Today is my last day in Cambodia, tomorrow morning I leave and have a lay over in KL for 5 hours, then I get into Hong Kong about midnight, it will be a long day. I have enjoyed this vacation so much, and I can't wait till I can travel again, but for a longer period of time. This was way too rushed. I could have easily stayed over a month in each spot.
The weather today was thankfully a bit cooler than yesterday. It had to at least hit 100 yesterday, and today it was about 95, but there were some clouds that blocked the direct sunlight. Yesterday the sun was so intense, I got a horrible migraine, which made seeing the sites not so fun. But today was wonderful.
Overall the trip was amazing. We met so many great people, and there was not once where I felt unsafe. (we were still careful though). Almost every time we went on a tour with a guide, we made friends with them and then they took us out in the evening and showed us the local spots, it was great. At each place we also met great people who were also traveling; it definitely makes the experience that much more amazing.
I forgot to write about this the other day, but there is a local tradition to southern parts of asia called betelnut, basically it is a leaf of a betel tree, a nut of a aerca (sp?) tree, and then lime all put together an chewed. They have been doing it for over a thousand years. The combination of these three make your mouth bright red and you have to spit out the saliva. So I met a woman in a small village who had some, and she said I could have some, so I tried it. It tasted basically like I was chewing on bark, a leaf, and then a bitter gross taste (from the lime). It burned a little then my mouth felt a little numb. It stained my mouth and teeth a redish color for about 6 hours, and the right side, where I was chewing it actually was burnt! It must be some sort of chemical reaction when adding the three. Two days later and I can still feel it! It is said to make you feel more alert like a mild stimulant (compared to drinking a cut of coffee), but maybe because of the burning, I didn't really notice. It was neat to get to try it with some locals, but I won't be doing that again!
1 comment:
Meg:
Thanks for starting the blog again and sharing the details of your trip. It sounded wonderful and we can't wait until we see the photos. I think it's cool that you tried betelnut. I've seen it so many times on TV, whether it was on National Geographic, Survivorman or Anthony Bourdain, you joined some rare company for ever trying it. You're probably in a population of less than 0.5% of the U.S. population that's ever tried betelnut...probably even much less than that. I've heard all the stories how it almosts acts as a narcotic and caused the mouth to feel like it's going numb. I believe Les Stroud on Survivorman had to spit it out because he couldn't handle it anymore. It sure does make a mess of people's teeth. Hope yours are back to normal because you have that perfect smile. Hope you had a chance to rest up before you returned to work. Take care and enjoy.
Be safe.
Love, Uncle Mark
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