So while in the beach town of Sihanouk Ville we went on a boat trip for sun, snorkeling, and a bit of local flavor. 

Amy took the above two photos, while Seth took the next one of us lounging around.

Brad and Ros made some friends during our local lunch...

I on the other hand was particularly thrilled with the calves that were running around.

Heidi and I

Overall it was a really, really fun time at the beach!

For the weekend we headed to a beach town where a future school with our organization may be located.  It was pretty awesome, I'll admit, I don't think I would have any trouble being a teacher there!

My friend Seth took the following three photos that I just love!

Myself and a local girl, it was kind of odd because they don't seem to usually take pictures with foreigners like the Chinese do.  They also don't stare like Chinese people do.

relaxing in the shade!

An extremely crowded beach!

Here are some photos from the capital of Cambodia:

A war memorial

The city square

A local temple

The temple entrance

Millions of motos!  Practically everyone who can afford to drives a moto in Cambodia.  They are everywhere! 

Phnom Penh has lots of Western food, this local place was a favorite of ours.  Cambodia only uses American money though, so it got a bit expensive.  It was kind of strange to have lots of western things and goods amdist a very third world nation. 

The other mode of transportation is what is called a Tuk Tuk.  Essentially they are a taxi, and in the capital city you can fit as many people in them as you would like.  This particular one that passed had at least twelve to fifteen people piled into it.  We would routinely fit all seven of us in one.

There would usually be at least four people upon a moto as well.

There were cows pretty much EVERYWHERE along the two lane high way between towns.  Generally cows were everywhere in Cambodia.  The little stand by the side of the road is selling gas.  They put gasoline in pop bottles for sale.  Talk about interesting...here is a close up shot of another stand:

The following pictures were taken on the way to a beach town a few hours away.  I believe that this was the local way of traveling...we were in tourist way of travel which was a typical charter bus.

a local snack at a pitstop...yes those are giant cockroaches.  I am told that they also eat tarantula, but I didn't catch a picture of that one.

So while at one of my conferences, they took us to an elephant show.  It was very interesting.  Feeding them was pretty fun.  Here are some photos:

the elephant giving a massage

I made some new friends!

So tonight is the last day of the new year celebrations, also known as Lantern Festival.  Pretty much what that means other than eating rice balls, is that the entire city has been setting off fireworks outside my window (quite literally) since ten am this morning.  It sounds like I'm living in a war zone.  The ones that are colorful and showy are great, it is the loud banging ones I'm not so much a fan of.  This puts our fourth of July in the states to shame.  When asked by my seven year old neighbor Nate, why we didn't have fireworks like this in America, I replied "well, in America we have safety laws".  I am really quite surprised there aren't more injuries from what I've been witnessing the last nine hours.  Pretty much this will go on for the next several hours well past midnight.  I'm just lucky I only got in last night, because this has been going on pretty much non-stop since Feb. 7 every night.  The first and last days are particularly loud.