Happy Thanksgiving!!

It certainly doesn't feel like Thanksgiving here in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia--it was 90 degrees today, and for our big meal we shared a chicken sandwich. But it's nice thinking about everyone at home getting together today!

We arrived in Phnom Penh about 4 days ago and had quite a few things planned... unfortunately however, I got quite sick, so we've been laying low for awhile. The morning that we left Siem Reap I woke up feeling very achy and stiff with a bit of a headache. During the 6 hour bus ride I was miserable--I could hardly move my neck and became very dizzy and lethargic. We got to town and I had no appetite but made myself eat a bit and head to the room for the night. That evening was probably the sickest I've ever been! I could tell I had a high fever, Jason confirmed that, but we didn't have a thermometer so I'm not sure how high. I had really bad chills, and after I had fallen asleep I was woken up (as was Jason) by my body shaking really hard. I felt like I was freezing, even though Jason said I was burning up. I couldn't control the shaking and Jason went downstairs to look up what could be going on. We were both worried it could be malaria, so he found an American clinic that had a 24 hour phone line he called. They said to come by in the morning for some blood tests. That evening I got physically ill a few times and had a lot of trouble walking up the stairs to our 4th floor hotel room(bad time to be so high). The next morning we went to the clinic and at that time my temperature was 102.5, which we could tell was quite a bit lower than it had been the night before. They did some blood work and are pretty sure it was dengue fever, which is a mosquito born illness that is pretty nasty. Fortunately I'm already feeling better! Still not great by any means, but we found a nice hotel (with an elevator!) that is up away from the noise of the streets and very nice (aside from the spider incident; see below). It was a miserable couple of days but the worst is definitely over.

Today we went to the Tuol Sleng museum, which was an infamous S-21 prison operated under the Khmer Rouge. It was originally a high school, but after the Khmer Rouge took over it was turned into a brutal prison. It's estimated that up to 20,000 people were imprisoned here, and only 12 of them survived- it's like the Auschwitz of Cambodia. I had read so much about the place, but actually seeing it was quite haunting. You could almost feel the horrible things that happened there. The Khmer Rouge tortured thousands of innocent Cambodians there, and those that survived the torture were sent to the Killing Fields for execution. The prison still had intact cells and torture areas, and they've done a good job of creating picture and information displays. The pictures consist of mug shots of the prisoners, bodies after torture, and piles of actual human skulls found in the killing fields. There were also skulls on display that had bullet holes and evidence of trauma (hammers, axes, etc). Some of the pictures were of children as young as 5, both men and women, elderly people, and monks. Jason took some pictures which may be posted tonight.

On a lighter note.....last night we got back to our hotel room and on the wall was the BIGGEST spider I have ever seen outside of a cage. It was probably about 5-6 inches, and we could see his huge fangs. I offered to go get the guys working downstairs to kill it, but Jason stepped up and took care of things! There was no way I would sleep in there with that thing. He used a big sandal and missed on his first swing, but got it the second time. We posted a couple of pictures of it but they don't even begin to illustrate its size. On a seperate topic, we've noticed that on some of the movie channels there are English movies that are also subtitled in English, but the subtitles are clearly written by someone who is not a native English speaker. Some of the things that end up being written are hilarious and are not even close to what the people said... yesterday I laughed harder than I have in years. The guy said "This chick I'm seeing makes these unbelievable pineapple pancakes." The subtitle said "This chicken makes these unbelievable pineapple pancakes." It may not be as funny reading it but it was priceless.

For now we have to stay here until at least Tuesday to get our Burmese Visa, and I imagine by then I'll be doing a lot better! After that we're heading towards the Cambodian coast which should be pretty nice. I know there are other things to share but I'm still so out of it that I will try to post a more interesting update in a few days! Thanks for all of the well-wishes from everyone, and enjoy your yummy dinners!

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Note from Jason: FINALLY, all pictures are up and we are 100% up to date for the first time in weeks. And FYI, I simply couldn't capture the feel of the museum we visited today (see above)in color, so that's why it's all in black and white.