Happy New Year

We'll we just left Cambodia and we are stuck in the Bangkok airport dealing with a 2+ hour flight delay. Since my last update we spent a bit more time in Sihanoukville in, what passes for, an average hotel located 100m from the public beach. The hotel was perfumed to cover up its moldy smell, the kids and I weren't feeling 100% since we started eating low end street market food again, the breakfast was terrible and the public beach was filled with drunken patrons, loud music, aggressive child-age souvenir hawkers and beggars crawling at your feet. Let's just say you get what you pay for and we couldn't get out of there fast enough. The only good thing that happened to us on this part of our trip was when we took a boat tour and jungle walk through a nearby national park. We saw mangroves, dolphins, collected more shells for our collection and made new friends, a couple from Switzerland who happened to both be doctors that were on the tour with us. We hit it off so well with them that we spent that night at dinner together and then again in Phom Penh a few days later touring the National museum with the kids. We even got rid of the kids and welcomed in 2011 in a proper fashion with copious amounts of beer with our Swiss friends and a pet dragon made from beads we named Angkor (Angkor is the type of beer we drank all night). The kids welcomed in the new year asleep after a night of TV and Video Games at the house we stayed at which was filled with friendly teenagers that spoke English and hyper 7 year old boy. New Years day was spent spoiling ourselves rotten with bowling, bumper cars and eating the kids favorite food in Cambodia, pizza. That night the kids and teenagers continued their celebration with a trip to a fair filled with rides and games. They topped the night off with a evening ice cream at a posh restaurant in the tourist area. The teenage family members were exhausted and, considering they spend 6 days a week in school, this was the most partying they had ever done in one day. I spent the evening with one of our Swiss friends at a goat soup fondue restaurant and watching a traditional Cambodian kickboxing fight night. The kids spent their last day playing and playing some more with the kids in their rooms. My wife and I visited a museum that was the largest prison in Phnom Penh during the reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. It was a truly disturbing but valuable visit with hundreds of pictures of the dead that included men, women and even children. The images will stay with me for quite a long time and gave us a better understanding of why my wife's family left 37 years ago. This marks the end of our Cambodian adventure and it is unlikely that we will return for another 10-15 years. Next stop Beijing and then hello Canada.