one more week

KOH CHANG, THAILAND
after traveling 11 hours by car+bus+ferry+songthau (thailand's taxi, sitting in the back of a pick-up truck), we finally arrived on the island of koh chang- elephant island. it's a hippi jungle out there. we found a bamboo bungalow, upgraded with cockroaches and mosquitos and no running water. all 4 of us squeezed on a double bed under a mosquito net... and found a new bungalow first thing the next morning, which wasn't much better. we roughed it!

the island is an untouched paradise (for now at least, as the primitive bunaglows are being torn down and turned into five-star resorts), with jungle next to tropical beaches. we bronzed and explored- kayaked against the current to another island, had massages on the beach at sunset, hiked to the little fishing village of Bang Bao for a fresh seafood dinner and ate and drank at the little restaurants on bamboo stilts over the shore to bob marley and fire shows. we're thankful that we came back with only a few mosquito bites, and not a venomous snake bite like matt last month...

CAMBODIA
we're on a tour through cambodia right now with 12 other people from around the world... Australia, NZ, Norway, Sweden and England. it's a fun group, but it's been a rough trip... with not knowing if/when we'll be able to come home and traveling through a third world country, one with the most infrastructure and poverty we've experienced. Cambodia is coming out of their genocide and are desperate to rebuild themselves and their country. they send their malnourished children and elderly to hassle us everywhere until we give them money or buy something. so, since we don't give in, they don't leave our side and grab onto us. it's sometimes hard to show love when we should. the smells and sanitation are below beijing standards and it's difficult to deal with... like not even showering or entering the bathroom in our hotel room because it smells so foul.

on a positive note... we have seen some amazing things too! one in particular- Angkor Wat, the 8th world wonder in Siem Reap. the miles of buddhist temples of delapitated sandstone architecture from the 12th century was a sight to see. it was left uncared for and nature took over with huge trees and vines growing through all parts of the temples, still there today. we saw "Angelina Jolie's Temple" where Tomb Raider where she filmed Tomb Raider- yes, she's part of their world wonder. for Thanksgiving, we ate at a local's home on the bamboo floor. it was a smorgasboard just like you'd have at home... except for with tarantualas in place of turkey! interesting. we got to experience the everyday life at a homestay in the mountains... and since we woke up to rats crawling around every few minutes, we decided to get up at 5am and hike up up to the waterfall for sunrise. it was worth it.

today we went to the killing fields and s-21 prison in Phnom Penh from the Khmer Rouge genocide during the 70's. up until today, we've had nightly storytime with First They Killed My Father, memiors from a woman who lived through the genocide at age 5. it gave us history, real accounts and tears from the events and wondered why we never learned about it before. the "reasonings"and torture are too similar to the Holocaust, with the difference that it was done to their own people, and has left us uneasy. at the same time, we now have more of an understanding of the current state of life in Cambodia, since it was only 30 years ago. our tour guide was a child during the time and told stories of his own starvation and accounts from others who he's met and are still alive today.

ONE LAST WEEK
tomorrow we're traveling 10 hours to ho chi minh city. we'll end our tour there and have it be just us 4 again for our last week in asia before we fly out of ho chi minh city on december 10 and skipping bangkok altogether, if all goes to plan. we're gonna get a nice hotel room (to make up for cambodia), visit the beaches and mekong river and do some christmas shopping. we're excited about vietnam, but SO excited to come home! thanks for your prayers, it's all working out. we'll post pictures soon.