The Obssessive Compulsive Puddy Tat

When I arrived, my old man puddy tat was missing for the second time, but he showed up on the back porch the Sunday after I came. I noticed several changes in him. One was that he had lost his voice and had aged since I'd been there. He now has white hair and gray fuzz in his beautiful black coat. The other change that I noticed, other than his fur all over, was that he had become obsessive compulsive. Almost every time I sit down, he crawls into my lap. If I remove him from my lap, he crawls into it again. If I finally remove him enough times that he gives up, he'll settle down close to me and purr much longer and louder a normal cat would purr. If I'm sitting a the kitchen table, he'll stretch himself up so that his paws are on my thigh, then pull himself up into my lap. When someone gets up at night, my cat immediately follows that person and purrs. He hardly ever goes outside anymore, either. All he does is eat, sleep, and purr at people.

Sevn Bays, August 7

Dad, Grandma, and I spent the day with Aunt Katy and Uncle Doug on a really nice beach that we had all to ourselves. Then we went back to their house and ate BBQ chicken, yellow tomatoes, potato salad, and peanut butter pie.

a bald eagle

dad on on air mattress and me paddling around an on an inflatable boat

My good friend in this picture was in the area for two days this week (she doesn't live around here anymore), and invited me and some of our other friends that we went to high-school with to get together on Tuesday night. It happened that one of them was having a Birthday party for her 3-year old son in a park that night, but said that we could all join. Praise has a very cute 15-month old boy, Anna Lee has 3 children, Rebekkah has a 4-year old and a 2-year old, and Charity has a 5-month old girl. I don't know where Natalie was, but she has 4 children. And I went to High School with all of them and graduated in the same class as most. It was great to see them and catch up a little. I should take more pictures next time.

I'm Home

I'm home. My Dad took this just after I arrived. The flight took around 20 hours, which was shorter than when I went because my layovers were both short this time.

I saw the greatest sunrise from the plane. It had vibrant yellow stripes on top, deep orange stripes in the middle, and deep, bright red stripes at the base, with one exceptionally bright red stripe where sun was coming up. The strange thing about it, beside the unusually intense colors, was that under it, everything was dark brown. Above it, there was a strip of light blue, but the color faded into dark blue and the sky above was almost black.

Bangkok, Thailand and Cambodia

Bangkok, Thailand

This is the part of the Grand Palace where the "royal residences" are.

These were my favorite restroom signs in Bangkok! :-)

They often sell these cockroaches or whatever they are in the same place along the sidewalk were they sell fruit (Bangkok). I don't eat cockroaches or anything that looks like them.

The fruit in this picture is good. It's juicy and has about the sweetness and texture of an asian pear. Its skin tastes a little like basil.

Travel Adventures in Cambodia

Our travel to Cambodia was full of adventures. First, we took a big, comfortable, air-conditioned bus from Bangkok to Aranyaprathet and stayed the night in a guest house. It wasn't a great place, but okay for the price. Then the next morning, we crossed the border into Poipet, Cambodia only to find out that the only buses to Phnom Penh left by 7:30 a.m. even though the border doesn't open until 8:00 am.

There was a guy who followed us all the way from the Thai side of the border into Cambodia and kept wanting to reserve a taxi for us going to Phnom Pehn or a bus to Siem Reap, which would have been out of our way. All the while, he kept saying demeaning things to us and demeaning things about us to the Cambodian people we passed by, speaking in English so that we would understand. He directed us to a free bus ride to "the transportation," and got on the bus with us. We had hesitated for a while before getting onto the free bus, and were wondering where all the other foreigners who had been crossing the border were. There was only one other person. When we arrived at a small bus/taxi/tour station, and the guy followed us in and tried to get us to reserve a taxi. They said we could get a taxi for 1000Bhat ($30) each, but would need 4 or 5 people. My husband went out to call our friends in Phnom Penh. I was waiting in that bus station with that guy hanging around for at least half an hour, wondering why there weren't other foreigners, and putting mosquito repellent all over to get rid of a swarm of vicious mosquitoes and wishing that I had some way of sending away the guy who kept pestering us. The guy had insisted that this is the only bus/taxi station.

We decided to stay the night in Poipet. We found a decent little guest house for about $4.50 for both of us. I was only surprised when I tried to wash my hands in the sink, and the water drained out onto my toes:-(. The helper in the guesthouse drove my husband on a moto to the real bus station, which was about a kilometer farther down the road then the supposedly only bus station in Poipet. Then we rode two motos the next morning and got on the bus at 6:30 bus to Phnom Penh, which was a fairly nice, air conditioned bus. The road was paved after about the first hour.

When we got to Phnom Penh, we took a "tuk tuk" ride to where our friends were in language school, and the driver insisted that we pay about 6 dollars more than we should have for the ride, which was a short distance. My husband and I were really frustrated by the time we got there. But we had a great time with our friends, and ended up finding Cambodia to be a really interesting place.

The bus ride back to Thailand was fine except that we reserved the 6:30a.m. bus so that we could make it to Bangkok on the same day, but the 6:30a.m. bus didn't leave until about 9:50. Then when we were about an hour from Poipet, they transferred us to another bus, which was supposedly air conditioned, but was hot and stank and immediately got a flat tire. We waited at the tire repair place for a long time. Then my husband saw someone he had discovered on the bus who spoke English getting into a taxi. They let us ride with them, and it was only $5 for both of us. The taxi took us all the way to the border crossing. There were 4 men in the front seat, and 2 men, 2 women, and 1 child in the back seat. After crossing through the border, someone showed us where there were big, first-class, air conditioned buses waiting for passengers to Bangkok, and we were on our way in half an hour. It was the kind of bus that I would think even tall, over sized foreigners could be comfortable in.

Aranyaprathet, Thailand

Aranyaprathet is the border town in Thailand where we stayed the night before crossing into Cambodia. HEre we are on a tuk tuk going to a guesthouse, and in the second picture, we're riding a tuk tuk to the border.

Poipet, Cambodia

Poipet is the border town which people usually go through when coming by land from Thailand. It's a fairly large city. In fact, the population is supposed to be about 60,000. We were surprised to see that the roads are not paved. It had been raining so much that the roads were extremely muddy and full of mud puddles. It seems like a very poor town. You would think it would be better off with all the people coming across the border and all the casinos that appear as soon as you walk through the border crossing.

Battambang, Cambodia

Battambang was one of our first stops when we rode the bus from Poi pet to Phnom Penh. It might be smaller then Poi pet, but it looks better.

We saw many houses on stilts. Our friends told us that in some places, when the heavy rains come and it floods, people untie their houses and let them float.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

This is the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It has four (I think) buildings. It was a school that was converted into one of the many prisons used to torture and kill men, women, children, and even infants who were suspected of possibly being against the Khmer Rouge communist revolution. At least 10, 499 prisoners were there from 1975 to 1978, and most of them were tortured and killed.

The large rooms were for political prisoners, and the small cells were for others. People in the Khmer Rouge (KR) regime apparently used the metal boxes to squish the prisoner's fingers. They also used electrocution, hanging and other methods of torture.

In addition to the prisoners who were killed, most of the educated people in Cambodia were also killed or sent to the country to do manual labor. In fact, 1/4 to 1/3 of the population died in the Khmer Rouge revolution.

Not only that, but the Khmer Rouge separated children from their parents and spouses from each other and arranged marriages, which were done in mass ceremonies.

Pol Pot was the main leader of the revolution. He was a Cambodian who had become a communist while studying in France. He thought that he was doing his country good by getting rid of educated people, taking away private property, torturing and killing etc.



The picture I am looking at shows some of the human bones found in the mass graves. It is really a field of many bones.

We went to Friend's restaurant with our friends and a group of Singaporeans. It is the third and final training ground for young Cambodian people who had been on the street. It enables them to be employed high-class in hotels after their training.

Just after we got inside, the rain came down hard, almost in a solid sheet. The heavy rain only lasted maybe half an hour, but it flooded very quickly. We had to wade through the water when we left. In Phnom Penh, wealthy people usually raise up their land by piling more dirt onto it. It is causing many areas that didn't used to flood to flood.

We visited a Cambodian church in Phnom Pehn. The sermon was about an hour long, but I didn't understand any of it because it is in their language.

We went to Swenson's in the second of the only two malls in Cambodia for B's birthday.

B trying to feed a monkey in a park in Phnom Pehn, Camboida. The monkey became angry for some reason and went after him.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Dragon fruit. I bought 6 for only 20 Bhat from a street vendor. They taste similar to kiwi fruit.

The Chatuchak Weekend Market

This is a gigantic market that runs on Saturdays and Sundays. It is where people go to get really good deals. We noticed that probably 10 or 20% of the thousands of people there were also foreigners. I think it's a great place to shop, but would prefer to go during a cooler time of year.

Mangosteens-These are very sweet and flavorful. They seem to be plentiful and inexpensive in Bangkok.

Bangkok, Thailand, Chao Phraya River

We rode the skytrain to the pier, and bought all-day (till 3:00pm) passes on the Chao Phraya Ferry for 120 Bhat each, and went to Wat Pho and Wat Arun.

Wat Po, Bangkok, Thailand