted to visit one more time (one was actually an Indian restaraunt).

Uncle Ho

Ten of the sixteen days in Vietnam have slipped by and I am back in Ho Chi Minh where I started. We opted not to try and rush up to Hanoi and back, although we were tempted since everyone says the North is better. Instead, we ventured in the opposite direction, into the Mekong Delta. First stop was Phu Quoc Island, a straight shot across the Mekong and clear offshore for three hours by speed boat. We arrived after a long mini-bus ride positioned in front of the most awful Russian couple I have ever encountered, arriving in Rach Gia at 4:30 am, sleeping like homeless people on benches at the boat station, and FINALLY getting the boat to the island. We found a hotel right on the beach and stumbled down to the water to collapse onto the amazing white sand and lounge for the rest of the day by the water. We spent three days at Phu Quoc snorkelling, lying on the beach, and riding around on a rented motorbike. I really enjoyed Phu Quoc since it is not vastly overdeveloped the way Thailand's beaches are. There are still plenty of small fishing villages along the water and the interior of the island is covered mostly in forest. This made it especially enjoyable to motorbike around. The island is known throughout Vietnam for making superior fish sauce, and this was evident from the frequent scent that accosted our nostrils whenever we passed a fish sauce factory. I chose not to dispute this claim and just believe them, I did not to try any.
We left the island to visit a few other locations in the Mekong Delta, Can Tho and Vin Long. We did your standard boat trip to the floating markets in Can Tho. We attempted to get an independent driver to take us to avoid the package tourist trips. We found Hung, boat driver down by the water who offered us a cheaper trip than the packaged tour the hotel owner pushed on us. At 5:30 am, when we met him for our trip to the "less touristy" of the markets Hung took us to get some coffee at a coffee shop. In Vietnam this means small stall on the sidewalk with tiny plastic tables no more than a foot of the ground with a cluster of bright plastic stools that even well dressed businessmen in Saigon can be seen squatting on as they share a cup of joe. At our table a travel agent who Hung works for plopped down. We had succeeded ini organizing a packaged tour with the boat driver instead of the travel agent! We were still taken on the standard trip complete with plenty of photo opps and a few free fruits that hung peeled and offered us as he drove us there and back. Well at least we tried, and the cluster of boats loaded with tropical fruit and veggies clogging the side of the river was still enjoyable... even if I felt like a huge tourist as I happily snapped photos of the people there trying to buy produce to take back to their stalls in town. The houseboats that bring goods from the multitude of orchards and farms in the waterways of the Mekong are pretty impressive. Laundry is strewn up on the back decks, cooking pots from that mornings breakfast are being cleaned inside, and the family dog and small garden are located on the roof of the boat. Meanwhile a brisk business is being done at the front of the boat as smaller vessels pull up and load up on jack fruit, pumpkin, dragon fruit, or whatever the family has for sale.
On the way back we took the long way through the smaller waterways that were lined by rural villages and farms before heading back to Can Tho. From here we got suckered into booking another boat and homestay through the same tour operator to Vinh Long to do a homestay on Anh Binh Island. Several families on the island offer up their homes for tourists to spend a night and enjoy two homecooked meals. Unfortunately the fact that we are vegetarian was not successfully communicated to the family... which meant I ate fish and had to akwardly infrom the mother of the family why I had not touced the beef. We did get very enetertaining Vietnamese lesson from their twelve year old son and I ate some of the best star fruit I have ever tasted that I smuggled from a tree growing ouside our room.
Then we were back in Saigon for a day before we made our second attempt at getting off the beaten track by taking a tour with the Easy Riders of Dalat. This is a very popular motorcycle tour group that was started in Da Lat and today has hundreds of copy cat operations running throughout Vietnam. The groups are made up of Vietnamese motorcycle drivers who speak relatively good English (depending on which group you find yourself using) who take you on single or multi-day tours through Vietnam. Kara and I wound up with Tuan and Lee on a four day trip from Saigon to Da Lat along the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Sidewalks full of hot charcoal and animal intestines

Going for a run on an evening in December brings to mind jogs through Rock Creek Park and a distinct evening chill as I try to get in a few miles before it gets dark. In SE Asia I feel as though I wandered outside and set off on my run and then remembered that I am on shrooms, causing my entire run to be one long overstimulated mess. Funky dried squids that are flattened and hanging from a rack wave their tentacles as me as I dodge around a woman grilling strange little cubes in banana leaves over a pile of hot embers by my feet. When I step off into a street an army of motorbikes bears down on me in both directions and crossing is a matter of trusting that people are paying attention enough, and not distracted by the nine family members or herd of geese propped on the moto with them, so they can steer around you. This trippy experience has become quite normal and enjoyable for me as these four months near their end and I find myself in Can Tho, the largest city in the Mekong Delta. I usually experience at a slower pace, but occasionally when I am in a slighlty calmer location like Can Tho I have attempted a short run.
Kara and I have journeyed from Battambong in Cambodia since I last wrote a blog post. We did a homestay with Sambath, a motorcycle guide who offers his Aunt and Uncles rural home for two nights. This included a motorbike tour around the village and surrounding areas to sample sticky rice smoked in bamboo, watch rice noodles being made, see the rice paper village, journey through amazing fields of rice that stretched for miles, and eat delicious food prepared by his wife with a side of... RICE. We also got to talk to Sambath about his experiences growing up in Cambodia, and hear his account of Cambodian history which was really insightful. Talking to Cambodians while at our two homestays has been an intense experience that usually leaves me feeling depressed and embarassed at how lucky my cushy middle class suburban childhood was in comparisson. It is no wonder Cambodia is flooded with foreign NGO workers desperately groping for some answer to how a country that is still psychologically recovering from horrible wartime attrocities can recover. Talking to Sambath gives a picture of just how far the country has to go since they have yet to be able to vote a leader into power who doesn't pocket as much aid money as he can and spend his time arranging sinecures for all his friends.
Feeling a little disillusioned I returned to Phnom Penh for Thanksgiving... which lacked both tofurkey and pumpkin pie so it wasn't quite the same. However, its hard to feel homesick when your surroundings remind you so little of what you are missing back home (this doesn't mean I wouldn't have killed to enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but it just didn't work out). We spent a few more days in Phnom Penh getting in some amazing Cambodian meals to make up for the absense of all the eating we should have been doing on turkey day. We went to the Friends Restaraunt, which is a program for street kids that is doing an amazing job providing lodging, education, and training for kids with no other place to go. If they can successfully stick with Friends they leave with training to work in restauraunts as cooks, waiters, artists, and producing handicrafts. On top of that the food at the two restauraunts they run around town are delicious. I really loved Cambodian food. The only challenge was finding vegetarian since fish paste (nicknamed Cambodian cheese by Sambath) sneaks into just about every dish. I have just lowered my standards and try to at least ensure there are not chunks of dog meat in whatever I eat.
Five days in Vietnam have led me to draw a very similar conclusion about the food, although I am not as big a fan of it as I was with Kmer cuisine. Vietnamese seem to love fish past and fish sauce even more than Cambodians. The smell of fermented fish accosts my nostrils everywhere I go. Traditional Vietnames cuisine doesn't seem to lend itself that well to vegetarian dishes, but I can still find some street food favorites to fall back on if I get tired of spring rolls or vegetables and tofu with garlic. One of my favorite things to do is sample street food (although this ended horribly for Kara in Bangkok so she usually won't accompany me). My latest favorite is rice cakes that are bigger than your face and cooked with sesame, sprig onions, and garlice. MMMmm. Here I have been sampling the unbelievable amount of unusual fruit in season. I still can't bring myself to sample Durian, the famous fruit that is banned from the Bangkok subway system it smells so bad. I can usually spot it because it smells like fermented garbage, but some people love it. Ah well, to each his own.
We have a few homestays lined up in Vietnam which should offer more food commentary soon.

Fine Khmer cooking and Angkor Wat

From our homestay we caught a bus to Siem Reap to see Cambodia's Taj Mahal and Great Wall combined, Angkor Wat. It is one of the man made wonders of the world, and the pride and joy of Cambodia. Every Cambodia is expected to visit Angkor at least once in their lifetime if they can (although few can afford it), much like Muslims are expected to travel to Mecca if it is in their means.
Siem Reep is definitely a tourist town, and is far more like one of the Thai Islands than other places in Cambodia we have been. It is also swarming with fair trade shops and NGO's attempting to redistribute some of the money flooding in from foreigners in a way that actually benefits locals. The temples themselves are about 20 km or less away from the town so every morning a flood of motodops, motorcycles, and huge tour buses rush down the road for a day of roaming around the main temples. Making their way through the exhaust and dirt kicked up by these vehicles are also the few tourists who opt for bikes, and Kara and I were members of this brave group.
The area around most of the temples is still jungle for the most part with areas around the temples themselves cleared. Many of the temples actually have trees growing out of the crumbling stone structures and lichen growing over carvings of gods and other creatures. It looks like something out of an Indiana Jones film, as long as you can mentally block out the group of twenty or so tourists filing past led by a Khmer guide speaking fluent German, French, Korean, English, or some other language.
After three days of biking around and climbing over crumbling temples we had had our fill of temples. Angkor is huge enough that given the time a week could be devoted to leisurely explore the hundreds of remains that dot the area. Rather than go to see more we instead spent our fourth day taking a cooking class and attending a really great photo festival. The cooking class was at a vegetarian restaurant which gave us a chance to see how to cook vegetarian versions of the generally meat heavy Khmei food.
Our next stop was Battambang and to get there we took a slow boat through the waterways that are created by the monsoons. The water engulfs trees and whole villages which have been built on stilts in preparation,. Many homes are simply boats or houses with enough tires attached to the edges that they are capable of floating above the rising monsoon rains. When we stopped for lunch at a floating restauraunt we noticed small children in about five different canoes paddling themselves through the water in their school uniforms. Most kids walk or bike to school around here but these eight year olds get themselves there with boat and paddle.
Battambang itself doesn't really offer much excitement. It is the second largest city in Cambodia but that is not saying much. We took another cooking class, but this time were able to prepare the dishes ourselves and of course visited the local market for ingredients. In Cambodia this is always an adventure because of that variety of creative protein options on display. I was happy to be cooking vegetarian versions of the dishes. We made amok, lok lak, and soup. I must say I make a pretty good Khmei cook.

Running Amok in Cambodia

I heard horrible stories about Cambodia before I arrived from other travelers. They told me it was dirty and there were tons of touts. So far though, my only complaint has been the heat. Although the country does make it a little hard to stray far from the well travelled tourist routes because of the risk of land mines and the fact that many roads are no more than patches of pavement scattered between red dirt. This is what I would expect from a place that is still recovering from the Khmer Rouge and ongoing government corruption. I am still finding what I have seen of the country absolutely fascinating, and I really wish I had more time here.

Kara and I started out in Phnom Penh brushing up on all the genocide history you never learn in school. We went to the killing fields and Tuong Sleng prison... then as though that wasn't depressing enough we also watched The Killing Fields movie at our hotel. With the bleakest part of the countries past over, and my severe depression beginning to lift slightly we headed of to wander around the city. We visited the central market, your usual Asian market crammed with stalls selling everything from rubber band to dried fish to fine gold jewelry, but unlike other places Cambodia's markets boast a wide variety of apparel from American clothing chains. Gap, Izod, Abercrombie, Holister all seem to take advantage of cheap labor costs here in Cambodia and quite a few of last seasons fashions don't seem to have made their way to the stores they were intended for. Perhaps even more interesting, although somewhat disturbing, was wandering into the meat market that is located just a few rows past the clothing stalls. This was my first glimpse into the wide variety of meats Khmer cuisine covers. The market had dried fish cut open and strung up for display, as well as squid, and a variety of other unidentified hunks of flesh creating a rainbow of red, pink, and brown flesh at every stall. Yummy. Since then I have also seen fried grasshoppers, spider, whole doves (heads and all), frogs, and have also heard about the "special meat"you can order-dog. Yup, I will never hear dogs barking at night and think it is just a group of strays howling at each other, now I picture Cambodian men with nets chasing the poor mutts down the street for the next days Khmer Curry.
Surprisingly none of this tasty meat has convinced me to relinquish my vegetarianism so I instead sought out tastier tofu and vegetable options. Cambodian food is actually quite good. Less spicy than Thai but the same general dedication to curry and rice in a variety of delicious forms. My favorites are grilled eggplant and amok, a dish made in a grilled banana leaf. I did not have to search out vegetarian in Phnom Penh for long though because Kara and I hopped a bus to Komphong Cham after a few days to stay at Rana home stay for two days.
This home stay is run by an American ex-pat, Don, his wife, Kheang, who is Cambodian. They have two amazing, rambunctious kids who are 5 and 6. They provided ongoing entertainment throughout the entire visit with their quest for kite materials, attempted swims in any body of water we passed, adventures wading through muddy rice fields, and an uncanny ability to lose flip flops (this was Dara specifically). The family lives outside Komphong Cham in a small rural village where they have a fairly comfortable guest bungalow located beside their house. Kheong cooks all the food, and provides an amazing sample of a variety of the best Khmer dishes. She also uses her ability to speak both Cambodian and English to provide you with an opportunity to speak to local people in the village. We went for both a walk and bike ride in our two days and had multiple conversations with rice, cucumber, fish farmers, and other locals we met along the way. Kheong was also able to give us descriptions of the problems the people in the area are facing due to government corruption and a variety of other problems. At the time of our visit for example, there was no electricity because the service had been unexpectedly cut (insert government conspiracy theory here). This was one of many issues we learned about that keep the average Cambodian from living at a level of economic stability.
We also had evening, "guest speakers," whop were members of Kheong's family paid a small amount to come and let us grill them with questions for about an hour. We heard about the schools from Kheong's sister, and life under Pol Pot and in the village before and after from Kheong's mother. Overall it was an amazing experience that has given me so much more insight into the lives of the people I would otherwise simply whizz by in a bus or boat. It is amazing to feel like I was able to appreciate the beauty of Cambodia's rural landscape but also gain an appreciation of the hardships people face when they have to live there.