Stranded in Cambodia

Once again we have an experience that rivals something out of "I Love Lucy". We are still in Siem Reap, Cambodia while the rest of our group has flown over the Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for the next leg of the trip.

It seems that Caren's visa for reentry into Vietnam is no good. The Viet Cong (they now run the country) screwed up her visa for the second time when we first arrived in HCMC. When they reissued the original visa they didn't give her a visa for multiple entries, even though we've now paid for it twice. The first visa was screwed up by the consulate in San Francisco that failed to sign her visa or issue the correct form. So while the Cambodians and the Viet Cong resolve the problem we are waiting back at the hotel (very nice by the way) while they fly her passport to Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia) to the VN consulate. Hopefully they will issue her yet another new visa, fly it back to Siem Reap, and we'll get on a flight this evening. Our tour guide Marco and the local guides here have the logistics under control, but who knows about the Commies.

Otherwise, we stay at the Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor another night. Actually, that's not so bad as this is a very comfortable place with great food. We have no clean clothes with us, since our luggage is on the plane to HCMC, but that shouldn't be a problem. We can go to a night market and pick up an entire wardrobe for $5 and change (after some tough bargaining as they can only do here in Cambodia).

Jordan bought a book about the temples yesterday from a street vendor. The vendor started at $28 and Jordan started at $5. amazon.com sells it for $22. The sale was finally consummated at $7. And yes, all the pages were in the book and it was in English.

Caren gave our local guide, Fin, a Sudoku puzzle and gave him the basic instructions on the game. I don't think we'll see him again if he starts to get hooked and I suspect he may become addicted within the week.