Jet lag kicked in today... I woke up every hour overnight, and then gave up around 3. Worked out great, though, because I got to chat with Raegan! We had breakfast at the guesthouse (scrambled eggs and homemade muffins), then headed to catch our bus in downtown Phnom Penh. Even though it was only about 7:00 in the morning, the city was bustling all over. The missionary giving us a ride said the people are up and working by the time the sun rises around 6:00. A little hard for this lazy person to fathom!
We loaded our bus, which was quite an experience. Our luggage went on the bottom, then we climbed up to sit in the upper section. It was similar to an American charter bus, but much dirtier! They played very loud Khmer music the whole time, and we were definitely in the minority.
The scenery along the way was amazing... we would see the big city, then suddenly it would a totally impoverished area. It quickly changes from one extreme to another near the cities, and then you only see poverty when you get into the more rural areas. About halfway through the bus ride we stopped at a roadside stop for a bathroom and lunch break. We had lunch packed from the missionaries- they said the food is unsafe in those type of stops, and I could see why when I went to the bathroom. I had to walk down an alley between the building lined with stinky garbage, and dogs and cats were roaming about. Toward the end we saw a pile of fish they were using for food, just lying out in the midst of all the nastiness.
The bathrooms were squatters- a cement building with a hole in the ground and a tub of water for flushing. We had to quickly jump back on the bus and hit the road again, and it was miserable! It was a long, slow trip through the mountains- beautiful, but after a few hours that doesn't matter so much. We were so relieved to reach Koh Kong.
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