Phnom Penh - Monday

Monday we woke up early and took a five hour bus ride to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The bus ride was horrendous, mostly because we were squashed into a mini van, and the roads are horrible. So we bumped and clanked our way through the country. Two things about the ride compete for consideration as the single worst thing about the ride: 1) we were in the back of the bus and so every bump on the seriously poor roads was magnified and 2) the driver played Cambodian radio extremely loud the entire ride.

When we got to Phnom Penh and checked in to our hotel we had to lay in our hotel room to recover from the drive. Then we headed out to try and find the waterfront where the restaurants are. In some crazy turn of events we got totally turned around and lost for more than two hours. Not awesome. We almost gave up on dinner entirely and just called the day a wash. But we managed to rally and found a restaurant on TripAdvisor that was really close to our hotel and finally made it there for dinner. The restaurant was really interesting. It was a cooking school, that trains and educates homeless orphans, giving them job skills and training in hospitality so that they can have a job in the future. It was a fantastic experience. The kids were awesome, the food was delicious, and we felt good about giving our money to such a good cause. It totally made up for the rest of the day which was only so-so.