Return to Phnom Penh

We've returned safely (if that's the correct word) to Phnom Penh. It was a harrowing bus ride up.

I'm not entirely sure the driver was on some sort of uppers, but he sure drove like he was. Full throttle, weaving in and out of traffic, on the horn like he was typing Morse code. Remember, this is a full-size, Greyhound-style coach we're talking about here, not some sort of minibus.

For the first half of the trip we were all more or less able to immerse ourselves in either our books or the cheesy martial-arts flick (dubbed in Khmer, of course) on the tube and ignore what was going on outside the bus. We did pass what seemed to be a trucker strike -- a long line of trucks stopped in the road, blocking the northbound lane -- but, other than that, nothing too weird.

Shortly after the rest stop at the midway point of the trip, we had all re-immersed ourselves in our particular diversions when, Wham!, the bus driver runs through or over (no one's sure which, we hadn't been paying attention) something massive in the roadway. The bus itself jumped up a bit, then started bouncing down the road like a low rider on hydraulics. Of course none of this slows the driver down -- he just keeps on truckin' -- only now whenever he swerves, jams on brakes, or even runs over the tiniest of bumps (of which there are plenty), the bus bounces a bit. Eventually, though, we did make it into the city, lurching and jerking all the way.

Once here, we ran some errands. To the bank for some extra cash and the Russian Market for supplies. Our tuk-tuk driver (one of the guys working for our guesthouse, not some random guy off the street) asked us if we were interested helping children at one of the orphanages in the city, something we'd been talking about within our group since our first stay in Phnom Penh. We said yes, so he took us to the orphanage run by the Cambodian Light Children Association (CLCA), a group working out of one of the shanty towns that dot the city. They work with about 120 orphans and street kids, providing schooling, housing and food.

Children at CLCA orphanage.

We went in bearing a 50Kg bag of rice and 10 bars of soap (a whopping $35 US investment for two days supplies of each for the entire orphanage). The orphanage itself was little more than a few stuck together buildings at the end of dirt alley in the middle of the shanty. The children themselves were cute though and genuinely excited to see us there.

Tomorrow the party splits up. Brad and Jenn are headed back home to Columbus, and Phil, Maya, Meg and I begin our journey up the Mekong. Our first stop will be in Kratie (five or six hours by bus -- yay, bus!) where we'll stop for a night or two, depending when we can find someone to take us to see the Irrawaddy river dolphins. From Kratie, it's on up the river (probably by boat most of the way depending on road and river conditions) to Si Phan Don -- the Four-thousand Islands -- in southern Laos.

I don't know what Internet availability will be like between here and Pak Se, Laos (about four or five days away), but I'll post when I can.

Enjoy.