… and it kept on coming. It is the rainy season here, so it is not shocking that it was raining. However, it rained almost all day for several days last week, and the flooding was as bad as I have seen in the year that I have been here. The Cambodia Daily reported that the flooding caused about $70 million in damage. The drainage system in the city is just not built to handle a large volume of water, so water covered some of the streets for several days. Below are a few pictures from the flooding in the city.
This man was undeterred by water, but at least he decided to roll up his pants first.
I thought about driving though it too, but logic prevailed and I went a different way.
A few months ago, my roommate made a 
Fog may make for a nice picture as it engulfs the Golden Gate Bridge, but I have never heard anyone say that they like to drive in the fog. However, five days a week, I get up from bed and go into the fog. The fog is not along the road, and I don’t recall ever seeing fog in Phnom Penh. The fog that I am speaking of doesn’t cause much of a visibility problem, but it does cause an understanding problem. I think that it was one of my Greek or Hebrew teachers in seminary who spoke of language learning being like driving through fog.
Well, it my be hard to top the shock value of the first post in this series: 
The current exchange rate is about 4,300 riel for 1 US dollar. But most small shops and restaurants give an exchange rate of 4,000 riel for 1 US dollar. The money changers in small booths along the road offer the best exchange rate. So one can gain about 7 cents per dollar by getting money exchanged at a road side booth rather than using US dollars at places where prices are charged in the Cambodian riel. When getting money exchanged, each US dollar is closely inspected, because the use of counterfeit dollars is a fairly common occurrence. Also, I think my brain is still adjusting to dividing prices by 4,000 to see how much the price is in dollars. 
The rainy season has begun here and with it has come a welcomed break from the heat. But on the downside comes driving in the rain often and a great increase in the mosquito population. Mosquitoes must have water to lay their eggs in to complete their life cycle, and the rainy season offers an abundance of ideal places for mosquitoes to lay eggs. Some species of mosquitoes can go from an egg to an adult in just 4 days.
Yes, that is right! Fried crickets. There are many food carts along the streets here in the city. Most of the food is fairly typical dishes that one would expect to see here and an assortment of fruits and vegetables. However, when I see the food carts with crickets and a variety of other bugs, I always think to myself that I can’t really believe that people eat things like that. But having said that, Daniel and I recently, under much pressure from some Cambodian friends, gave them a try. My thought is still that a fried cricket is something that is better to be seen than tasted. From my observation people here eat them like snack. 
So instead of grabbing a bag of potato chips or pretzels, they snack on a few freshly fried crickets. And as you can see from the picture, if you don’t like fried crickets, there are plenty of other fried bugs to choose from.
We actually passed by many of these places on the way to Siem Reap. It sort of makes you wonder how many are being made per day as at one point I saw nearly every house had a moderately large sized Buddha statue sitting in the front yard of the houses. In fact, I think I’ve seen these statues nearly everywhere; in the provinces especially.
At one point, an elderly lady tried to get us to take an incense and walk up the temple to place it in front of the Buddha. I had to refuse, but the lady was pretty persistent in trying to get us to do it.