Cambodia

Merry Christmas.
About a week ago we crossed the border from Thailand into Cambodia and immediately we could notice a difference. Cambodia is much less developed and there are many landmine victims. The public transportation is very interesting also as the roads are an extremly bumpy mixture of dirt, rocks and big holes. Also one of our buses broke down on the side of the road last week. However we have been having a great time with many new expereinces. Last week we seen Angkor Wat which was incredible, its one of the wonders of the world I was told and probably the best architectural structure I have ever seen. Also last week we went out for supper one night and ended up eating some Kangaroo and Crocidile meat.

For christmas Brent and I decided to go all out and get a super nice hotel room where we are treated like kings, have hot water, no bed bugs, ac and even a tv. We spent christmas day relaxing by the ocean and playing frisbee with some cambodian kids and a middle age speedo clad french man who loved diving for the frisbee. I purposely through it away from him so he would chase it and dive for it, it was extremely funny. Tomorrow we are doing a little boat cruise to some island where we can do some cliff jumping or something. Happy Holidays.

PICTURES

Here is a select few pictures from the past month in Thailand, hopefully some will be of interest to some of you. Enjoy

My belongings.

Maya Bay

Brent looking like Tom Hanks.

Monkey beach (Tyler...yeah, it was better)

Ko Phangan

Greatest shower ever (also the first in days probably).

Brent and I riding daddy elephant.


Lots of temples.

Lots of palaces (BLING!!).

Holding a PYTHON.

On a totally unrelated note...while travelling I read alot. If anyone has any good book suggestions for me please let me know. Happy holidays.

The Beach.

Right now I am on the island of Ko Phi Phi. For anyone who cares Leonardo DiCaprio made a movie here. Wow! Its incredibly beautiful, but also very touristy, as is many of the beaches in southern Thailand. It will be nice to get away from these super resort areas soon as it doesn't even feel like Thailand alot of the time. We have done alot of fun things though like solid frisbee sessions everyday on beaches till our shoulders ache, getting a killer suntan (yes, I have a killer suntan), eating lots of street pancakes and a couple days ago we did a kayaking tour down a river through some water filled caves. Tomorrow we are doing a boat tour around the island to some of the best snorkelling areas here. In a couple days we are going to head south all the way to Malaysia to renew our visas and possibly spend a couple days there before heading all the way up to Cambodia.

I would like to put up some pics, but haven't been able to hook up my camera to any computers lately, I got alot of pics though - all good ones.

I seen a christmas tree today and it was real strange. I totally forgot it was that time of year.

Never eat a club sandwich.

We made it to the south.

We are now on the Island of Ko Tao and have spent 4 days here. We did a one day introductory scuba diving course that included one dive at the end. It was definitely one of the funnest things I have ever done as we got to see a reef, alot of fish and have a slow motion matrix battle way under the water. The pancakes down here are incredible, but never have the club sandwiches - Brent and I both had them and ended up real sick. That was unfortunate, but other then that relaxing on the beach and getting sunburnt has been a real good time. Tomorrow we are leaving Ko Tao for another bigger island called Ko Phangan.

I just got an exciting email from a orphanage in Cambodia telling us that we are accepted as volunteers for a few days in early January. I am real happy about this as it will be a nice break from travelling and will give me the oppurtunity to do something to help someone else as travelling sometimes feels like a real selfish and self centered act when I think about it. Ok, all the best, hope everyone is drinking lots of eggnog cause I'm really missing it.