Things you should know about Cambodia

I encourage everyone to come visit Cambodia! It's a beautiful place with beautiful people and I've been trying to keep track of the interesting pieces of information I have learned throughout my few weeks here.

1- I have difficulty in everything being measured differently, metric system, and also that the temperature is in Celsius. I so should have paid better attention in math and science.

2-Big adjustment to the lack of toilet paper. Places you think would have TP do not, therefore always keep some with you! And also the lack of napkins. The napkins they give you in most restaurants are the size of my palm. And they give you one. Either we are a wasteful bunch of people or we just get too dirty when we eat.

3-They also do not use wash cloths or hand towels. I can live without a wash cloth, but no hand towels is rather frustrating. Which also leads me to saying they don't use soap often. Hence the no hand towel rule...

4-Honking is an action of courtesy here. You will hear incessant honking solely to be a signal of "hey-I'm behind you!" Or "Hey... I'm going faster than you so scoot on over so you don't get hit. thank you!" There is definitely no road rage. Rather shocking actually.

5-A lot of people cook with a lot of MSG over here which can be a big problem for some people. Several of the girls' ankles were swollen all the way into youth camp (which was about a week) and we're pretty sure it was the MSG. So touristy restaurants will actually say in the menu "We do not use MSG."

6-Being on time is unnecessary here. Which-if you know me-could possibly be the most difficult adjustment for me, EVER! Even more than the no TP! And when I say it doesn't matter... I mean, people come 45 minutes late, it doesn't matter. Thanks to our great trip leader Jen who warned us of this and then I was totally fine. As long as I have a heads up!

I don't mean for these to all be negative, just different or fascinating. I actually kind of like the honking idea. I also saw my first moto wreck today which was SCAARRRYYYYY! Two girls, with no helmets. Forget laws here people... when you're number one goal is survival you don't really care about anything else! I have also vowed to never complain about taxes again. If you could drive 10 minutes on their sideroads you would understand why.... they need better paved roads! As much as I enjoy paying $4 flat for dinner, taxes might be a good idea????