Happy New Year From Cambodia!

Since nobody would be at Home of Joy today I got to sleep in! Woohoo! I woke up to shower and eat and then headed into town! My first stop was the internet café so I could skype my wonderful parents before my mom leaves to come visit me! Yay! I then had to go to the bank since I have spent so much money on all this camera business! Ugh this one better work or else I’m going to go broke! I also quickly stopped by the cell phone place to top off my phone!

I then decided I should go back to the fish pedicure place to get another one since I didn’t have any pictures of the first one. Tough life I know! But to be honest, I didn’t LOVE IT and I would have MUCH rather it be the case that I had eaten the biggest brownies sundae in Siem Reap and needed to go back and do it again for the pictures! BUT it was definitely cool and this time I have PICTURES to prove it!

I can NEVER decide what to get for lunch because it is always so hot! Pizza, pasta and the tradition Khmer food is always hot too so I never feel like that! I usually end up somewhere that has some type of breakfast (yogurt and fruit) since it is cool!

After I ate, I met Sokmaly and Bo at the Blue Pumpkin and told Bo how proud I was of her! She laughed and said how funny it was when she looked out and saw me in the crowd! I told them I wanted to stop and buy them fruit and off we went! I didn’t fall off or lose a flip flop on the ride, but I came close to doing both! We stopped and got mangos and grapes and the grapes were so expensive! Mom, I know how much you love frozen grapes but you would go BROKE if you wanted to buy them in either Cambodia or Vietnam!

We then headed off to ODA and when I arrived they were so excited to eat the goodies I brought. Leng wasn’t there which I actually enjoy because I feel like it’s less pressure on me. Sokmaly cut and washed the mangos and then we all sat around and ate. They were so sweet and put some aside for the kids who were still at school!

After that we had a relaxing afternoon. We played some cards, although I didn’t understand the game. It was a BIT like Crazy Eights but they would randomly throw in other rules I didn’t understand.

Chea (the older boy who speaks English very well) asked me some questions from his book and we spent some time going over the fruit book. I sort of turned it into, “What do you want me to bring tomorrow?” and they went through and told me what they liked and what they hoped I would bring.

It was then time to go and Bo could bring me back. I tried to explain to her I wanted to go back to the homestay and not downtown. The main reason being that Cambodia is a lot more expensive than I expected! I know part of the reason is because I am using U.S. dollars BUT it is also the cost of transportation that is so expensive! It costs me $1 to go anywhere on a motorbike and $2 to go anywhere on a tuk-tuk whereas I spent $.30 in Beijing for a subway ride and $.17 in Ho Chi Minh for a bus ride! I guess for some reason when I thought of Cambodia I thought of cheap! I think the problem also is that in both Beijing and Ho Chi Minh I could WALK pretty much everywhere but here I have to get a ride if I want to go ANYWHERE. So I thought it would save me some money if she could drop me off at the homestay instead of downtown (where I would then have to find a ride back) but when I tried to explain this to her she seemed confused and said we were going to her home.

And that is exactly where we went! She said she needed to pick up her makeup for the dance show tonight and I actually was happy I was along for the ride! We went down dirt roads and I taught her the word BUMPY! Well actually..VERY bumpy because that’s what the roads were! It was cool to see Siem Reap “behind the scenes” and how the local people live. They aren’t the poorest of the poor but it still wasn’t much. I met her sister who could introduce herself in English and another guy (maybe her brother) and then went out back to meet her mother and some woman with a baby! I felt awful (once again..) that I couldn’t communicate and Bo’s English isn’t strong enough that she can translate..so I just smiled a lot! I could tell though that they were SO welcoming..which I found also with Qing’s family in China and Long’s family in Vietnam!

We left her house and continued down MORE back roads into a neighborhood to pick up her friend who is also a dancer! They then dropped me off downtown!

I found a ride back to the homestay and took a well needed nap and shower! Then, I met Payal and one of the brothers and we went downtown for dinner. We also met up with Payal’s boss from the organization I was supposed to be at in the afternoon (but the kids are on vacation).

I was VERY happy when they ordered spaghetti because that was the only thing that looked appetizing! We ended up staying there for the majority of the night because they had a live band. It was also a GREAT place to people watch on Pub Street which we knew would be happening for New Years! The street was FILLED with people and every little section had a dance party going on. We headed down around 11:30pm to join in on the madness!

They had these “fireworks” you could buy that were a handheld long tube and little fireworks exploded (maybe about 30 feet in the air). I thought I might die! People were drunk and just shooting them off in ANY direction and we were all covered in ash! I even saw one explode on someone (they were ok though!).

There wasn’t any big countdown or anything cool like New York City but it was definitely a different way to ring in the New Year..shorts and a t-shirt dancing in the streets of Cambodia!

Like the old lady I am, I was outta there by 12:30am and home to shower off the ash!

Hugs and kisses and Happy New Year from Cambodia!