Hey all, I thought that you would like the self portrait. I have decided to completely stop shaving and have actually opted for a hair infusion. You tell me how it looks. Anyway, to continue from my last postcard, I had a great trek in Thailand. A couple of very exciting things happened. First of all, on the first day while walking through along the trail our group had to cross the yard of a local farmer, who had a fence around his house. Inside the fence was a cow tied to a small tree and her calf was feeding on the grass nearby. Our guide went through, followed by one of our group. Suddenly, the cow, presumably feeling threatened, charged the guy. Fortunatly the rope was short enough, cutting the cow off in mid stride. It did not stop however. It kept running and eventually pulled the tree right out of the ground. We had all gotten on the other side of the fence by this point, but the adrenaline was still running pretty high. We stayed on the safe side of the fence from this point on. We slept at a small camp in the middle of no where. Our shower was a waterfall, the only way to do it. The next day we had an elephant ride half way to our next destination. They don't go very quickly if not constantly prodded, but it was a good experience anyway. We arrived to a small mountain village and played some soccer with the locals, which was a lot of fun, especially because it was raining out and no one could get any grip. The following day consisted of more walking and a bamboo raft ride down a small river. This was a lot of fun, and a few of us (including myself), fell in more than once. We got back into Chiang Mai, and then I got back into Bangkok. I said good-bye to my traveling companions in there and headed to Siem Reap, Cambodia. This may have been one of the most interesting public transport rides I've taken yet. The bus from Bangkok to the boarder was fine, but was longer than I had expected it to be. This didn't matter too much, however, because I slept a lot of the way. Getting to the boarder was another story. First, there was next to no one crossing the boarder with us, which was strange because we thought that this was a major crossing point. The next point of some concern was that we all had to pay a 100 Baht (about 3 Canadian dollar) "passport stamp fee", or in lay mans terms, we are the boarder police, so if you don't pay us you can jolly well go back to where you came from fee. I should have asked for a reciept. From this point we were split up and 12 of us (along with 3 Cambodians) got into a quarter ton extended cab truck. Ten in the back, five in the front, not to mention the luggage in the box. The ride into Siem Reap (which was supposed to take between 2.5 and 3 hours) took 6 hours with stops. Once we finally got into town, we were taken to a specific guest house. None of us were willing to get jerked around any longer and we left en masse with the owner running behind us trying to convince us to stay. I think he realized that it was pointless and let us go. We found a place to stay and were very happy with it, despite its many flaws. Later on we realized that we were not taken to the standard boarder crossing, but to a remote on, recently opened. It is a few hundred kilometres out of the way and, on the Cambodian side, a terrible road. At one point the driver had to get out of the cab to check the stability of a bridge before we crossed. We all agreed that the new name of this nation should be Scambodia. Once I finally got to Siem Reap I quite enjoyed it. I spent three days touring the temple of Angkor Wat, and the others in the surrounding area with some of the people I met from my journey to get here. The temples are quite remarkable and well preserved. Not quite Machu Pichu, but close. From Siem Reap most of us from our first bus trip joined together and charted a mini van to get us to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, where I am now. Today I saw the killing fields and S21, the Khamer Rouge's main tourture facility. Something like Dachau: chilling and morbid. I have decided to extend my trip in Vietnam and head right to Hanoi. Tomorrow I go to Saigon (just praying that the bus will get there in the promised time) and then head up the coast to northern Vietnam. I am thinking that I will be there for between 2 and 3 weeks. I'll write again when I am somewhere along the coast.