Hello! Lady, Tuk-tuk!

I have thoughtfully considered changing my name to Lady Tuktuk since this is what everyone called me in Thailand and Cambodia...or at least what they called at me. You can't walk five steps in either country without some one offering you a ride on something. I did accept some offers: I rode some Tuk-tuks (essentially motorized rick-shaws), mini-busses (bench seats in the bed of a pick-up), taxis, water taxis, long-tail boats, paddle boats, and even an elephant! I did however pass on the opportunity to ride on the back of a mo-ped. So many people accept the moped rides, that we almost never saw a person riding alone, and the record we counted was five people (four adults and a toddler). It was more interesting to see the things transported on the scooters. My favorites were a wicker barrel full of live piglets, and a flock of live ducks tied down to some palm leaves. If you can't catch a ride on a scooter, then you can always climb into a truck...or onto one. I saw one so packed that people were riding on the roof of the cab and on the HOOD!

I realize it is a bit odd to open the commentary on one of my most memorable trips to date with a bit about the transportation, but I'm sort of over-saturated with things to talk about. I saw and did so many things in the last two weeks that I'm finding it hard to organize my thoughts, and this is the first one that coalesced itself into something writable. I seem to find the little oddities just as interesting as the big crowd pleasers, so I have quite a bit to write about.
I'll try to organize my trip into categories so I don't bore you with one big blog. :) I'm also going to incorporate a slideshow of the entire trip here with specific pics in the individual blogs.

Thailand-cambodia