One week from now we'll be over the North Pacific (or Alaska) on our way from Seattle to Seoul/Inchon, then to PP.  We need to have another challenge for the team...  Lightest checked bag. ($5 apiece on that one, too?)  Starting Monday at work, I'll be doing a lot of last-minute double-checking on things like our transpo to DEN Saturday morning.  I've asked the cadets to start looking over our checklist on the google docs spreadsheet.  We're managing the trip using a big spreadsheet saved to my Dropbox account.  That way, I can control access to info about our trip and always have access to necessary info.  All of our lodgings in Cambodia claim to have wifi, so that will be helpful.  People back in the States also will have some limited access to my Trip Folder on Dropbox in case they need to track us down. 

Back to our itinerary...  After the Embassy Tours and Briefings mentioned in an earlier post, we're going to use a local company (Mango Tours Cambodia) to show us around the city for about a day-and-a-half.  Like many of you, I'm a TripAdvisor addict and I found them there.  Here's the itinerary they have set for us right now:

Day 1 – Monday, 23^rd June 2014 – Market Tour/Sunset Dinner Cruise

Our guide will meet you in the lobby of the Plantation at 12:15 and return you there approximately 20:00/20:30.  The first stop is lunch at a local hospitality training center for former street youth where we can sample delicious and safely prepared Khmer cuisine.

Let’s spend some time at the markets!  Depending on your interests, we will take you to authentic Cambodian markets such as Psar Orussey, Psar Dam Go or Psar Tuol Thom Phong (Russian Market), and to the more secluded back streets where individual stores sell jewellery, antiques, and clothes. Be sure to tell your guide what you’re most interested in seeing.  Mango Cambodia does not make commission arrangements with retailers, so we never deposit our clients in vast shopping emporiums or tacky souvenir shops - but we do know where to shop off the beaten track.

We will go directly to the port following the afternoon tour for the sunset dinner cruise.

Day 2 – Tuesday, 24^th June 2014 – Phnom Penh City Tour

Our guide will meet you in the lobby of the Plantation at 8:30AM and return you there approximately 16:00PM.

We explore “the hidden pearl of Asia” with a guided tour of the city stopping at sites of interest along the way, including the spectacular Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda (Emerald Buddha), the pagoda at Wat Phnom, the Independence Monument and the recently unveiled statue commemorating the late King Father (Sihanouk). For an insight into Cambodian religious life, visit a local temple in time to witness the Buddhist monks’ traditional pre-lunch chants (not guaranteed).

After “lunching for a cause” at a local hospitality training centre for former street youth (sister restaurant to previous day – different menu), we continue our tour of Phnom Penh by taking a sobering walk through Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21). Here there are stark and moving reminders of Cambodia’s recent tragic past. Our expert guide will explain the historical, political and social context of the bleak period of Khmer history which followed the fall of Phnom Penh in April 1975. Then continue on to Choeung Ek Memorial, one of the infamous Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge executed around 17,000 of the estimated 2 million Cambodians who perished under the Pol Pot regime.