Unexpected access to the internet

By what seems to me to be a strange turn of events, I have suddenly gotten access to a computer here in Phnom Penh. So, here I am!
Everything went so smoothly getting here it seemed almost routine. My flights departed and arrived precisely on time. Korean Air Lines is FABULOUS! Really good meals kept arriving, I had sufficient leg room and pleasant seat mates. I watched THREE--count'em, THREE--movies, all of which were pretty good. I was stunned by the route we took. Almost none of it was over water except for Hudson's Bay and a whole bunch of polar ice cap. Lots of Russia and China. It was most interesting.

I'm quite confident though not sure that everything went fine on arrival too. I do know for sure that all my stuff arrived safely, but a surly official at immigration said I needed "more!" in the way of documents, I think, but I didn't have a clue what he meant and with a good deal of exasperation, he waved me through. A guy with a cute little thing called a tuk-tuk promptly picked me up and brought me to the guesthouse. There's nothing fancy about this place, I can tell you, but the staff is very friendly, and my room is clean. The bathroom is ingenious--the whole bathroom is a shower. Initially I'd thought there was no shower at all, but then I noticed there was a nozzle simply hanging from the wall up high.

I headed for the bar at the guesthouse to get some bottled water, and the bartender was struggling with trying to understand a phone call. To my great surprise, she handed me the phone, and it was Scott! It seemed absolutely miraculous! The ladies here thought it was amazing too and laughed and laughed. I think they were as thrilled as I was.

Today I woke feeling like I was right on schedule. It seems to me that there's something about being exactly 12 hours ahead that makes the jet lag non-existent, but I feel great. It's hot and humid, but I'm finding it more than tolerable.

Last night I talked the tuk-tuk driver into coming back to show me around the city this morning, so I had a nice breakfast here at the guesthouse and some extra high-octane coffee and then we took off for a thoroughly depressing tour of the actual "killing fields" and the genocide museum and the prison where literally thousands of people were tortured and killed during the infamous rule of Pol Pot (1975-79). It's strange to think that all that was going on while I was blithely going to school and thinking about, of all things, philosophy. And also, there NOW is a trial going on here in Phnom Penh of some of his senior confederates for genocide.

I burned out and returned the hotel to find Jack and his girlfriend having a beer at the bar, so we had a great time chatting about this and that. The manager here (whose computer I'm using now) is Eden, and he's now having a little siesta here in the bar! There's another guy named Tom who is theoretically in advertising but seems to hang out here most of the time. He and Jack left on some mission or other, and here I am, at Eden's bar in the 3 Rivers, composing this blog entry.

There's a lot more stories I could tell. It's been really exciting and most reassuring how friendly people are. I do find the beggars disconcerting. Jack says I shouldn't give anything to any of them, because it encourages them not to be self-sustaining, but I simply cannot resist people missing limbs. Call me a sucker, I guess.

But, as you can tell, the atmosphere is very relaxing, at least here at 3 Rivers. No one seems to be in any particular hurry to do much of anything. I'm in my element.