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Most likely I'll post some pics as part of whatever update I give, and given that there is no way all three of my daughters will think that they look good in the same photo at the same time, pics will likely be pulled and right there is your incentive to check back every day to see how things actually went before something gets taken down.This section will contain the running commentary from the trip, in regards to the most recent country we have been in. But once I'm able to start the next country, I'll put the historical posts in the "Old Updates - XYZ" tab above. This all assumes I (or one of my kids) will be able to figure out how to make this website work.

If you want to read about the first 28 days and our time in Italy, then click here.

If you want to read about our time in Turkiye, then click here.

If you want to read about our safari in Kenya, then click here.

If you want to read about our beach vacation in Tanzania, then click here.

If you want to read about our amusement park/desert experience in the U.A.E, then click here.

If you want to read about our desert/beach experience in Oman, then click here.

The Journey Continues - Cambodia

To jump directly to one of our days in Cambodia, click here:

DAY 85

DAY 86

DAY 87

Day 85

We left Oman for Siem Reap, Cambodia, but it was going to be possibly the longest day of travel we will have our trip to get there. We had to take a flight from Salalah to Muscat, and then Muscat to Bangkok, and then Bangkok to Siem Reap. There were a lot of points of trepidation around this trip beyond the normal “miss the flight/flight canceled” type worries. The first was that when we entered Oman, you might remember that we were told we didn’t need an extended visa if we actually left on the 15th day (in theory, a visa wasn’t required for stays of 14 days or fewer, but upon affival immigration said that there was one day of flexibility). So it wasn’t clear if the exiting customs official would notice or care about our stamps (something further compounded by the fact that we think only 3 of the 6 passports were actually stamped). Second, was that our first two flights were on Oman Air, but the 3rd flight was on Air Asia Move (booked separately), which likely meant that we would have to pick up our bags in Thailand and then get back through customs to go to Cambodia. Third, if we were taking 3 flights, landing in 3 countries, the potential that bags are lost feels much higher. Finally, since we were taking two flights on Air Oman, we thought it best to check the stroller through to Bangkok, instead of gate checking it to Muscat, and then to Bangkok, for fear that the first leg might force us to get it at the carousel instead of the gate as we exit, which would lhave meant leaving the airport and then coming back through security.

But before we did any of that, we tried to squeeze one last day out of Oman. We got up and got our last breakfast buffet and Liam got his last “road donut” (they had a donut wall, similar to the one in Lapita and beyond the donut he ate during lunch, he would want another donut to take with him as we left). Liam and I went to the pool for a little bit before joining the rest of the family at the beach. We went back to the room, showered, finished packing and checked out of the hotel.

We go to the airport and since the first leg of the flight was just to Muscat (the capita of Oman) we didn’t have to go through customs. The waiting area had a little play area for kids, so Liam was happy as we waited. We landed in Muscat without issue. We then went to customs and I held my breath as he looked through our documents, but he let us leave the country without an issue (to me, it would have been weird to say “You stayed here too long, so either you pay us, or you stay longer).

International airports have much better children play areas than the US does.

The first flight was at 6pm, the second flight was at 10:05pm and landed at 6:50am. In part because it was an overnight flight, and in part because it was the second of 3 flight, when I got an email from Air Oman about whether I wanted to upgrade to Business class, I opened the email. They have a situation where you can bid for the upgrade. I put in the lowest bid they would let me and it turns out that we won! I told the girls as we went through the security checkpoint that we got the upgrade and they were excited. I was trying to keep down expectations (since we have learned that not all business class are great - some just have more leg room while others have lie down seats).

One other benefit of business class seats, which factored into my decision to bid, was that we could eat in the Air Oman lounge. As we walked there, we passed a McDonalds, and I silently thought, “Maybe I wouldn’t have upgraded us if I knew we could eat at McDonalds…” The business class lounge was nice, but it was a sit down restaurant with a somewhat limited menu. Megan, Lily and I were all at fine, but the other three ate varying degrees of food. The biggest problem was that since we were going to have to get our bags and go through security again, we couldn't do my favorite thing - which was take as many free waters as we could carry.

Liam had to walk down a little aisle to get to his seat.

When we got on board we found that we hit the jackpot with lie down seats. Lily later said that the 5+ hours we spent on the trip in business class was the highlight so far. I hope that was an exaggeration. But everyone got off the plane in good spirits, albeit a bit tired, thankful for the upgrade. A good sign, since when we arrived, it was, after all, now Thanksgiving.

We landed and got our bags and went through passport control. I pulled out our Air Asia receipt (which I had downloaded to the phone) but was having a difficult time pulling up the Air Asia app given my internet was slow. We went to the board to look at where we needed to go to get our connecting flight. The flight wasn’t there. Our original flight from Salalah to Muscat changed its time by 35 minutes without warning us (luckily the hotel noticed), so I wasn’t panicked yet, but I started to worry that something went wrong like the purchase didn’t go through, or I made a mistake on the day or the airport. I looked at the ticked and it was the right date. I looked at the airport and it said Bangkok. Then I looked again and it wasn’t BKK, so there was another international airport in Bangkok?

We went to the Air Asia desk there to ask them and they confirmed that it was at a different airport in Bangkok, that is apparently an hour away. We had two choices - get into a taxi (or likely two taxis) or get onto a free bus. We went down to where the free bus was and as we were signing up for it, they said that it would be here in 10 minutes. I did some math and it meant that we would be arriving at 9am for a 9:50 flight where we had to check bags and go through customs. Megan was in favor of trying for it to avoid the cost of another flight, but I made the executive decision that we stay at BKK and just get new tickets on another airline. I figured that it would simply create another hour of high stress and maybe 2 hours if we found that we had to come back to BKK to get the next flight to Siem Reap.

My phone still wasn’t loading things well, but I took Lily’s phone and could see that there were at least 6 seats on a 12:30 flight to Seam Reap out of BKK. Then I triple checked the right airport codes. We then went to the counter where you buy tickets, which was on a different floor from where you check bags. The process to buy tickets was pretty straightforward, although it surprised me if when they asked if I wanted to pay in cash or credit cards (who buys plane tickets in cash?) and it took all of 10 minutes. Then we went down the baggage counter and checked our bags.

As you might imagine, the above paragraph glosses over a period of high stress - we were all tired - even though we were in business class, at best you could get about 4.5 hours of sleep if you fell asleep immediately and no one except Liam did that. For my part, I was still coughing, and it was difficult to find a way to sleep, so I got very little rest. Meanwhile, we hadn’t had any food yet. And finally, even though the tickets to Siem Reap were cheap, times 6 people it still meant that we had wasted almost $1,000 on my mistake. (I was silently giving thanks that I was lucky enough to have been working at a job the past 16 years where I made enough money, and in theory that wanted me back when I got back, where the extra $1,000 wasn't a make a break amount). So no one was in a good mood, and I seemed to have just lost any good will that my upgrade decision had generated. I declared - “I need a Krispy Kreme donut, anyone else?”

It was a weird thing to see a Krispy Kreme in Thailand (or maybe it shouldn’t be, since they are so good), and needless to say, no one declined the opportunity for a donut. They often say that you make poor decisions when you are tired, but this one was spot on.

We went through security and customs (a little weird to go through customs coming into Thailand, just to get our bags, turn around and leave Thailand) and then looked for our gate. However, the board wasn’t showing the gate yet. We had the option of walking in one direction to the A, B, C and some D gates, or the other direction to the rest of the D gates, as well as E, F and G. Bangkok Airways had flights in both directions on the board, but more were in the higher letters, so I chose that direction. It was an important decision because the walk in either direction was 10 minutes before there would be seating. So we had to walk for about 10 minutes past shops (we passed 3 Channel shops) to get to the first seating area near the gate. Looking at the signs, depending on which gate we were at, we were potentially a 17 minute walk from our gate, and based on how the day was going, I assumed that that was the way it was going to work out.

We now had to wait 3 hours for our flight, so as we sat down, most of us fell asleep at some point. At one point, Megan and Lily went to go get Starbucks. About 20 minutes later, I was feeling hungry, and I know that if I don’t eat something real (a sugary donut not being “real”), I will often get a headache, so I told Elenna I was going to the bathroom, which I was, but was secretly planning to get some food. Megan doesn’t like buying junk food for the kids, but will sometimes make exceptions while traveling (hence getting Starbucks after Krispy Kreme) but since I already got us Krispy Kreme I figured I should get some junk food on the sly.

Keira filming something for Instagram, which somehow is way behind my blog or Megan's Fasebook, even though Keira has no responsibilities on the trip, and what she does do, doesn't take that long.

So I walked down to where I thought a McDonalds was, I saw it, and started an order at the kiosk. At this point, Lily sees me and she and Megan came over. Lily was affronted that I would go there without them (but they didn’t get me anything from Starbucks - true - its largely because I don’t like anything from Starbucks). Megan said, “You realize that they will give us food on the plane, right?” I looked at the kiosk, then back at them and shrugged and kept ordering. They walked away, half amused/half frustrated.

I ate my chicken nuggets and then came back to our seats. Elenna was also affronted that I didn’t get her anything, but she had Starbucks and couldn’t really complain. Finally, our gate was announced, and we had chosen correctly! We were only a 7 minute walk from the gate. We boarded and finally flew off to Siem Reap.

Most of us took a nap in the airport, but Liam did so for the longest. Plus, he is the only one who would let me post a picture of him sleeping.

On the flight, they did serve us food, but fish was the only option. I fly all the time, and my first rule of flying is never get onto a plane hungry (you never know if you will like the food, if they will actually serve food, or if you will sit on the tarmac for hours before takeoff), and I was very happy I got that McDonalds.

We landed in Cambodia and I felt prepared because we had not only applied for the eVisa, but we had the Crowne Plaza print them out (as instructed). But when we go there, there was another step to do - essentially scanning our passports to get another electronic document. Not a huge deal but anything times 6 people takes a while. There was a QR code that we could forward to a device, but the guy who showed us how to do it, didn’t do that step, so we figured that once we got it, it was in the system and we didn't need to prove it, so we didn’t capture the QR code for any of them.

When we got to the passport control, we gave them the eVisas and he asked for the QR codes and we didn’t have them. He looked annoyed, but it turns out that once he scanned the passports, it showed we had whatever it was that we needed. Passport control made us go through one at a time, and Megan and I went first, not realizing that once we completed the process, we had to go through the passage to the other side of customs. They let me get Liam through, but the three girls had to complete things on their own. As Megan, Liam and I stood on the other side, we wondered what would happen if there was a problem with Elenna’s documents. But luckily, everything was fine and we got through.

Our hotel, The Nature, arranged a pickup and we got into the van. But I noticed that there was a Circle K on the outside of the airport, so I ran in to see if they sold peanut butter (Liam takes his nuts as part of his anti-allergy therapy in a spoon of peanut butter but Thai customs wouldn’t let us bring the open jar to Cambodia. There wasn’t any, but I did stop and get some cash. The driver was very nice and he spoke English reasonably well, but was hard to understand from time time. He talked about the history of Cambodia and Vietnam.

We got to The Nature, and it is a nice boutique hotel in a random part of the city. Very pretty inside with wooden beams and walls encicling the courtyard so you didn't feel like you were in the middle of the city. When we booked it, Megan explained that there was a villa option but it was far away from the hotel and you had to get a tuk-tuk to drive you to it. I was picturing more of a sprawling resort with some villas really far away, but it turns out that it is about a mile away through the city.

The Nature served tea from 3-5, and luckily we had arrived right at tea time and since we were hungry. We had some fruit and waffles (I was the only one who had tea, trying to help my cough, while everyone else drank something called "cinnamon juice"). Then we headed to the room in tuk-tuks. The plan was to eat early, go to bed early and then go to Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise and then tour the ruins. We ordered room service to the room and our Thanksgiving feast consisted of chicken fried rice or chicken fried noodles (depending on the person). Then went to bed at 7:30pm for a 4:30am tour.

Day 86

Unfortunately, my cough continued to plague me, which meant that I kept both me and Megan up, and we got little sleep. At this point, after weeks of sleeping upright, my back also started to hurt me. But we got up and got ready. We probably left the room at 4:40, since its hard to get 6 people out of the room on time and headed on our way. Later in the day, Megan and I were talking and we realized that we both were wondering who’s idea it was to do a sunrise tour on morning after traveling on planes for 21 hours. At the time, it seemed like we would be exhausted, so it would be easy to go to bed early, making it easy to get up early the next day, right? But its never easy to get up early, especially if you are exhausted. I think that sunrise tours are the types of things that sound really good 3 or 4 days out, then sound less and less good as you get closer, then only start to feel better while you are watching the sunrise.

We had asked the hotel for packed breakfast, and we planned to eat it somewhere near Angkor Wat. Tuk-tuks can only hold a maximum of 4 people, so we needed two. The guide was in my tuk-tuk, with Lily and Elenna. I wasn’t sure if he chose it because I was the man, or if it was because it would have been “inappropriate” to be in the tuk-tuk with Megan and Keira, or he just chose it randomly.

He spoke English very well (much better than the driver from the airport) and started to go through the history of Cambodia again. He did a good job of explaining it, but my knowledge of Cambodian history was limited, so as he talked about Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, there were a lot of names that I had heard of and knew were bad, but wasn’t quite able to put into context I might have wanted to. But Khmer Rouge was the Communist party in power for 4 years from 1975-1979 and the guide said that they killed about 3.5m people during that time, killing minorities, political opponents, and anyone who was well educated (even people who wore glasses!). Then, the next 20 years was a series of civil wars. Our guide left his family in 1991 at the age of 10, to avoid the war and came to Siem Reap to join a Buddhist Monastery, where he was educated and then became a monk for 10 years, before switching to civilian life and having a family. We later learned that being a monk for 10 years and then switching jobs is a common thing.

We got to Angkor Wat and the guide told us that we aren’t supposed to bring food into the area around the temple, so it would be best to eat the food at a nearby restaurant. He did let us bring one box inside for Liam if he needed it. We sat against a stone wall at the base of the moat around Angkor Wat for about an hour watching the sunrise. When we got there, it was still dark night and we could see the constellations well, and Lily noted that back in New Jersey, our friends would probably looking at the same stars in a few hours (we are 12 hours ahead). It was a beautiful place to watch a sunrise and Megan said it was listed as one of the top 10 places in the world to watch a sunrise, and I can believe it.

Megan and Liam watching the sunrise.

At one point during the sunrise, I had had asked Megan if she had checked the weather at all to see if the sunrise would be any good, because I hadn’t until about 10 minutes after I bought the tickets when it occurred to me that maybe I should have looked. The weather generally looked ok, but there was a cloud partially covering the moon. But the night was clear with just a smattering of clouds near the horizon, which I actually find to be necessary if you want there to be cool colors in your sunrise.

Great view of the sunrise over Angkor Wat.

Then we walked into the temple and the guide explained things. It was built in 1180AD. All of the temples in the area had a mixed history - with Angkor Wat starting as a Hindu temple, then when the area became Bhuddist, switched to Bhuddist. Then it switched back to Hindo and all the Bhuddas were either torn down or defaced.

The place is huge. The stone was quarried 40 miles away and then sent there largely on rafts (with elephants helping them move the stone to the rafts). I’m always blown away by ancient civilizations building things of that scale. Just building the moat (which was about 200m wide and encircled the whole temple) would have been a huge undertaking.

At the entrance.

You walk into the first section and you kind of feel like that will be the temple, its so large, but then you go through and find yourself in a courtyard where there are a number of other buildings, libraries, more temples.

Inside the temple. It was huge!

It took us about 2 hours to explore the temple and we didn’t even go into every building.

Everyone loves the way Liam looks in a hoodie.

There were two library buildings in the beginning of the courtyard and the guide was walking us past them and I asked if we could go in? He said that there were other libraries in the next section that would be less crowded. So we went into the next section. In it, was the center of the temple, which he said was the center of the world. We took this weird picture there.

A picture from the center of the universe.

The thing about the temple is that the scale of it impresses, but the detail on the walls and columns blows you away. Carvings everywhere - mostly hindu. It had been restored a couple of times in the past 50 years, but largely has been exposed to the elements. So you got a feeling like you were exploring a long-forgotten area, and really transported you in the past. Megan’s homework that we all watch “Tomb Raider” made a little bit of sense (almost), as you felt like there could be some hidden treasure around the corner (at least when you didn’t see other tourists).

Still inside the temple.

The library that the guide brought us to was up a steep flight of steps, and everyone climbed up, but it was a pretty precarious trip.

Walking towards the library, inside the temple.

Liam started to scamper up, so I followed behind him in case he fell, but it was partly like following up behind someone on a rock wall. We all got up there safely and walked around. It gave a great view of the surrounding courtyard. As we were ready to go, we all wondered how we were going to get down. The answer for most of us was to climb down like a ladder and Liam did sit bumps down.

We moved to the next area and here the guide said that you had to be 12 to be able to climb up, which caused Liam to burst into tears. For the most part, he hadn’t really been complaining about the tour as he enjoyed running around the temple courtyards and jumping from one rock to another inside some of the temples. Elenna and Lily both jumped at the idea of staying behind to watch Liam, but Megan, Keira and I went up, to the highest point in the temple. No building in Siem Reap was allowed to be taller than this highest point of Angkor Wat.

Megan looking out from the highest point we could go to in Angkor Wat.

They had built wooden stairs going up to the top, and the guide said that a tourist fell and died on the stairs, which is why you had to be 12 and they built these new stairs. We started to question whether we should have climbed up to the library on its steep steps - it felt like it was one tourist injury away from being roped off. Meanwhile, although there were new steps, they followed the slope of the temple, so each step was very narrow to keep it going vertical. Many people were struggling and stopping often, and although we didn’t stop, we did start to wonder out loud to each other if we were actually in shape enough to do the Sydney Harbor Bridge walk (walking to the top of the bridge) that we had signed up for in a month.

The view from the top was amazing as you got to see out into the courtyard, then over the walls into the jungle beyond. Pretty amazing to think that anyone thought to build something so large in the middle of a forest.

From the top, you can see that you are surrounded by forest. Who builds a huge temple out here?

We climbed down slowly, but the descent was easier than the ascent, and much easier than descending down the library steps. We met up with the rest of the group and began our exit out of the temple. Everyone was ready for breakfast.

We walked off of the grounds and got into our tuk tuks. As we passed by a lake, we started having Fayson flashbacks.

I took this picture because Keira said it looked like Fayson. Then she complained that I was going to put in on the blog. She was right.

They brought us to a restaurant and Megan and the girls felt a little weird eating our own food in a restaurant, so we decided to keep our breakfast for lunch, and then eat the restaurant food. Since we had been up for over 4 hours, most of us decided to eat lunch food, with the exception of Liam who ordered a pancake.

The food was solid, but I was starting to feel flushed, and as someone who had had 2 fevers in the past 10 days, I knew very well what was happening. Halfway through the meal I lost my appetite, but I know my body and I know that if I didn’t eat more, I’d feel worse, so I finished my plate. Megan commented on how I didn’t look good, but I wasn’t about to miss continuing this tour, which was one of the things I was most excited about on the 10 month trip.

So we went to the next temple: Ta Prohm, which is the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed. It was a little bit more in the middle of the jungle, and was made for the mother of the king at the time. Apparently, when people left Angkor Wat, some people continued to use it, but they largely forgot about Ta Prohm and it was lost for a while. Since no one took care of it, the jungle started to take over and there are a couple of cool places where there are trees growing through the temple walls.

The temple was much smaller than Angkor Wat, but the walls were just as ornate and still amazing to see. However, at this point, I was starting to flag, drinking water because I knew I had to and focusing more of my energy on moving to the next stop than on taking in where I was.

A little bit of photo magic by our tour guide.

But if Angkor Wat felt like a lost temple, then this certainly was one with the jungle growing inside.

It is so neat to see the jungle mesh with the temple. Luckily, no statue monkey soldiers attached us.

After this, our guide noticed that both Liam and I were sitting down whenever we had a chance and he said there was one more main temple, but we could decide if we wanted to keep going after that or not. So we went to Angkor Thom, to the temple Bayon or the temple of many faces. Angkor (“city”) Thom (“Big”) means big city, and Angkor Wat means “City Temple”. As we drove to the temple, we passed under an archway which was all that was left of that part of the city wall, and then drove a little further until we got to the temple. The temple itself was just as neat as all of the ones before, with intricate carvings. One wall had a long picture of daily life in the area showing fishing, wrestling, cockfighting, warriors, etc.

Our tour guide showing Elenna the carvings of daily life in the city.

In addition, there were huge carvings of the Buddha on the walls of the temple, facing in almost every direction.

You can see a number of the faces carved into the peaks of the temple.

Some were worn away but others looked as clear as the day they were made. It was all just so incredibly impressive, not just building something that high, but then the craftsmanship while up so high!

You can see the distant peak with a Buddha head in the background, and cool looking columns/passageways in the foreground (and Keira).

At this point I was really tired, but I love this stuff, so I asked the guide if there was one more thing to see, what would it be? He directed us to a nearby temple. When Liam heard we were going to another temple, he burst into tears. We told him it was close by and would be quick and he started to calm down. I walked off towards where our guide was going and 2 minutes later Liam was running past me and jumping around.

As we walked down the path, we spotted some monkeys, and I immediately thought “Awesome!” And then I thought, “I hope there are enough monkeys so I’ll like it, but not so many that it scares the rest of the family away.” I think I have already told you about our ill-fated trip to Monkey Forest in Indonesia 6 years ago, but long-story short, nothing bad happened at all, but our guide told a story about how a bunch of monkeys attacked him once, and after that Megan was terrified and her fear was contagious and my daughters became terrified. I enjoyed it the whole time, but every time one monkey shrieked and jumped on another, my family would run away.

As we walked down the path, there weren’t many monkeys so we continued along. And some of the monkeys that we saw, were so small and cute, I couldn’t image being scared. But as we got closer and closer, there were more and more monkeys, a couple of which were pretty big, and my family’s fear was palpable. Megan asked if there were monkeys in the temple itself and he said not many. I kept trying to position myself between the monkeys and them, but the deeper we walked, there were now monkeys ahead and behind us. A minute later, two monkeys started to fight each about 25 feet away from us and Megan and the kids had had it, and said that they wanted to stop. The tour guide didn’t seem to understand, since he was used to the monkeys and didn’t see them as threats (people were feeding them directly in some places). So he kept walking towards the temple until I called out to him that we were going back to the tuk tuks.

He led us down a path that he said was more direct, but it went straight through the forest and I wondered if it was the right path for us, bringin us closer to nature. That said, the one place we did know there were monkeys was behind us, so this path had the potential to be better. By and large it was better as we walked by a modern building that they were constructing, and I’m sure that the noise was keeping the monkeys away. But the last part of the path that led to the street the monkeys started appearing again. Our guide had picked up a stick to shoo the monkeys away, but one monkey seemed more annoyed by him, rather than scared, running a few feet away and then stopping and watching him. I was a bit afraid that our guide would provoke an attack, but we got through unscathed.

The monkeys were all nice. I'm not sure why my family was so scared. This one was directing people to the restrooms.

At this point I really wasn’t feeling well and I couldn’t decide if the appearance of the monkeys meant that I was going to miss two things that I really liked (monkeys and ancient buildings) or if they were sent from God as the only things that would have scared my family away from walking around another temple in the heat, thus saving me from a heart attack or dehydration.

We took the tuk tuks back and I kept up a conversation with the guide for about 10 minutes but he could tell it was a struggle so we sat in relative quiet for the next 25 minutes, as I kept drinking water to stay hydrated. When we got home, I went upstairs to take a nap. I took my temperature and it was only 98.8, which didn’t feel right to me. I wondered if it was because I was drinking so much cold water for so long on the return trip, but I didn’t think that would mask a temperature. But either way, I needed to sleep.

It was around 12pm and we were planning to go to a circus (like a Cirque du Soleil) at 5pm and I set my alarm for 4, hoping I would feel better. At 2 I woke up and took my temperature again, I had chills now, and it was 102, so maybe the cold water had lowered my temperature. I got up and took a Z-Pack, since 3 separate fevers in 10 days wasn’t normal, combined with a cough I couldn’t shake, and texted Megan I had a fever and went back to sleep. She came in a couple of hours later and asked if I wanted to go. She had just seen my text that I was sick, so it was too late to try to reschedule. I was feeling a little better after some Motrin, but I wasn’t sure if I was contagious and didn’t feel like it was fair to go. All I could think about was that when we were in China, the one night we were to see their acrobatic circus was the one night on that trip I got sick and couldn’t see it.

I texted a couple of doctor friends about my condition who agreed with taking azithromycin. To give them the full story, I had to come clean about the other potential “symptom” which was that I have been losing weight. I largely have been attributing this to my actions - Megan has been trying to get us to eat healthier (and I don’t always love the food I’m eating in certain countries so generally eat a little less than normal) and Lily has been on an exercise kick so I’ve been getting pulled in each of those directions. I also enjoyed losing weight so would avoid deserts and things if I didn’t think they were worth it. However, I’ve been losing weight to the point where I’m now down to around to 183- about 15 pounds below normal and I can’t help but think that I’m down to the weight I was in college - after I caught a tapeworm in Ecuador over the summer between Junior and Senior year. I had been losing weight before the past two weeks- not everyplace has a scale so it’s hard to know but I had been losing weight for at least 6 weeks (Africa) and I think I had even lost a little weight while in Italy 2 months ago and when the food was hard to resist. I say “come clean” because I knew Megan would not be happy to hear about how easily I was losing weight when she was eating more healthily than I was.

Too much information alert - After I mentioned that I got a clean bill of health from a colonoscopy over the summer, which ruled out colon cancer, my doctor friends were a bit less worried about the weight loss, but one suggested that I eat more to see if I could gain weight and keep it on. And my reply was “Sir yes sir!”.

For years I wondered what I would look like if my weight was around 180, finding it hard to ever get below 190. But now that I’m here, I feel like I look more old than I look fit. Like I’m a little frail. So going back to 190 or so should be a good equilibrium of healthy. Let’s hope that the M&Ms and Oreos I bought do the trick. The good news was that with a doctor’s note, Megan just shook her head when I added them to the grocery cart - as long as they are only for me. Another positive is that Megan is familiar with my Mom’s “Universal theory of weight” which states: “The amount of weight in the human world is fixed, so if one person loses weight, another person must gain weight”. Although my mom has never been mistaken for Einstein, this theory has kept her comfortable during periods of weight gain, knowing that she is doing a service for her fellow man, allowing someone else to lose weight. Well, now that I was going to try to gain weight, it should make it easier for someone else to lose some.

Day 87

My cough was much better during the night, but as I walked around in the morning it was still, frustratingly, there. Megan and I had hoped to do another day of sightseeing by ourselves, knowing that our kids wouldn’t want to do anything after the exhausting last two days, but I figured it would be better if I just stayed in bed and we did nothing.

We slept in, skipping breakfast and went to the hotel for lunch. I heard about the show the night before, which everyone thought was interesting, but Keira, as our most theater kid was most excited about. We had booked a backstage tour, so she was they most excited that they got to try on costumes from the play.

They got to go backstage and try on some costumes.

Apparently, the play itself was about the history of rice, but with no words, so there was a little disagreement about the exact plot. At about one point they poured rice from the ceiling for about 10 minutes, as rice rain.

I'm not sure what this had to do with rice, but it certainly required skill.

After that, Keira and Elenna stayed at the hotel pool, Liam and Lily went back to the room and Megan and I went to a store. Lily had an alcoholic drink at lunch and felt a bit tipsy afterwards (she didn’t like her lunch so she had a drink on a pretty much empty stomach) which we all thought was funny. Her plan was to go back and do some school work, but she later told us that she needed about 30-45 minutes to get her head together before she could start.

Megan and I needed to get some peanut butter for Liam for his nuts, as well as the ever constant need to find more contact solution, since all the girls in our family wear contacts. We told our tuk tuk driver that we wanted a grocery store, and he was confused. We said we wanted to buy some food and bring it back to the hotel, and he still seemed confused. Eventually, he said, “You want to go to a market?” and we agreed and we were on our way. As we drove through town, I started thinking about all of the ways to say grocery store in spanish. You could say “tienda” which is more like “store” which could be any kind of store. But if I wanted food, I wouldn’t say tienda, I’d probably say “mercado” which is “market,” so maybe this made sense. Or actually, I would probably say “supermercado” or “supermarket”.

We drove through town, which was bigger than it first looked when we came in, and it was interesting to see all of the shops and things. We passed a bunch of smaller bodegas that sold fruit or had smaller convenience store selections (including some actual 7-Elevens). Then we stopped in front of an actual marketplace selling clothes and paintings and things, and we realized that we hadn’t actually gotten him to understand us. So we tried again, this time saying “store” but Megan added “for bread and fruit” and he said “Oh, supermarket!” So maybe I should think more in spanish when trying to find the right word for other languages..

We got there and he took us to clearly one of the best grocery stores, sorry supermarkets, in the city. If I dropped you inside, you would have thought that you were anywhere in the US. We bought a few more things (including candy for me - doctor’s orders) and came home. After that, I generally slept and read, while Megan got a 2 hour massage for $25.

Megan had found a couple of restaurant recommendations - one a typical cambodian restaurant and one only served spring rolls, and she wanted me to choose. I asked the girls but steered them to decide the spring roll place, because although potentially less authentic, it sounded more interesting and we all liked spring rolls, except Liam, who could be hit or miss. I was betting on him liking the cheese filled one, but if not, he was generally hit or miss at regular restaurants too, so I figured it wasn’t a big gamble.

We went to the restaurant, and it was very cute - outside seating, under hanging string lights.

At "Wild" the springroll restaurant. 4.9 stars on google, which seemed about right.

The music was largely older/classics - Rolling Stones, Beatles, Elton John with some Bruno Mars and random Walk the Moon songs mixed in. The food was delicious. There were 3 types of desserts - pineapple and cinnamon, chocolate with some spice, and banana chocolate. Lily said afterwards that she couldn’t stop thinking about the dessert. She had shared all three types with Megan and Keira, and said that it was the best dessert she ever had and she couldn’t figure out which of the 3 was the best. Liam slept through the whole meal, but woke up and ate two of the cheese spring rolls, so it was a victory all around.

One of the tuk-tuks that took us around the city. Not pictured is the motorcycle that pulled it.

We didn’t get home until almost 10, so we went to bed when we got home.

DAY 88

The next day we booked a tour to the floating city of Kompong Pluk. We slept in late, skipped breakfast and went to the lobby for lunch so we would already be there at 2 for our pickup for the tour. But first I did another load of laundry while Liam and Meg swam in the pool.

A view of the pool from the balcony.

We chose a large group tour because we were hoping to meet some people and talk to people who weren’t in our family. We were the first to board the bus and I half worried no one else would get on. But after a couple of stops, the bus was largely full will about 18 people (6 were us) and most were American. But since we were sitting together there wasn’t much opportunity to speak to anyone else.

After about an hour we got to the river where we boarded a boat that was to take us to the village. The boat was a double decker boat with an engine that shook the whole boat as we went up river. A number of these boats were on the river, as well as smaller, single deck boats weaving in and out.

The type of boat that we went on down the river.

We went up to the upper deck and sat on some deck chairs.

The wooden chairs were surprisingly comfortable.

After about 10 minutes on the boat we started to see houses on stilts. The house part was about three stories high with two floors of open space that held some belongings but largely looked there to create distance between the river and the living area in case of flooding. I asked how high the water could get and our guide said it could get high enough to flood the living area!

Not as much floating, as on stilts.

As we continued down the river the houses got closer and closer together and it became clear that the village was not going to be floating as much as it was going to be on stilts.

This stop motion video might better show the village. I love stop motion, but the kids hate it.

The boat docked on a patch of land where the main village center was. Then there was a paved street that went off into the distance and the guide said that the money we paid for tours like this helped the village directly, helping bring them electricity, the paved road and a water purifying station.

The main street in the village.

It felt a little weird walking down the street and gawking at the houses, most of which were only 2 stories to the road, but often were three stories on the river side and had people underneath working on things. Children were running around with home made kites and some were riding bikes. Many of the smallest kids would come up to our group looking for high fives. A couple of times people tried to sell us stuff but they weren’t pushy at all.

They took us to a place where we could take a small boat through a mangrove forest. An older woman paddled us through, much better than I could ever do. About half way through the loop, there were three boats with women in them and a bunch of snacks for sale. I thought to myself, who is buying snacks out here?

Paddling through the mangrove forest.

Just then my phone rang, and it was Megan. She said that Liam wanted a snack and if I hadn’t passed the women, I should buy one. So now I know who buys snacks out here. I asked for a small pack of Oreos and the woman immediately picked up some big can of some sort of snack and asked if I wanted to buy it for the woman paddling the boat. I figured it could be a kind of tip, so I agreed. Then she immediately picked up a book and some pencils and asked if I wanted to buy them for the school. At this point, I thought, “She thinks she has herself a sucker.” and I shut it down there, buying the oreos and the snack, but nothing more.... and feeling a bit like a sucker.

After that, we got back onto the boat, to head out into the lake and watch the sun set. It was a huge lake - 40 miles by 25 miles and you couldn’t see the other shore from where we were. We sat in the upper deck the whole time and in the front of the ship (Robin is probably cringing at my lack of nautical vocabulary), there was a little flat area where a bunch of people came to watch the sunset. Megan, Liam and I sat there, while the girls stayed in the more comfortable but less well positioned chairs to watch the sunset.

Its always hard to capture the sunset well. but at least you see us.

Liam got bored and started running back and forth across the deck, getting perilously close to the ladder that we took to get up to the second floor. We told him to stay near us, so he found a little ramp area that went from where the girls were sitting up to where we were sitting and he started to slide down it. It was very dirty since we all just walked on it to get to the sitting area, but you have to pick your battles. As the sun was setting, he kept sliding down and there were two young women who were watching him and talking to him, and I was thinking, “I’m not watching Liam, I’m watching the sunset. But if you want to watch miss the sunset, by all means.” Then one woman said, “Can you slide down on your side?” and Megan thought to herself, this woman clearly doesn’t have children, or else she wouldn’t be encouraging him to completely cover himself in dirt.

After the sun set, we went back up the river towards the bus, and the houses on stilts looked very cool in the setting sunlight.

The light just after the sunset often makes for better pictures than the sunset itself.

We talked to a bunch of people on the trip back, one from LA who quit his job and was on month three of his travels. He told us not to go to a Cambodian hospital, because he had to stay over night. He had a bad fever and they needed to see his temperature under control to make sure it wasn’t dengue fever - but there was no soap in the bathrooms and none of the nurses or doctors wore gloves. So any idea I had about seeking medical attention in Cambodia went out the window.

We got onto the bus, but since we weren’t the first on, we couldn’t sit together, so instead of having Keira sit by herself, I sat in the back with the other travelers. There I talked to a physical therapist- can I get paid for that conversation? - on the hour long trip back. He said we were right to skip Egypt right now and he recommended Namibia as a cool place to visit because the desert there has shifted quickly, and there are forests that are now desert with skeletal trees left behind. The sea has also moved back so there are sunken boats just sitting out in sand dunes. Definitely now on my list of places to go, albeit not on this trip.

We got home, and the plan was to order room service and watch "Bridge on the River Kwai" which we would be visiting in a couple of weeks. But while we were decompressing, the lights went out and there was a small electrical fire in the ceiling, with burn marks you could see. We called the front desk and they sent someone out who found the problem and removed the lights (which were basically LED string lights attached to the ceiling), saying that the problem was fixed. We kept asking if he was sure, because there could have been some insulation or something smoldering that we couldn’t see, that could spark later in the night. Then we noticed that the apartment didn’t have a smoke alarm. He assured us everything was fine and left.

So at least "Bridge on the River Kwai" was nearly a 3 hour movie, so we had time to watch the ceiling and get comfortable that nothing was wrong. The movie was actually pretty good. It was certainly slow and filmed 60 years ago, but it did create tension (plus, halfway through the movie, I realized Obi Wan Kenobi was in it). We made the mistake of letting our kids do things on their phone while we watched the movie, assuming that it would be 3 hours of torture for them (no pun intended), because although everyone else eventually got into the movie and put down their phones, Lily didn’t put down her phone and didn’t like the movie as much as the rest of us (could have been a chicken and egg thing, but I think that if she actually watched it, she would have liked it).

Then we did a little bit of packing and went to sleep, since we were leaving early the next morning.