Harry and the Hendersons... I mean, the Swinsons

We've been in Cambodia for the past two weeks, enjoying friendly people, yummy food, and a wide variety of beers. You know your perspective is shot when Cambodia's $0.75 beers are "really expensive" compared to Vietnam's $0.20 beers.

From the capitol Phnom Phen we headed south to Sihanoukville, Cambodia's big beach destination. The beach turned out to be small and dirty, with many many people selling or begging. Unfortunately, many of the sellers are very young children, and tourists still buy things from them, keeping them useful to their "pimps" and out of school, where they belong. The town also had its fair share of old Western men with young Cambodian "girlfriends" - apparently 1/3 of prostitutes here are between the ages of 12 and 17. All this, combined with three full days of rain, pushed us on to the next town.

Sleepy Kampot has been our favourite spot in Cambodia so far, and we spent a week relaxing there. Every single child in town waved, smiled, and shouted "Hi! How are you?" as we walked by (or they biked by). We felt like celebrities.

We rented bikes and visited a local swimming spot on the river, where the 12 year old boys tried to secretly photograph Andrea. Craig laughed. Along the way we visited the zoo, where we were able to feed elephants and shake their trunks. We also met Harry, one of the orangutangs, and the lax safety meant we could scratch his tummy and shake his hand. Don't worry, he didn't bite! He did fall in love with Andrea, though.

In Kampot we found a great little restaurant, Chim's, with incredible food: homemade pumpkin soup with garlic baugette, chicken amok (a sweet Cambodian red curry with coconut milk), and lok lak (beef in a black pepper gravy). We met some friendly travellers here one night, including two fellow Canadians, Josh and Jen, from Ottawa.

We went to Kep for a day, as did Josh and Jen, and we all enjoyed a fresh crab dinner with black cracked pepper at the market. Yes, Craig and I ate crab, and it was delicious! A gian plate full of four meaty crabs cost all of $5. Here we saw a lady boy wearing a wicked Napolean Dynamite "Shocks, Pegs, Lucky!" shirt. Craig complemented him (her?) on it, and won himself a non-English speaking girlfriend for life.

Yesterday we arrived in Battambang, another riverside town. In the past two weeks it has rained 10 days - apparently, this is the rainy season. We have a few more towns to visit in Cambodia before we head back into Thailand to end off our trip.