Cambodia! Nice to meet you!

I am not sure there is a way to be ready or properly be able to imagine Cambodia if you have not been and have lived in the USA your whole life. Cambodia is like if Thailand, Vietnam, and India had a baby together.

It almost looks like I'm being chased by villains in a bond movie

The large majority of people ride around on motorcycles and dirt bikes, they call them motos. So far I've seen a family of four all squeezed on one bike. The craziest thing is that some of these guys no hand their motos and text while driving around in a country which literally has like no traffic laws. Turns out seeing people drive the wrong way down the street is a very common occurrence, I will never complain about Cupertino drivers again!

Toyota needs to pay me for product placement!

You still see all sorts of other cars to trucks and even a prius! It makes me miss my own clown car back home. It is really strange at first to see a honda dirt bike thats older than me then see two prius cars drive by. Fuel efficiency is really important because motos don't use that much gas and there don't seem to be many stations around Phnom Penh, just small clusters of them

You can't say you have been to the ghetto until you have
been to southeast asia... though it is beautiful 

There are huge contrasts in poverty here, you will see shacks and people selling water in old used bottles, begging people who almost exclusively ask travellers. Kids run around barefoot. A lot of people are barefoot which makes for two things.

1. Everyone here thinks my vibram toe shoes are the most amazing thing since the wheel. One person told me I have "magic special shoe".

2. Touching anyones head is a super big no no! Your feet are the dirtiest part of your body and your head is the cleanest. So hats, backpacks,        books, anything that has to do with your head or  brain never ever ever is allowed to touch the floor. It  sounds not that hard to follow until you live it. Us  americans kinda tend to just throw things  everywhere, or drop things like sunglasses.

What's Khamer for puttin on the ritz?

 There are also really beautiful ornate buildings with gold roofs and huge gates in front and guards outside. I couldn't get a good picture, these places are like compounds hidden from the world. I can only assume really rich people live here.

These people don't look cambodian at all... irony!

Supposedly there are seven political parties here but only two are big... I know americans it takes some getting used to. The last election was heavily disputed and there has already been some violence over it. I might finally get to know what its like to live a day in the shoes of Anderson Cooper! Aside from elections there is also a king of cambodia, and yes I've already asked, they won't let me be king.

Their slogan is "energy
for power".... gas for
redundancy

                                       The gas is way cheap here but is in liters, 4000 riel is like 1 dollar american. Most vehicles are motos and cannot hold much fuel at a time.  The khmer response to this to make outside fuel tanks with rubber tubing and plastic gasoline tanks. I'm not sure how safe it is but it seems to work for them. When you ride down the streets it seems like everyone is a master mechanic. All the men and even some girls can fix motos, and oart shops are everywhere. Its really impressive.

Now with life sustaining goodness!

 The last thing that takes some getting used to is only using bottled water for stuff. It sounds hard until you rinse off your toothbrush in the sink and realizing that you really messed up and have to clean it. Also I have almost rinsed my mouth out with sink water a bunch of times, and you aren't supposed to get shower water in your mouth... my singing career is going to take a hit with so little practice. At my hotel you get two bottles a day so I'm playing desert survivor in my hotel room.

Up next...... Famous attractions!

Night of the Empty Airport

Due to an excellent bout of planning I had the privilege of an eleven hour layover in the Taipei airport in Taiwan. So from the hours of 10pm to 9am I wandered the mostly empty airport and got to do some cool stuff, I actually learned a lot.

This isn't even half of  it, makes Costco look like the Quick-E-Mart

 The Taipei airport is larger than most malls and has way more stores. It can take over 20 minutes of fast walking to get from one part to the other and thats only if there are no people and you know where you're going. To walk the whole airport takes just under three hours. Its filled with a ton of stores mostly selling duty free stuff but also has two playgrounds, a hospital, and about 8 museum exhibits and a ton of other stuff.

Taiwan either has a lot of arsonists or took "Firestarter" very seriously

No one notices this until it is pointed out, there are a compulsively insane number of fire extinguishers... in like every room. It is impossible to walk around for more than two minutes and not see a bucket or closet with three to five extinguishers in it. It's good to play it safe but it's a might bit odd.

Speaking of odd safety measures these two take the cake.

Yes that is a evacuation slide...I'm sure it's safer than it sounds

 So yes this one requires some explaining, this is what happens when a safety exit and a laundry chute have an unprotected night together. Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you the safety slide, so you can awkwardly slide to safety... down three stories.

Apparently escape sling is chinese for zip-line, make your escape fun!  

If you thought the safety slide was a fun way to cheat death, but have trouble on playground equipment they have you covered. There is a safety zip line, only for use in very serious emergency situations. The greatest thing about it is that the english instructions on how to use it make no sense at all. I assume they keep the settlement money for your family in the case chained to the pole.

We actually are just pointing at a wall.

Another thing that is unusual for americans is the astronomic number of cardboard cutouts. They are pretty much 99.99% of almost identical looking airline stewardesses wearing different outfits. If you walk the airport you will see these everywhere... I stopped counting them at 26 and that was in the first forty five minutes.  I asked a few people why there were so many, apparently no one even notices them any more. most of the cutouts don't even point to anything significant. 

Below are just a few of the museum exhibits that are everywhere in the airport. Most of them are about Taiwanese culture and the ancient Formosan tribes who lived there before the arrival of Chiang Kai-shek. There are also exhibits of chinese culture and media

Yeah people seriously get killed for bringing in drugs, but I hear it really works for them. Locals say there is hardly any drug problems at all in the city.

I checked and they really have recently executed people.

The plant wall was really cool this thing is like two stories tall and all the plants in it are real. They even killed a bunch of them to write I *heart* TW in big letters. Now that is dedication.

Yes break out your old saloon gear and your ten gallon hat. Apparently they really do sell sarsaparilla... I didn't know that was even a real thing anymore, or who this guy is. 

Smoke Long Life cigarettes, every drag tastes like self delusion!

Cigarettes are huge in asia, despite the gross pictures of rotting teeth, dead babies, cancer tumors and other consequences on every pack. This brand of cigs is really "long life" I'm starting to think there is no chinese word for irony.


Onwards to Cambodia!