Sloggin’ with the Bloggin’

I have a bit of a … uh … communication problem. I can’t keep up with all that’s happening, can’t get 10% of my adventures written up. Plus it doesn’t help that I stupidly lost an hour’s worth of blogging last night by hitting the wrong button. I’ll just try hitting a few highlights of the last few days, thumbnails as it were:

• Allan Maxey met me at the Phnom Penh dock, where I had come by boat up the Mekong from Chou Doc, Vietnam. Allan’s a heavy duty traveler, very experienced, very together and he looked cool and relaxed in fresh khakis, neat shirt, hair pulled back in pony tail. He had a fourth-floor walk-up corner room in a small hotel for $4, fresh breezes blowing through windows and sunset view over a monastery. His medium size backpack was so well organized I got him to lay out its contents on the bed and I shot pix. This will be of serious interest to serious travelers. We spent the next day riding all over the city, going to the three big markets, and then at night to watch the sunset at Phnom Penh’s lake. We’d ride the two of us on the back of a moto. Yee-hah!
• The kids are so friendly. “Hel-lo,” they sing out with the first syllable a higher note. They are all having such a great time. Even in dirty neighborhoods in cities, they’re having FUN. A Frenchman who’s lived here for 10 years said to me, “They don’t even know they’re poor.”
• Last night at the street weavers’ market (at least a hundred women display their weavings — it’s mind-boggling) I got out one of my books on Lao weaving to show to a woman I’d just bought some scarves from. Her neighbors converged on the book — they hadn’t seen it — and a 12-13 year old girl (weaver) just bored into the book and its color photos of different patterns.
• The best place to eat anywhere in Asia (or most likely the world, for that matter) is in the heart of the big markets. There’s such vitality, the food is fresh and cooked fast, you’re out of the gringo loop and seeing real life, it’s cheap … Allan and I had a delicious bowl of soup and iced coffee in the O'Russei market in Phnom Penh for about $1.25.

I’m gonna go out and ride my bike around town. Between shooting photos (probably a 1,000 already) and buying and investigating weaving, it’s been a full trip. I’m catching a flight tonight to Vientiane, to get a flight to Bangkok tomorrow, to catch a flight at 7 a.m. out of Bangkok to Tokyo/SFO on Wednesday, Feb. 9.