My Special Tour of Phnom Phen

when I landed in phnom phen I had my day-and-a-half itinerary all set in place:
1. the royal palace and the national museum
2. the killing fields
3. the genocide museum.

what I've actually seen in phnom phen the last two days:
1. three police stations, each one with it's own brand of third world charm
2. the u.s. embassy (three times!)
3. my travel purse (containing all of my money, my passport, my credit cards, my cell phone and my digital camera) being ripped out of my hands and the straps yanked off my neck by two guys on a motorbike.

yeah. yesterday morning I got robbed. it was horrible. one moment I'm sitting in a tuk tuk motoring down the street thinking of nothing but getting some great candid photos of cambodian life, the next I'm watching my most important travel possessions float away at a constant speed of 25 miles per hour. it's an odd chain of emotions that strike after you get robbed (immediate, too, as they all occurred in the span of two minutes.) at first, shock. then, disbelief. then, dismay. then, anger. then, for lack of a more creative expression, the "oh, fuck" feeling. it was that last one that remained for about two days, while I had to work my way through third-world bureaucracy, first-world (american) bureaucracy, a very large language barrier, and the gnawing fear that I'm on my own here and it's not a guarantee that things are going to turn out okay. of course, they have. my tuk tuk driver was incredibly kind, acting as my translator and witness and driving me around all day yesterday and today. he even bought me lunch, as I had only $15 in my pocket, which I had to use to bribe the police officers in order to get my police report in a day and not two weeks. I definitely got to see a side of cambodia that not many tourists get to see. and even though it was increbibly sad and frustrating to see the amount of poverty and corruption that exist in this country, in the end, it was an experience. and, isn't that what traveling is all about? am I rationalizing? maybe so, but during the last two days I had the opportunity to meet a good-hearted tuk tuk driver (with a wife and two kids who drives the tuk tuk because it pays better than his former job as a teacher), a 33 year old man who had to quit university to take care of his family (but who travels 30 miles to go to the foreign tourist police office to practice his english, so that one day he'll speak it well enough to become a teacher), a police officer who sang celine dion's "I'm alive" to me (a rousing rendition), and four embassy security guards who were the friendliest guys carrying machine guns that I've ever met.

in case you're wondering about the other details: my dad wired me cash (thanks, dad!), I cancelled all my credit cards, and I got my passport this afternoon.

so, tomorrow I'm going to do an abbreviated phnom phen tour, then heading to siem reap in the afternoon. siem reap is the town that's the gateway to angkor wat, which I've been wanting to see for years. I'm so excited to move on this part of my journey!