Jambo, Cambo!

So. I just got back from Cambodia, and realized that I took 800 pictures. That's a LOT. So I'm in the process of figuring out the best way to get them online--Facebook is currently being a petulant child and only uploading select photos, while relegating the others to tiny black and white icon status, Picassa only allows the upload of 5 photos at a time, because my Mac is old, and I simply cannot post 800 photos up on this hear blog.

Moreover, I had a fantastic time, and cannot decide whether to be verbose or short-and-sweet with my retelling. It'll probably be a mixture of both.

Here are the highlights, and perhaps tomorrow I'll write more about the opening days:

First, I took a 2 day/1 night boat tour up the Mekong Delta, which made a few stops and finally ended up at Phnom Penh. Stayed there a few days, then went by bus to Siem Reap and spent Monday through Thursday exploring the temples of Angkor Wat and the surrounding areas. After that, went further north to a city called Battambang, where I stayed for a day before returning to Phnom Penh for another weekend. Caught an early bus today (Monday) back to Ho Chi Minh City. And here I am.

This trip has left me tanner (an unprecedented occurrence, although I am weirdly tan: ring line, necklace line, sock line, shorts line...), bruised (from knocking myself on rocks, etc.), sore (from biking 20 km and hiking around all over, mosquito bitten (although not that much), and generally exhausted.

However, on this trip I met tons of really interesting, really nice people, biked 20 km around the 1000-year-old temples of Angkor Wat, climbed over some of said temples in true Indiana Jones style, hiked into a mountain site covered with religious carvings and doused myself under a sacred waterfall (see above photo, post-dousing), hugged an elephant, chatted with some monks, read a bunch of novels, and generally felt great doing it. I wrote in my journal a lot, had a lot of time in my own head, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

So, that's the run down. As far as photos go, I am determined to share my experiences with you through them (Hello, I HUGGED an ELEPHANT and I have proof), just as soon as I figure out how to handle it. I will probably put a batch up every day, so as not to completely overwhelm my computer/the internet. You'll just have to stay tuned.

More tomorrow.

A