Give me a "C"!

three reasons I already like cambodia:
1. the people here greet you with this genuine, honest (but also intensely sad) smile. in thailand, I felt like they smiled because they were ripping me off. here, I feel that they're truly happy to meet me. (they like me, they really like me!)
2. my taxi driver said I was the most lovely girl he's ever met (then he added "this afternoon." but still, pretty nice.)
3. the internet cafes have webpages in english, so I don't have to crack the da vinci code every time I want to post something.

so, as you may have guessed, I'm in cambodia. in phnom phen, the capital city, to be exact. I landed a few hours ago. if you read my post from yesterday, you'll remember that I was concerned that the 100% chance of thunderstorms would ruin my beach day in railay (you also might remember the lame joke I made about being a positive thinker and the clouds being 100% full. well, call me obsessive and preoccupied with stupid shit, but I've workshopped the joke: blah, blah, blah thunderstorms. I'm a positive thinker, so I see the clouds as half empty." it's still not that good, but better than before. and I'll confess, I may have had a few cocktails with some australian hippies prior to posting.)well, perhaps it was all the good karma I collected while being tuk-tukked around bangkok looking at all the lesser-known buddhas, but sunday morning the clouds parted and the sun shown done on my pale ass, and I enjoyed an empty beach, emerald green water, those aforementioned towering limestone cliffs,and a traditional thai massage right there on the beach. to be honest, mai (my masseuse) was probably not traditionally trained, and her style was, uh, unorthodox. she thought it best to massage only the right side of my body and then give me a surprise foot scrub. but, the combination of everything had a magical effect on me and for the first time in years, my shoulders ceased to be balls of knotted muscle, and I was finally completely relaxed.

then the monsoon came.

but those two hours of bliss were enough to carry me through the next eight hours of end-of-the-world style rain, not to mention the four hours of hippie reggae music coming from the impromptu after hours dj hut set up directly underneath my room.

today I said adios to thailand (due to the fact that I only learned how to say "hello and "thank you" in thai)and now am looking forward to the cambodia leg of my journey. I mean, this was the impetus for the whole trip. the plan is to explore phnom phen tomorrow then head up to siem reap and spend three or four days at ankgor wat and all the other little wats. I promise to never make a joke like this: "wat do we have here?" or "wat the f?" (though if I find a tee shirt that has sports one of those jokes, I will most certainly buy it.)