On the Road in Cambodia

Who would have thought that our hour and fifteen minute commute would be such a bonus? We leave the hotel at 7:30 each morning in a 'convoy' of two white vans. What we see between there and the worksite is different every minute and every day, and from every window. First there's the traffic and humanity of the city, then the countryside with its fish farms, lotus, houses-on-stilts and rice paddies. Since we're eating rice most every day here, it seemed appropriate that we participate in a harvest. And what a great location for a team photo!

We see every means of transport imaginable on the road. Scooters run together like schools of fish, carrying as many as six people at a time, and all sorts of cargo. And they also pull trailers with benches, providing the Cambodian equivalent of a bus. Trucks and cars are on the road in far fewer numbers, as are tuk tuks, bicycles, handcarts and wagons pulled by cattle and horses. It's a crazy, crazy scene every day. Amazing that there's not much in the way of accidents.

We had the weekend off, so we boarded a van again and made an overnight trip to Kep, a coastal town known for crab. We stayed at an eco-resort with treehouse-like structures, and enjoyed fresh crab dishes at a waterfront restaurant while watching boats at work. And we took a boat ride that included time on a beach only accessible from the water, where we swam and saw orange starfish. They look like rubber pool toys, don't you think? The drive took three hours each way, and it felt like we were a world away from the bustling big city of Phnom Penh. We're finishing-up the house, and then most of us will set out on one more roadtrip. Our final stop will be Siem Reap, where we'll see Angkor Wat, a sprawling, 800-year-old temple complex that is a Unesco World Heritage Site and Cambodia's premier tourist attraction.