Sihanoukville

Friday we took a bus from Phnom Penh to Sinhanoukville, which is on the Gulf of Thailand. $4 for a 4-hour bus ride, $6 for a 1-mile taxi ride to our hotel--go figure.

On Saturday we rented a motor bike and rode around the city and country side. For those who are familiar with Len's driving it may surprise you that Carrie was willing to ride behind him! The traffic patterns are a little scary, with almost no lights. It just kind of flows together, with smaller vehicles yielding to larger ones. We got the hang of it pretty well, and avoided getting into any accident.

It was warm and sultry Sunday when we left our hotel at 7:30 am for a boat trip to three islands out on the Gulf of Thailand. The trip cost us $10 each and included breakfast, (jam, a baguette, coffee and fresh fruit), lunch, (grilled fish, fresh fruit, a Pepsi and a baguette) and some snorkeling. We left at 7:30 and returned at 4 pm. There were ten other people on the boat and we were the only ones under 30. We imagined our co-travelers saying something like--"pretty spry for old folks, they must have been at least 50. " There are a lot of young people from Europe, Australia and the US traveling through Asia. It's kind of like our Southwest trip where most people are making the same rounds.

We went to the Vietnamese Embassy today to get our visas for our visit there. We are informed that we need to get there before Tet because everything, espesically public transportation shuts down.

We got some emails about the big snow fall over the past weekend. It is so much different than the weather we have been having here. The emails make it sound so beautiful that we also miss it. But then again, sunny and 85 isn't so bad either!