All hail the king, including tuk-tuk drivers

So in the end, Phnom Penh really redeemed Cambodia for me. I had great fun buzzing around the city on the backs of boy's motorcycles, who would take me anywhere for $1, so I did a grand tour - the riverside, the wats, the markets - my favorite was the medice market, where stalls sell all sorts of herbal and voodoo cures. Buckets of dried frogs, starfish, wood scrapings, leaf sachets - if I knew what they cured, and proper dosaging, I could've picked some up for back home.

I also moto'd to Phnom Wat on a hill overlooking the city, where Cambodians come to have their fortune told. A nice old man gives you a book of fortunes written on palm leaves, which you hold over your head and insert a pointer stick into at random. Then the old man reads you your fortune. (apparently Cambodians will do the stick over and over until they get a good fortune, though this seems to me against the spirit of things). The old man spoke no english so could only tell me in French that my fortune was "tres tres bon," but I got him to write the fortune in my notebook in Khmer script.

I moved on to the genocide museum, housed in the former public school-turned-Khmer Rouge torture facility, was incredibly grim, understated, and extremely moving. It's a fascinating time to be here in Cambodia because the leaders of the Khmer Rouge are only now finally being brought to trial - the trials literally started just last week so they are all over the papers. There is an unease about all this, maybe as in post-war Germany, as so many people here actually were soldiers in the KR and perpetrators of their own people's genocide, now turned everyday civilians. The museum had a great exhibit room dedicated to this population.

After more exploring, I spent my remaining Cambodia time to Le Hotel Raffles, a super luxurious colonial-era hotel with stunning facilities, including one of those eternal swimming pools, a live piano bar, and guests actually dressed in white linen. With the hope that all white people look alike to them, I put on my nicest outfit, pretended I was a guest, and headed on in all the way through to the pool area, where I got handed a fresh towel and a glass of sauvignon blanc. Oh, and I had one of the bilingual staff translate my fortune: "Whatever it is you want to do, you can do." A great epigraph for the trip.

But that happy confidence felt a distant memory by 6 PM today when I had a second extremely traumatic entry into Bangkok. The best comparison I can make is if you landed in America on the 4th of July, and your airport bus dropped you at the National Mall in Washington DC just as the fireworks were beginning, and you needed a taxi to your hotel on the city outskirts. Not happening.

It's the Thai King's birthday on Saturday, Thailand's biggest national holiday, and tonight kicked off the 3 day celebration. They have closed down the entire downtown to traffic, and millions of people have flooded the streets. This would be great if I weren't carrying 20 pounds of luggage: I was left to walk, for nearly an hour a half, to my hotel through dense crowds, fireworks bursting overhead, live music on all sides. This was at points hilarious though at most points totally harrowing. I even almost regretted taking that huge, heavy souvenir elephant mug that my drink came in at Le Hotel Raffles. Almost.