Sunday

After sleeping for a glorious 10 hours, I awoke feeling human once again. The googly-eyed narcoleptic, greasy-haired monster from the day before was gone and I was ready to take a look at my new surroundings.

Bonnie and I enjoyed some cereal, icy cold milk and bananas for breakfast and she told me about their usual routine. She drops the kids off at a Khmer church, goes and gets coffee while they sing (because the music is too loud there,) and then joins them for the sermon. Did I want to go with them? Well yes, I did.

So we got in the car.

And then my life changed forever because I lived through my first experience driving through the streets of Phnom Penh. I've been thinking, every time we go anywhere, of ways I could describe driving here. The best I can do is to get you all to imagine everyone on the road playing the "I'm going to drive as long as I can without ever stopping the vehicle" game. And then play it with motos, tuk-tuks, bikes, cars, trucks and people on foot, all also in on it.

In this game, somtimes the best open space to drive (and not lose by stopping the vehicle, remember) is in the lane of oncoming traffic. Sometimes the sidewalk is the answer and sometime it is the shoulder. Dive through a small gap in traffic to cross? Well, yes, if it means you can keep going!

The best part about this game is that because everyone's been playing it for so long, they're really good at it. Everyone is very intentional about where they're going and everyone on the road with them sees this intent and allows for the manuever. It is awesome to behold. Intuitive driving at its very best. The biggest dance you can imagine.

Anyways, in a very brief and unfair-t0-the-great-day motion, I will now tell you what I saw on Sunday, after church. Oh - at church I got earphones and a little radio so I could tune in the english translation of the sermon. It was hilarious.

Right, so after Church, Bonnie sent her son Petra with me to see some sights. We started with lunch at an NGO where they teach poor, uneducated women to work in the hospitality industry as an alternative to the sex industry. I had hummus and fresh bread and was in heaven.

Then we went to the Russian Market where we were immediately plunged into this dark, twisty, hot and smelly maze of stands selling everything from school supplies to basted pigs heads (complete with teeth and tongues, yum.)

From there we went to the Cambodian Genocide Museum (oh wait, have I already written about all of this? I'm going crazy.) which was horrible and moving all at once. From there I had my first tuk-tuk ride. I was so happy...grinning like an idiot, much to the chagrin of Petra, a very nice but bashful 17 year old boy!

After the museum, we went to the Royal Palace (I think I must've already written about this. I'm sorry to repeat myself.) It was great. It was hot, sparkly, crowded and beatifully kept and I took many pictures which I would upload if I wasn't getting "device malfunction" from this computer when i plugged in my card-reader. Grr.

From there, we walked by the Mekong River which was smelly and full of trash but still cool because it was, afterall, the Mekong River.

The adventure ended with a very long Tuk-Tuk ride back home and a delicious dinner of white-bread, PB and banana with a heaping side of dragon fruit, mango, banana, "dragon's eyes" and something else I can't recall but didn't hesitate to wolf down.

I was again narcoleptic around 8:30 pm, so I went to bed. Stevo said I should fight this urge... ha.