Hi Everyone,

Well, I am sick yet again with this South East Asian bug that seems to follow me. It's a nasty chest cold thing, a lot like bronchitis.

I was fortunate to meet a nice older gentleman from Kentucky named Dan last week. He's a dentist and comes here about 3 times a year. He says he's been to Cambodia at least 14 times, he loves it so much. While visiting, he brings some basic equipment and travels around pulling teeth for people who can't afford to see a dentist. He has invited me to visit a village where he has some life-long friends, and I am going to take him up on it as soon as I am feeling better. Lucky for me, he phoned me a couple days ago and since he is a dentist he knew what I should take to get better. It's an antibiotic called Cipro, so I made a trip to the pharmacy and picked some up. This time my cold shouldn't last as long as the last time with no medicine. The pharmacies here are open to anyone to get anything (without a prescription) for almost nothing, but I never know what to buy, so it was fortunate that I met him. He also told me that every time he comes to Asia, he gets what I have. I now think it is common for travelers to get this, especially since we aren't used to the climate.

I made the border run last Saturday that I told you about. I was glad to get my visa problem straightened out in one day and it was as painless as it could be I suppose. I left Phnom Penh at 7:00am and arrived at the Moc Bai border crossing at about noon. Just before reaching the border, the bus lurched a bit and the driver suddenly stopped. There was a lot of confusion, no one knew what had happened and after a bit we realized that some man in an old converted VN war era Jeep made into a truck had hit us and then the truck ran into a restaurant and damaged it pretty badly, but fortunately no one was injured. Along the way he also ran over a hedge of small trees and ruined them. A large group of Khmer gathered, and a woman who apparently owned the restaurant was yelling and flailing her arms a lot. Later, I learned the driver tried to run away, but was caught and sitting sullen on the floor of the restaurant next to "the work" he'd done while people yelled at him. He looked to be having a bad day. Some people said he might have been drunk, but he didn't seem to be to me. My guess is the brakes on the thing gave out, it was such a crusty, pitiful looking vehicle made even worse by this accident. Maybe its' 30+ years are finally up. While all this was going on, a few people left the bus and I was one of course. I wanted to stretch my legs more than anything, but the "show" I had was kinda entertaining as well. One nice young man around 25 years old started to talk to me while this was all going on. After we chatted a bit, he asked where I was from and to our astonishment, he was from Salem and grew up in Dallas, Oregon where I used to live while going to college at Western Oregon University. Believe me, this is quite weird, as it is difficult enough to meet another American here, let alone someone from my state and only an hours' distance away. He is living in Phnom Penh, and we plan to meet sometime after he gets back from Ho Chi Minh City where he is going to stay for a few days. It was pretty cool to meet him also because once we reached the border, he cut in line and slipped a $5 bill to the border people with both our passports and we avoided waiting in line for about an hour. After that we said goodbye and he went on his way. I turned around and walked back toward the border again for my return trip to Phnom Penh. A man wearing a dark official looking uniform said something to me and waved his arm to me motioning to say "come here." I did, and he said I needed to talk to him about my passport since I was heading back into Cambodia, so I showed it to him. I thought it was a little strange, because he wasn't inside the building and after a minute of talking he told me I needed to pay him $10. At this, I realized it was a scam and looked at him and simply said, "No." and walked past him. I am sure he was quite surprised I didn't fall for it, it seemed like he does this all the time and has a good spiel down. I laughed to myself for just leaving him behind after a simple 'no' and of course grabbing my passport from his hands. Later, it reminded me of a story Sean told me about. He was on a bus trip from Montana where at a convenience store stop, a scary looking guy (and Sean was only about 15 at the time) tried to force Sean to pay for his stuff while standing at the cashier. Sean wasn't intimidated, said "no" and walked past him to his surprise.

After I went through the Viet Nam exit stuff, I realized that my visa that I had paid $41 for was now invalid since I spent all of 5 minutes in Viet Nam. That kind of pissed me off since Mike is coming soon, and we will be going to Viet Nam. I was under the mistaken impression that I could use it again, up to the 60 days that it was valid, but no... So what does that work out to per minute in Viet Nam? $8.20 a minute or almost 14 cents a second, just figured that out because it made me mad. :) Well, after that, I got back on the boring old bus, and because it was now mid-day the air conditioning couldn't keep up and it was a long stuffy ride back to Phnom Penh.

I am now recuperating here at the p'tayah (apartment) and just drinking a lot of water and sort of being lazy. I got dressed early yesterday and while out to buy water and soda, told the monks that I need a few days off to get well before I can teach again.

So, that's life as I know it right now. Talk to you all later. :)