A busy day...

 Last evening, I had a wonderful dinner with Dr. Ken Wilson and his wife, Verena.  Good conversation and excellent food!  We had dinner at an NGO called Romdeng (74 Street 174) that trains young Cambodian children about the culinary arts and the restaurant business.  A memorable evening...  and I really enjoyed the walk to and from our destinations....   thanks Ken and Verena!

Wow, what a day!  It all began with meeting up with Kayla for breakfast and coffee, a student I met on the plane on the way to Cambodia...  she's doing a 2 month internship with an NGO that deals with human trafficking...  a European/ American breakfast was out of the question and we were determined to stumble upon a a more Khmer- type breakfast.  Finally we saw the "Pink 3 Bubble Tea"--  very pink--  very, very pink, and I questioned whether or not it was actually a restaurant-- but it turned out to be really awesome!  Stir- fried rice with seafood and a basil noodle and bubble teas hit the spot! The cuisine leaned toward Khmer--  healthy and good! 

As a mentioned in an earlier post, the air is pretty steamy here, so it does not take long to completely drench your clothes in sweat...  I swear that I am sweating out all the Western toxins I have accumulated in my body over the last several years....  surely I'll return to Texas with a healthy glow and at least 5 lbs. lighter! After breakfast, a quick dip in the pool at the Blue Lime was a great way to cool off!

In the afternoon, my friend, Da, picked me up on his motorcycle and off we went on one wild and red- dirt, dusty ride to Resource Development International of Cambodia outside of the city.!  A great place and I do have lots of photos that I'll upload later!!  RDIC does many things, but notably they make water purification systems/ cisterns, rope pumps (for pumping water from wells), and they are conducting research on all the provinces in Cambodia to determine whether or not the water wells they are currently using are tainted with arsenic....   a huge problem in Cambodia....

Tonight, I'll be meeting up with Kayla and her NGO coworkers for a movie about human trafficking in Cambodia...  should be interesting....  and then perhaps some drinks out on the town...  and then, I return to the Blue Lime to sit on the veranda and collect my thoughts and gather my focus for the bus trip to Pursat in the morning.....   Pursat will be a completely different experience than Phnom Penh--  it is very rural and I'll have more day-to-day contact/ relations with the people there.....