First afternoon in Cambodia

This is just a warning that there will be many more posts to follow...

So after an incredibly long plane ride (12 hours) and another shorter one we were ready to be in Phnom Penh. Once we got to the hotel and settled we were ready to get out and see the city. One of my sisters friends, who has been to Cambodia convinced us to go out and see something for the afternoon in Phnom Penh. We decided to head out to Phnom Wat. A Wat is a religious structure in Cambodia. So transportation is a little different in Cambodia than it is here in the states. We took a van from the airport to the hotel, both the majority of people around Cambodia drive scooters. So the roads are a little crazy, because there are tons of scooters, bicycles and a few cars. There are basically no seat belts, but when the top speed you reach are 30 mph they don't worry about it as much. Actually one of the most crazy things to see was when a family would all be squished onto a scooter. Usually there would be a toddler standing up in front, the dad would be driving, there would one or two kids next and the mom would be sitting on the back. I think the thing that amazed me most was that even the little kids didn't really hang on. Because of the high numbers of scooters , the form of public transportation was called a tuk-tuk.

photo credit: Melissa

It was basically a cart pulled by a scooter. It's a fabulous way to see where you are traveling. So we got a couple of tuk-tuks to take us over to Phnom Wat. It was a nice way to see the city. Phnom Wat is a temple surrounded by a park. There were a lot of people hanging out in the park for the afternoon. So after seeing the Wat we walked around the park. It was nice to walk around a little after being on a plane for so long. While we are walking around the park we found some large monkeys hanging out waiting for food handouts. It was really funny to watch them sitting there. There were a couple of really fat ones just sitting the the grass. After walking around we took our tuk-tuks back to the hotel to meet up with the rest of the house building group. We went out to dinner with the whole group the first night. We had introductions and then enjoyed our first meal in Cambodia.