Three Asides

1. No Shortage of White People

I mentioned in the the Day Zero post that there were a ton of white people from a myriad of countries all waiting for entrance Visas at the passport window. I didn't really mention white people so much again.

That's not because they weren't around. White people were, in fact, everywhere. Mostly Aussies and Kiwis, Germans and Brits, we were infesting every single city and temple and boat ride and hotel we visited on our trip.

Americans weren't necessarily as widespread as whiteys in general, but us Yanks were represented.

In Phonm Penh the NGO presence was ridiculously obvious, and the white folk there were observed out jogging like they lived in the dorms.

Even in the smallish Lao city of Pakse white people were all over the place. On our Lao jungle adventure there were three guys from Singapore, four Kiwis, two Swiss-Germans, two Dutch chicks, and us. Can you imagine the collective complexion?

2. Squat Toilets

Nowadays western style toilets are becoming the norm, but every so often you come upon one of the old-school squat toilets. These are relatively easy for us gentlemen to navigate, unless we're needing to excrete:

Guess where your feet go if you need to squat? Then you manually flush with the available pool...

Don't forget the charge, since it's very rare that you can find free bathrooms out and about.

3. Rare Sighting: Firearms

Yeah, we didn't see any guns.

Holes in the ground to pee in? Sure. A thousand phone lines taking over a powerline like parasitic vines?

Check.

But guns? Between the police, the rangers, and the military personnel at the airports and everywhere in between, I don't think I ever saw a single firearm. Go figure...

One of these countries even forced the US military out.