Bus observations

7:30 am DEPARTURE -> HO CHI MINH CITY
- Passing rows of shops specializing in wooden furniture. A whole 'lot of dusting going on!
- Bamboo cone hats are worn EVERYWHERE, even in the big cities, and by everyone. It's NOT just for the tourists.
- Stray dogs roam the streets everywhere, so why do I see some of them in cages? ...for food?!...
- Passing a gardening center for bonsai, full of oversized clay pots(like bathtub-sized), small statues of buddhas and pagodas, and large rocks to use as a base.
- Street-side DURIAN STALL. Selling nothing but fresh durian. The smell gets more "intoxicating" as the fruit gets heated during the day. Yum.
- Average road speed = 40 to 70 km/h. In Vietnam, you're never going anywhere very fast.
- Shops everywhere selling "Tet" gift baskets for the Lunar New Year. They can include, but are not limited to: chips, candies, cookies, alcohol, coffee, tea, and often are American name brands.
9:45 am EXITING VIETNAM
10:00 am WELCOME TO CAMBODIA!
- Every shop(and maybe house, too) has a small ornate shrine outside, for receiving of offerings. Often, they are the nicer than the house itself!
- Houses have MASSIVE metal roof overhangs, to protect from the overwhelming heat of the daytime sun, and quite possibly the rain of monsoon season, too.
- Another throwback to Breath of the Wild: There are women on the side of the road, selling lotus seed pods.
- Seen on a cafe: Do milk coffee.
11:30 am CONSTRUCTION -> Pause for fresh asphalt near Svay Rieng
3:15 pm BUS TRANSFER -> PHNOM PENH
- A fast and efficient exchange of buses in Phnom Penh, where we board a more luxurious bus(Reclining seats! Foot rests!), and receive our promised complimentary snack and water.
- Seen on a girl's sneakers near the university: a.bibas
- Indulging in a beautiful cake roll at rest stop #2, light green in colour(probably from pandan leaves), not sweet at all, and filled with whipped cream
- Highway 1 markers are the same shape as North American tombstones
- The ever-present smell of pâté on the bus(turns out, the man behind us was snacking on a block of pâté all through the trip!)
- People drying out their leftover cooked rice on sheets/pans/sheetmetal in the sun - are they keeping it for later? Are they going to re-cook it?
- The "pleasing" sound of somebody on board sucking on pork floss. Yum.
- While the bus is still moving, the driver opens the door and hands a bag of meat to a women waiting on a scooter nearby. Curious.
- Even the most dilapidated house has classical Cambodian roof ornamentation, similar to what we see on the most ornate temples.
- The haze of smoke rising from the burning fields created the most colourful sunset, and then the world passing by the window gets really dark in rural Cambodia. Thus concludes bus observations.

See you tomorrow in Siem Reap!