December 28, 2012

Our plan was to do another long day to get to Battambang, but when the alarm went off Chan hit snooze. When it went off again, I told him to hit snooze. When it went off a third time, we decided to just turn it off and sleep. We slept until 10 and it was awesopme.

After breakfast we laid around our room for awhile doing some research on the next town. Chandler wasn’t feeling 100% so we watched “The Killing Fields”, a movie about an American journalist covering Cambodia in the 1970s during the rise of the Khmer Rouge. After the movie, Chandler was feeling even worse and was coming down with a bit of a fever. He took a nap while I read. During his nap, he was very sensitive to every sound and movement. I started laughing at my book and it shook the bed too much for him. At one point I had to get up and was laying back down on the bed. Chan said I was “an angel at lying down slowly.” Good thing we didn’t ride, he really wasn’t feeling well.

After his nap, he felt better so we walked around the hotel grounds until dinner. The area around the hotel was covered in flowers and fruit trees.

We chatted with a very friendly man who left Cambodia for the US in 1975, right when the Khmer Rouge was coming to power. He was visiting Cambodia and reconnecting with old friends. We learned a little about his life in Cambodia and his transition to living in the US. He also showed us what a durian looked like and how to tell if it was ripe. Durian is considered the “King” of fruits in Thailand, and is apparently well regarded in Cambodia as well. It has an off putting sulphury smell but we didn’t find as repulsive as others have described it. Apparently the flesh is very sweet and tasty, unfortunately the one he had was past its prime and not suitable to eat. Now that we know what it looks like, we’ll have to get the courage up to buy one and cut it up ourselves.

Chan and Tea

Baby chick

Bike powered water pump

Durian