Phenom Penh and NYE

\Please excuse my typing as for some reason the shift adds somethingevery time |I try to capitalize something and the space bar onlyworksabout 50% ofthetime. \
\oh - guess the return keydoes it too.\
\Phenom \Penh is a very large capitol city which includes all the good things and bad things froma foreign city. |Good food options and fantastic markets full of treasures. |The tuktuk drivers are ruthless and seemingly around every corner and making it to the other side of the street on foot is a minor daily victory.\
\PP has had a troubled history and is still very much on the road to recovery with a good deal of poverty very visible.
We are staying in the 'backpacker ghetto' which tends to have affordable living, inexpensive booze and food with lots of colorful people. |Let's just say that many of the ladies who spend their evenings at the bar/restaurant/dock of our guesthouse are "there on business".
So \Kyle and \I began our 2009 in this bustling capitol city a few days ago. Unfortunately, there was a monsoon style rain storm that slowed down the festivities a bit. We braved the storm, and tuk-tuked it to a few of the nicer bars by the riverfront. \|I might venture to say that the greatest part of our evening was the actual countdown. \People in this tiny bar started counting and we looked at each other and realized that we couldn't understand what they were saying|! We didn't even know when to actually shout our "happy new years" until the foreign-tongue counting dissolved into cheers!