Temples and Tuk-Tuks

I started my Saturday run around 6am. At that hour, I had to dodge some cars, tuk-tuks, and motos to get across a major city street over to the riverside trail, but it was do-able. I passed people sweeping sidewalks and streets, vendors setting up for the day, outdoor exercise classes, and others running, walking, and biking.  Closer to 7am, I had a much tougher time crossing the street on my way back to the hotel. I waited until I saw a guy on a bike (how do people bike here?!) crossing from the other side, and then I went, too. I still got honked at. I joined Tim and Wyatt at breakfast. I know you're wondering...yes, the coffee is amazing here! We let Taylor sleep; she still wasn't feeling well, unfortunately.  At 8am, my good friend Liz's former housekeeper, Saven, met us at our hotel. Saven lives in Phnom Penh and Liz had connected us. We sat and chatted with Saven for a while, learned a bit about her life, took some photos together, and said our goodbyes.  At 9am, Ka...

Three of us woke up early on Friday. I headed out for a run, and Tim and Wyatt headed to the beach for a sunrise swim. I decided to run left down the beach sidewalk...and I found a hidden path that hugged the coastline. I followed it and followed it some more, until I rounded a corner and found myself at the DG Royal Resort, which sported Chinese lettering on signage and appeared to be empty. It felt a little odd and kind of spooky to be in the middle of this resort; I ran down to the water and then opted to turn around and head back. Good timing on that -- because a dog was soon chasing me and barking. Now, if you read our Andean Adventure blog from our 2022 South America travels, then you might recall I was bitten by a dog while running on a beach in Ecuador. That was a whole ordeal, and while I was delighted that my Ecuadorian hospital visit, tetanus shot, and accompanying meds cost me just $10 a few years back, I had no desire to go through the experience again. I (mostly) kept cal...

Seen on my morning run.  Happy Thanksgiving from Cambodia! We spent our Thursday on a snorkeling adventure. And if you read Wyatt's blog below, then you have a sense for how it went (well, kind of).  Once again, we started our day with a leisurely breakfast. But then one of the front desk staff approached us about 8:30am and said our driver was here -- the driver who would take us to the boat captain who would then take us snorkeling. Ah, ok. Little misunderstanding there. We were supposed to go snorkeling the day before, but weather conditions weren't good. We thought we had left it with the hotel staff that we'd touch base on Thursday morning and see about going snorkeling in the afternoon. But the hotel staff must have thought we had booked snorkeling for Thursday morning. No problemo -- we quickly got ready, packed a bag, grabbed some towels, and headed for the truck that would take us to the other side of the island. In the back of the truck, about to drive across the ...

The day started off pretty normal with some water time, but soon we had to go get changed because we were going snorkeling. A driver picked us up at our resort and we climbed onto the benches in the back of his Nissan truck. Right as we started, we hit a lip and we all went flying. Taylor fell out of the back of the truck and got run over by a tuk-tuk. We didn't care though and we just kept driving. We cruised for about 20 minutes until we got to a dock.  At the dock, we were greeted by our boat captain and stepped on a rickety boat with about 100 beer cans lying around.  When we started, I was a little bit skeptical because there were a lot of knives just laying around. I thought there could be a chance where they take us out in the middle of the ocean and cut us up and use us for bait.  My worries started to go down as we got closer to the snorkeling spot.  Once they put the anchor down, me and Timmy got our snorkeling gear on and jumped into the turquoise water. M...

Early Wednesday morning, I went out for a run. From Long Set Resort, I ran left down the beach sidewalk, which ended in less than 800 meters. Then I doubled back and ran the other direction. There, too, the beach sidewalk ended quickly. I kept going on the sand, found a bridge to cross, ran up a trail, and found my way onto a paved road. I ran past some food and convenience store stalls, a pharmacy, a club (when on island time!), children riding to school on motos, and lots of trash. Sadly, we've seen piles of trash everywhere we've been in Cambodia so far.  I joined Tim and the kids for breakfast when I landed back at Long Set. And, um, the coffee here...definitely not at Siem Reap's level. Tim and I ordered lattes instead. But breakfast itself was delicious and we thoroughly enjoyed looking out over the water while we ate. We had hoped to take a boat and go snorkeling on Wednesday, but it was super windy and not a good day for doing so. The resort staff suggested we book ...

Sopheap picked us up at 5am sharp on Tuesday morning. We collected our to-go breakfast from our hotel, checked out, said thanks to the amazing staff, and hopped in the van. We were off to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise! We arrived at Angkor Wat shortly before 5:30 -- along with hundreds of other tourists -- and began the long walk to the viewing spot. Sopheap had brought his flashlight, and good thing because it was pitch black outside. Sopheap had wanted us to view the sunrise from one of the libraries, but all the good spots were taken, so instead we found some seats along a stone wall. And it was really, really cool. We watched the sky change color minute by minute; it turned from orange to yellow to blue. We loved it. And by we, I mean Tim and me; the kids were kinda over it pretty quickly ("can we go now?" "I'm hungry.").  It's coming up! Sitting on the wall with Sopheap, waiting and watching. Sun's up! We walked around the grounds a bit, taking more...

Happy Monday from Siem Reap! Today was another incredible day here. It started with a delicious breakfast, courtesy of our hotel, Central Suite Residence . Sopheap and our driver picked us up at 9am and we drove a short way to the only horseback riding in Siem Reap (the things you do for your children). Happy Ranch Horse Farm was happy to have us at that time in the morning...but there were only three horses available. We made a plan to return in the afternoon for a trail ride. Incredibly, we learned that the owner of Happy Ranch, Mr. Sary Pann, fled Cambodia in 1975 at the start of the civil war. He lived in California for 30 years, then returned to Cambodia, bought one horse, bought a couple more, and then built his ranch. You can read more about Mr. Pann and Happy Ranch here . So, change in plans. Instead of a morning horseback ride, we drove out to the floating village. The floating village we visited, Kampong Phluk, sits in Tonle Sap Lake, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast ...