Sunday March 20th 2011, Cambodiarrr

Even though I got back late the night before, and my trip did not leave until 1130, I got up very early the next morning.  Half because I was so excited for my Cambodia trip and half because I was so afraid I would oversleep my alarm and miss it entirely.  I got up at about 0700, and off the ship to find a flag.  I had a motorcycle driver take me to a local market where we were literally walking the bike through a crowd of people.  It was a little uncomfortable but a really cool experience.  A sunny warm early morning and all the Vietnamese people were out getting their fresh produce and meat.  I think it is funny how people in Vietnam wear those round pointy on top hats…not sure why I think it’s funny.  Maybe because it is precisely how I pictured Vietnam to be.  Every other port for the most part has been so different from what I pictured so when I actually see something I correctly predicted it seems weird to me.  After I found a Vietnam flag for my collection in the market I had my driver take me back to the ship.  We left for Cambodia right around 1130.  Phnom Penh group B was chosen as the trip for people whose parents came to visit them.  I was in group B as well.  Mom and dad apparently did not get the memo and I was one of 2 kids on the 50 person trip whose parents were not there (sad face). 
I met this woman on the bus on the way to the airport who was this kid on SAS’s mother.  I forget her son’s name,  he was a little bit different and of course ended up being my roommate.  Thankfully he slept on the floor of his parents room and I get our big ass hotel room to myself, this seems to be a theme I have had on SAS trips.  Anyways the woman got to talking about where we were from and just had nothing positive to say about me being from Buffalo.  She was about 60 years old but I almost smacked her.  What jobs are available there? What’s going on downtown? She did not get the fact that I lived in a suburb.  And she is from Pittsburgh… in my opinion the darkest gloomiest winter in the United States more so than Buffalo.  I’m not one to necessarily defend the city of Buffalo because I know it’s not the best city, but seriously.  It’s okay I owned her later in the trip. 
The flight to Phnom Penh was pretty short and soon enough we were on a bus going to our first stop which was an art museum.   Although impressive…not really my thing so I walked over to a bunch of kids playing soccer with some ball and watched them for a while before getting on the bus.  We then had a boat tour of the Mekong River Delta before going to eat dinner.  Authentic Cambodian food is pretty good.  We ate at a restaurant which had dish’s that everybody shared.  That’s called Tapas right?  Yeah we had some Cambotapas.  The skinny kid across from me grabbed every dish first and made sure to take enough so that everyone else had to split a lot less. 
After dinner we had the opportunity to do one of the most exciting things I did in Vietnam/Cambodia.  We went to an orphanage called Palm Tree Orphanage which was started by a former SASer.  All the kids there were so cute and excited to see us and they each chose one of us as soon as we walked in, grabbed our hand and pulled us around to show us everything.  I was able to meet an amazing 19 year old girl named Chealode.  She showed me around for the short 40 minutes that we were there and told me about her days and what she does.  I was able to hand out around 30 wristbands at the orphanage, which is the reason I actually brought them in the first place.  Unlike in India, these kids were so happy and appreciative of us being there.  They simply wanted to sit down and spend time with us and it is a shame that SAS gave us so little time to spend there.  The kids ranged in ages of babies all the way up to 21 years old.  Pretty amazing considering there were about 64 kids living there and they were all able to look over each other almost like a family.  Unfortunately we had to leave too quickly and I said goodbye to Chealode and all the other kids.
That night was pretty slow.  We got to our hotel which turned out to be beautiful as usual for SAS trips(and even more beautiful when I learned about my room by myself) and sat with Rikki and her parents(who went to UB funny enough) at the hotel bar.  They bought her, a kid named Andrew and myself a drink called “Around the World” which seemed appropriate.  Corny picture followed.  Afterwards Andrew and I walked down a sketchy ally and found a Karaoke bar and then a different club.  I ate so much street Pho that night?  Have I written about pho yet?  I don’t know why I asked because clearly no one is going to answer. But it is a very popular noodle soup, of which I had 3 bowls that night.  Andrew told me a really messed up story about how some crazy girl on the ship accused him of rape and simply lied about it.  Andrew is now gone and everyone hates this girl.  I wont go into details on my blog but that is a scary situation for him because it is the type of thing which can follow him home…and it is a lie on top of it…crazy.