Good Morning, Vietnam!

We have a beautiful view of Saigon from our hotel and are surprised at how modern and clean this city is. As we drove through town last night, we saw colored lights and decorations down all the boulevards. It seems we hit the middle of the Chinese New Year celebration.

Hot Stuff

Final impressions of Cambodia:  progressive, ancient, surprisingly clean, great roads, very kind and friendly people, healthy but not very spicy foods, hopeful for a better future

At Frizz, we ordered the Banana Blossom salad  and the Volcano Pot meal to cook at our table.

Day 20

And 17 airports. The amazing thing is that we haven't missed a flight or had any problems with visas, and our luggage has always arrived with us. We really appreciate the opportunity to hang out in the business class lounges on these long layovers. This is our second transit to BKK as Star Alliance uses this as a hub, even though we could have flown directly from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Min City in an hour. So United decided to make it an all day trip for us. Oh well, we can't have everything.

Royal Treatment

Beloved Cambodian King Father Norodom Sihanouk died in October, but his body was cremated in a special ceremony a couple days before we arrived here. This beautiful pavilion constructed for the official ceremony will house his ashes. We also toured the Royal Palace grounds and museum. I don't know when I've seen so many golden Buddhas and precious vessels.

The Killing Fields

We spent a sobering morning in Phnom Penh visiting the Toul Sleng Museum, where prisoners of war arrested by the Khmer Rouge were tortured before being taken to the killing fields outside of town. This monument at the killing fields Is a memorial to 20,000 Cambodians who were executed, beheaded and thrown into mass graves and is one of many in the country. The Khmer Rouge ruled from 1975-79. It's amazing to realize that this happened in our lifetime, and I was barely aware of this genocide.

Isn't it ironic?

Seeing a monk with a cell phone.
Finding out the first Americans we've met on our trip are from the Bay Area and now living in Seattle.
Hearing a friend from Indonesia (who we haven't seen in 5 years) is flying into Siem Reap on the same day we are flying out but we will miss her by a couple of hours.
Seeing the locals wearing long sleeved jackets and scarves while we are peeling off into our summer clothes.
Finding out they don't serve turkey on Turkish Airlines but they have so many Asian restaurants in all the countries we've visited. ;)

What's Wat?

Cambodia is most often visited to see Angkor Wat, the largest Hindu temple and the largest religious complex in the world. It was built around 1125 AD and is now a Unesco Heritage site. Several other countries, including the US, have given money to help pay for the restoration of the complex. We visited three temples yesterday and went again this morning to see Angkor Wat at dawn. We are pretty much "templed out" for this trip but are glad we got to see some of the most famous ones. The picture taken with the tree trunk In the background is the jungle temple where Laura Croft: Tomb Raiders was filmed. Everyone here has mistaken me for Angelina Jolie.