Rollin, rollin, rollin on the river

SOOOO,
We are in Siahnoukville (see-en-oo-ville), Cambodia and we're loving it here. But First, Tales from Bangkok:

We ended up staying in Bangkok for three nights, and had a lot of fun. Bangkok was still really crazy and overwhelming, but we weren't nearly as hot this time around, or as cranky. Climatization at work I guess.

Bangkok is a kind of like a sweaty, diesl-ey, smelly slap in the face after being anywhere else in Thailand for longer than a day. There are two large scale traffic jams everyday, temples and high rises sit side by side. Street vendors selling all kinds of delicious fried foods can be found in the most obscure alley ways, and wild dogs roam the streets and sleep wherever they please. There is often so much going on in your line of sight that you have trouble focussing on any one thing, and it gives me at least, a headache. I think that's what the first day of being in Bangkok has been like for me every time we go back. I feel more comfortable with everything now but its still an insane place to be for more than a few days. And By the time we left this time I was coughing up flem and stuff, probably from a combination of smog and sickness.

Solange took Jo and I to MBK, which is one of the biggest malls in bangkok. There is fake everything there; Designer clothing, perfumes, sunglasses, electronics and everything else. There are six or seven floors, and we spent all day there. It was draining just to be in all that chaos, but we survived, and got some dope new "kicks" (shoes mom, shoes) We all ended up spending more than we would have liked, and I ended up spending like $85 that day, which is an insane amount of money here, but I got some sweet stuff. Solange and I bought some burnt cd's mine were:

CCR greates hits (hence post name)
Coldplay greatest hits
Razor Light
Motown 5 cd complation
Red Hot Chili Peppers Greatest hits
and some others I can't remember right now.

ANYWAYS
As I was saying...
We just hung around Soi Rambuttri and Khao San Rd, and shopped and ate a bunch for a couple of days pretty much. We decided to start to head to Cambodia, And after a string of mini-bus rides we arrived at the Cambodian border crossing. The crossing went very smoothly and a nice dude who spoke very good english offered to give us a lift into town for 300 baht. He taught us a few words in Cambodian like "Suicydie" which is hello( but sounds a lot like suicide) and "Awkun" which is thank you. One of the first things I noticed was that they drive on the right side of the road, unlike Thailand where they drive on the left. And we all immediately felt a sense of relaxation, because there were many less people around, life just seemed to be moving at a much slower pace. It was also a beautiful sunset, which didn't hurt either. We were driven to a nice hotel that was actually a converted french colonial style house, with big rooms, and an upper level that you could have ballroom danced on. There were no street lights in Koh Kong, the town we were in, and the only internet we found DIAL-UP. DIAL. UP. It was like being in a museum, I swear to God. We went to a nice little restaurant to eat, and the owner's 5 year old son translated the prices for his mom, it was sooooooo cute. I gave him a little tip and said goodbye. The currency in Cambodia is Riel, but everyone uses the US dollar as currency. 4000 Riel is about 1 US dollar, so when you get change, they always give it to you in Riel, because they don't use American change. To complicate things further, Koh Kong is a border town, so they also accept Thai baht. It was a bit tricky-ish to figure out what somethings cost but it wasn't that hard.

The next day we caught a four hour speed boat ride to Sihanoukville (see-en-oo-ville) We caught three motos(motorbike taxis) to the ferry terminal and secured ourselves a very selfish 3 seats each so we could sleep the whole way. About half way we stopped to more people on, and some Cambodian children came running on with food to sell. They woke me up and in a daze I agreed to buy a baguette from one of them, and right after that they were all shoving food in my face trying to get me to buy me some. I said no thank you, and Solange was watching me and laughing, because she's been to Cambodia already and knows what its like to be mobbed by children. The ride got very, very bumpy after that. I just kept on lying down, and had nice day dreams of bouncing around a rubber room.

We arrived safely at Sihanoukville, and caught some motos to a backpacker part of town on a hill that overlooks the ocean. We found a nice hotel that was again a converted French colonial house. It was only $2 each a night, and had satellite tv. we all fell asleep for the afternoon, and woke up at sunset. We wandered around the little strip of restaurants and stores and found a restaurant that was owned by a very eccentric Finnish man with a hitler moustache. He was very odd, although I very much doubt he had an allegiance to the reich. We had some burritos and some samosas. We went back to the hotel and watched "Striptease" with Demi Moore, whcih was a very bad movie, before we read and went to bed.
And there you have it, the last few days of my life.
You guys to email us more though, or at least comment, because we always read them all.
If you want to know more about how were doing, you need to email!
I Love erbody
-Ben