An Introduction

For this trip I have a very important introduction to make. I would like you to meet Rebecca. Many of you have heard me talk (probably too much) about her. We originally met in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in August of 2005 because we were both staying in the Okay Guesthouse (I highly recommend it.) near the royal compound.

We had both seen each other in the guest house common room, but finally met properly in an internet cafe nearby when we were both really annoyed at another patron who just let his cell phone ring and ring without ever answering it or turning off the ringer. Rebecca says I had one hell of a look on my face. She later confided to me that she thought I was going to kill him right then and there.

Fortunately my scary face did not send here screaming and we ended up hanging out and chatting back at the guesthouse for a good portion of the afternoon. She turned out to be a girl after my own heart when she asked me if I wanted to go and get ice cream with her. Me, get ice cream? Is the pope catholic?

We walked down around the corner to the big new grocery store that had a huge selection of ice cream. After much discussion and deliberation we selected ice cream (I can't remember exactly what flavors.) and headed out to the park across the street to sit around in the grass and enjoy the late afternoon. We ended up spending about 4 hours just sitting around in the park talking about anything and everything. It was a wonderful conversation and it left me with the feeling that we had only touched about 0.00001% of what we could have talked about.

Not long thereafter we went our separate ways. I to Siem Reap/Angkor and she to Vietnam. We stayed in touch via e-mail and made plans to meet up in Thailand. We eventually did reconnect on Koh Phangan for the full moon party. Rebecca, her friend Kym from Perth, and I had a wonderful time dancing the night away.

Rebecca is originally from Sydney Australia, but she has spent most of her life in Perth out on the west coast of the continent, where her parents and little brother still reside. Her life's passion, aside from travel of course, is environmental education and outreach. She was working on environmental education programs for the Phnom Penh zoo we originally met last year and she is hoping to return to Cambodia in September to do more outreach type activities in some of the more rural parts of the country.