As per usual, I was having an ice cream craving so I hit up the Shop N Go for a tasty treat. While rummaging around in the freezer I came across a package with a fish on it. Fish flavoured popsicle? Gross! I had to try it… I opened it up with great anticipation and realized it was an ice cream sandwich in the shape of a fish. Getting ready to taste some fish flavoured ice cream I bit into it…. damnit! It was only vanilla ice cream with some sort of strange strawberry(?) jam like filling mixed in. I was bummed that it wasn’t some bizzaro Vietnamese fish ice cream but extremely relieved at the same time. Anyways, the point of this post is that I’m in love with these fish ice cream sandwiches, they are my new favourite thing here in Vietnam and I’m going to eat 7 everyday until I leave and if you’re in Vietnam and you feel like buying me a gift, I would highly suggest you purchase me a case of these.

After spending a few days in Siem Reap we headed to Phnom Penh, Cambodia where we visited the Choeung Ek Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng Museum.  The Tuol Sleng Museum was formerly a prison during the Pol Pot regime where prisoners were kept and tortured and eventually taken to the Choeung Ek killing fields where they were executed.  Rarely was it a quick and painless bullet to the head as bullets were precious.  Prisoners were often beat to death.  When we entered the killing fields we saw a giant Buddhist stupa filled with over 5000 human skulls and a ridiculous number of mass graves.

This is without a doubt one of the saddest places I have ever been….

Beds that prisoners were tied down to and tortured.

Prisoners of Tuol Sleng

Tiny prison cells

I know most of you are probably curious as to what I’ve been doing for work and why I’m not sleeping in a gutter. Before arriving in Vietnam, I did a lot of research into ESL teaching and basically every forum said if you’re Asian you will not get hired to teach English even though you’re a native English speaker. But then I got here and realized that it is possible!…. if you have some sort of qualification which I don’t. Luckily, I’ve still been working with a travel agency Turkey editing and rewriting their website so there’s some income coming in. The second thing I started to do is sell Vietnamese knick knacks and what not online. This is not steady by any means but between my two “jobs” I’m making it work.

However, I did apply for one job since I’ve been here. I applied at a bar to be a bartender. The girl laughed and said they couldn’t pay me enough, but when I told her I was serious she went to get the manager to come over to talk to me. He never spoke to me at all, he just kinda walked by and took a look at me and the girl came back and told me the position had been filled. LIAR. Damn these good looks of mine must have been too intimidating….

So while Kris, Laurene and Serene bust their asses working, I spend my days drinking mango shakes and keepin it real.

The Flooded Forest of Kompong Phhluk is by far one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. It was a 45 minute tuk tuk ride from Siem Reap, another 45 minute boat ride before we made it to a little fishing village, and from there we had to swap to a paddle boat in order to navigate the dense flooded forest. After we left the flooded forest, we got back onto the bigger boat which took us out to a lake where we saw the raddest sunset ever. Once again, the video cannot do the the flooded forest justice, you’ll need to go check it out for yourself!