The Low Down, Berly-Kim style!

So...I'm about to attempt to make a long story short. Sometimes this is a wee bit difficult for this wee little girl. BUT. It must be done.

The ladies (Amber, Noemi, Sopeak, Eileen, Jaymie and myself) ventured up to a province in Cambodia called Mondulkiri for 4 nights. The Khmer New Year handed us a 5 day leave from work, and we happily accepted. (Just for your information: it is the year of the Cow. And we just ended the year of the Rat...i think things are looking up!)

We took a big Grey Hound looking bus, up to a town called Snuol. Now. Let me tell you about what made this bus ride one to remember:
I enter the bus. It's big and smelly and hot, right? Ok, so i get to my seat. I follow Jaymie, my seat buddy and look to the back of the bus. A Khmer lady takes notice of me and motions with insistance that i can sit down. So I say thankyou and turn to sit down. But just as I turn I feel a very, let's say, "gentle and lingering" stroke to my arm. I turn to see it's the Khmer lady. Then, she goes on to tell our lovely Khmer friend, Sopeak, that I look Chinese! Me! Kimmy Alice! I look Chinese!? What?!

It was halarious from afar. Maybe not closeup. I felt weirdly against this accusation. This woman's half baked daughter (approxiametly 25 years old) didn't have a seat. The bus was full. So she gets a plastic (Parkside Gospel Church looking chair) and sits in the isle. Guess where? Yup! Right beside her Chinese looking Canadian friend! Me! The WHOLE trip she stares at me. Rubs my arms, hands, legs, hair. She even tried to kiss me; twice!!

Then; which is actually quite funny but frustratingly annoying; she asks me my name. Now, just think about that for a second. My name is: Kim. How Chinese can you get!!! She was certain I was Chinese after that. Then, of course i try to get her off my Chinese looking back and i tell her my name ACTUALLY is: KimBERly. But all she hears is Kim Ly (pronounced Lee). Yup! I'm Kim Lee, the Chinese girl from Canada, with a nose ring and apparantly pimples.

So...the bus gets us to Snuol. Where we have to find a ride to Sen Monorom, the capital of Mondulkiri. One truck packed up to the sky with people/chickens/clothes/food and probably pigs, offers us to ride on the top of it all for 10 dollars each! For 1.5 hours? No thank you. We end up finding a "taxi". AKA a Toyota Camry driven by a man with only one good hand. Who has no shoes. No shirt. And apparantly...no problem...with taking us ladies to Sen Monorom. We had no forwarning into the state of the roads that would be ahead. It basically was a construction site the whole way, except no one was working....well, maybe one person was. A backhoe that had been called to push a pick up truck full of pigs after it got stuck in a rut. The sqweels were horendous!
Anyways....Mondulkiri was beautiful. The waterfalls were fun. The elephants were bumpy. The sleep talking lived on. And the return just as slow/sweaty/and murderously hot as the journey to Mondulkiri.

Here's some photos:

Me at a little lunch spot after riding the elephants. The guide, who looks more like a jungle man, picked these flowers for us.

The Sen Monorom Waterfalls. These are not the largest waterfalls in the region but due to the dry season the water was not as spectacular. Jaymie and I tried our hardest to jump off the side but found too many 'others' much too worried...Me with a cashew nut in my hand and the sun in my eyes. A sour fruit grows above the nut on the tree.


My face was dirty after a day of treking, waterfall swimming, and fast truck riding! Yup! I had fun!
The group shot; L to R: Noemi, me, Eileen, Amber, Sopeak and Jaymie on the end.

(All photos taken by Jaymie Friesen)
To view my complete Facebook photo album of Mondulkiri just follow this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=238403&id=888480267&l=e70c6cc760