I arrived in Cambodia yesterday. It is much different then I had expected. Everyone told me it was a big dust bowl but the landscape I saw was lush with brush and tropical trees. I also saw fields dotted with cattle and oxen.

Phenom Phen is actually the nicest city I have seen in SE Asia. Although, I haven't ventured out into it much do to the fact that I got in late, stayed up late and slept late. The heat shuts everything down in mid-day which is why I am on the Internet.

I arrived via boat yesterday. I am not a fan of the boats but I took it because it is a good social opportunity. Too bad there were only 3 other people on my boat.

That leaves me without a traveling companion but I am in the backpacker area of Phenom Phen so there are plenty of social opportunities at night.

I ran into a guy I met in Dalat Vietnam and ate dinner with him and his wife. Then I had a beer with some people I had met very briefly on a bus in the Mekong Delta.

I got into debating American politics with one of the guys who knew more about American history, CIA operations, military operations and serial killers then anyone I ever met.

As is so often the case with Americans traveling, I became defensive even though I agreed with him in many ways. I think this is mostly because of his condensending way of expressing himself and labled us war mongering barbarians who do not take care of their own and do not really value human life.

Somehow found myself arguing for the right to bare arms. My point was that I do not want to ammend the constitution by taking something away because this puts our other good constitutional rights in danger. I do not want to ammend by removal for the left for fear that it opens the door to ammend by removal for the right. I think we should only ammend by adding to the document.

It was a very frustrating conversation because I felt that the complexities of the issues and the evolution of American culture and politics were being overlooked and since I don't really have the arsenal of knowledge that was necessary to have the conversation I was left feeling very inarticulate.

It was good to finally have a real conversation that went beyond where have you been, where are you going, and where are you from though.