Vietnam – Cambodia Border

This is looking into Cambodia from the Vietnam – Cambodia Border, the one that’s on the bus route from HCMC to Phnom Penh. I gave the guy on the bus $25 and he got me a Cambodian Visa. When we stopped on the Vietnamese side they stopped us "exited" and we got back on the bus, drove to the Cambodian side and they stamped us "entered" into the Kingdom of Cambodia. I also bought a Cambodian sim card for my phone for $3 at the Cambodian side, but it wouldn’t work, even though it was supposed to have $2 worth of credit on it. Seems the Cambodian phone network was down for a few hours.

Pineapple Seasoning

This is a picture of the bag of pineapple seasoning that they give customers at some places when they buy a pineapple. The pineapple is cut up and given to the buyer in a plastic bag that also contains a skewer so that the buyer’s hands don’t get all sticky. Inside the other bag they gave me was salt and pepper. Not pepper as in black pepper. Pepper as in chili pepper. Yes, it made the pineapple a little warm, but the salt and chili pepper flavor was an interesting change.

Cambodian Fields

I took a lot of pictures of the cambodian countryside. This is the picture I decided to use as the best example of the farming fields between Phnom Pen and Siem Reap.

Cambodian Truck

This is the Cambodian version of the truck. It’s very functional and probably gets 0-80 miles to the gallon. They payload may be an issue, but it seems to me that they just make more trips. The whole concept strikes me as being very practical.

Cambodian Rural House

I took a lot of pictures of the countryside and I picked out this house a s a typical Cambodian rural home. They were up on stilts and of the type of construction that someone in the U.S would use to make a shed out in the back for the lawnmower, etc. Often, they didn’t appear to have windows and didn’t appear to have a door. I was told by someone that they rarely had electricity, but there was a battery dealer who would come around periodically to bring a fresh battery so they could watch TV, if they had one, and have a light. I think running water is out of the question here.

Street Vendor – Cambodia

See the street vendor? I thought it was so cool that a bunch of women were walking around the parking area of a local bus stop with platters on their heads, selling things. How athletic. You don’t see that kind of graceful movement back home.

Hello – Bananas

This little guy cruised up and said "Hello. Bananas." He was so cute. There were lots of kids working the boats with their parents. In Vietnam, school costs and if you are poor your children won’t get much of an education. Some of the kids have to start learning to sell the bananas pretty early.