In Khmer Land

us and our friend Jason Dyck

We were scheduled to leave Chiang Mai on a night bus on thursday. The day waiting for the bus turned out to be great.

We'd heard that a friend of ours from Virgil was going to be coming through Thailand on his way to Bangladesh on a missions trip. Jason was supposed to fly into Bangkok, but due to all the problems there, they flew into Chiang Mai, and were going to wait out the trouble at the airport until things cleared up. Well, this worked out great since we were there anyways. Erin, and I didn't think it was going to work out to meet up though since Jason had very limited internet access, and the YWAM (ngo that Jason is with) office in Bangkok couldn't give me any information as to where they would be. Luckily Jason was able to email us 5 minutes before we were going to check our email the last time before heading out, and he told us where he was. To make a long story short, we made our way to him, and enjoyed a great afternoon catching up with an old friend. Jason has lots of exciting stuff going on in his life and it was great to have him share it all with us. Blessings on you Jason! Have a great time!

Thurday night we took the Bus to Bangkok, which was uneventful. We arrived around 5:30am, had a little breakfast and were on another bus to the border by 9:30. That bus was not so good. It was packed in the way they'd pack one in Africa, and the entire bus smelled like a mix of vomit and urine. It took about 5hrs. We enjoyed a lunch right at the border crossing. It was interesting to see all the goods moved between the two countries. Many things are still moved by a rickshaw or a donkey. We made our way across the border, which was little more than a creek, and we immediately realized that Cambodia is a very different country than Thailand.

Things are not clean. The roads are terrible. There isn't much pavement or concrete, or tile. The sides of the road are covered with garbage. We noticed very quickly that this country is much poorer. The homes are little more than shacks, the vehicles are much older, and people are riding bicycles. In Thailand the scooter has replaced the bike. But saying all that, we like it more already! It reminds us of being in Africa. The earth is red, like in East Africa, and everything just seems to be simple, but in a chaotic sort of way.



We travelled about 175kms from the border to Siem Reap. The drive was rough, but the views were great! As far as you can see in every direction is farm land, and it's all for rice. I'm not sure on the rice growing cycle, but they're obviously doing some harvesting now. The sides of the road are full of sacks waiting to be loaded onto trucks or donkey carts. The farm land is very different then anything we've seen before but it's really neat. There's water everywhere. It takes a lot of water to grow rice, and they've got lots of it. In just about every ditch and pond, boys and men are fishing with nets or wading in in their underwear. It was good to be away from Thailands cities.

Siem Reap, is the base for exploring the ruins of Angkor. It definately has a tourism buzz, but not the same as Thailands. The side walks are unswept, if they're there at all, and the traffic is very light. We'll spend a few days here, and keep you posted on our events! Go Harper!