food and bikes in Phnom Penh

Locals commonly wear masks while riding on the dusty and exhausty roads; as did we. We ride our bikes mostly. But sometimes take bicycle carriage things or a moto which is the back of a motor cycle. We are not currently traveling, but still spend a fair amount of time in transport which a fun/amusing/different part of being here. Traffic laws and lanes don't mean much. The semi-trucks, and motos, and tuk tuks and biclycles all cram together and fend for themselves.
Killing fields during Khmer Rough. See human bones and clothing. Signs says that they hung a large speaker here to drown out the moans of victims.
Sarah riding across the bridge after work. Sorry about scratching my face at the wrong moment. This picture is to show my mom that we are wearing helmets.
This is the hospital.

One highlight since last post was eating ...peculiar foods I will call it. We went to a nice-ish restaurant with two other medical students and Cambodian surgeon and all ordered a dish to share. Another student ordered goat with ants. It should have been called ants with goats "parts." The ants were small so I ate a couple bites before even knowing they were ants (All I knew was that he ordered goat). I thought the white parts were okay until I realized they were larva. The goat I thought at first was tounge. Another student said it was tender. We all wondered what it was so I took a piece to examine that looked exactly like a neuroanatomy specimine: pons, medulla, etc. The waiter claimed it came from the "belly." I ate it before I knew what it was and then I had a 1.5 cm insect with wings between my chopsticks and called it quits. I regret that I did not have a picture. The other suprise that evening was the incredible amount of alcohol that the Cambodia surgeon consumed the sum total we did not stay to witness.

Next peculiar food incident was when we stopped at a restaurant way out of town. I feel a little disrespectful writing this, but I will continue. There was nothing else nearby so we asked what they had. They had two things so we orded one of each. We got duck soup and duck ..pieces with paste and plants. From as best as I could tell they only thing not in the soup was the feathers and the contents of the stomache and intestines. We even identified the skin. Otherwise they take the whole duck and cut it into one inch cubes. That was difficult for me to eat much of with splinters of bone and even a solid rock that I think is called the gizzerd in there. Otherwise we have found good things to eat. I like the noddles and vegetable/meat stir fry.

Another thing of note is that we purchased bicycles. We can ride them to work now which saves us money though is an extremely hot endeavor. Many people want to know what we will be doing with them afterward so I hope we may not have a hard time selling them. On Saturday we went on a 18km bike ride to the killing fields where we saw many human skulls and saw the mass graves of thousands. Sad. It was a long and extremely hot ride. We managed to find a cheap ride home in a common mode of transport that is like a motorcycle carriage.

We stayed in town this weekend and went to two different branches for church today which we enjoyed.

I will leave reporting on out hospital experience to Ben.