Long time no write...
(writing from Phnom Penh, Cambodia)

We have been bad bloggers! The slow slow internet connections in Siem Reap, Cambodia made it mind numbing to sit in front of a computer for longer than a few minutes. Briefly, we travelled overland from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We spent a week there exploring Angkor Wat and the surrounding temple complexes. Sharad, Minaxi, and Deval, Bella's uncle, aunt, and cousin, flew into town halfway through our stay, and we joined them for two days of sight seeing. We've since bussed south east to Phnom Penh at the confluence of the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers. It's nearing dusk now in this internet cafe near the river and my hands quiver as I reflect on our tour today of a Khmer Rouge torture center and the killing fields.

Tonle Sap

We had a few days to kill in Siem Reap before Sharad, Minaxi, and Deval arrived, so we hired a tour of the Tonle Sap river, the flooded forrest, and two stilted villages.

The waters of the Tonle Sap river switch directions twice a year. When the waters flow into the lake during the rainy season, it grows from 2,700sq km to as much as 16,000 sq km, and gains nearly 30 feet of depth. We visited the village of Kompang Pluk -- the houses here sit on stilts fifty feet off the ground so the villagers can stay year round. As we came into town, groups of naked children leapt into the water and swam up and down the flooded main street. Everyone waved and smiled at us -- a pleasant contrast to the constant begging in Siem Reap and around the temples.

Our guide hired a canoe for us, and two Cambodian girls, 14 and 16, rowed us in and out of the trees.

On the way back, one of the young men in the boat spied a rat swimming a few feet from the boat. He leapt into the water and swam after it. He slowly approached the rodent, raised his hand high, then grabbed at the rat and dove underwater after it. His first two attempts failed, and the rat resurfaced ten or fifteen feet further down stream. But on the third attempt, he popped out of the water sputtering and splashing, holding the rat victoriously in his hand by its tail. Once he'd returned to the boat, he and another boy on the boat used an oar to hold down its head. This allowed him to pick it up from the back of the neck, and he then strangled it until it went limp. The other boy produced a strip of metal, like a nail file, and the two of them used it to pry out the rat's teeth. The rat survived this bloody and gruesome operation, and lay breathing and bleeding on the boat deck until we returned to the dock.