Welcome to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Things have changed since we were here 5 years ago.

Our first indication that Cambodia is a more tourist friendly country happened as we got off the plane - 75% of the passengers on the plane lined up to get their visas at the airport. With just 2 forms to fill out and a small fee, they were through immigration. We had sent our passports to the embassy in Washington, paid service fees and waited for 3 weeks before our visas were granted and our passports returned.

The Renaske,our $46 hotel that we found through the internet, is an old French colonial mansion that has been converted into a 22 room hotel. Considered "standard" in hotel terms, we found it to be perfect for us. Our sleeping area opens into a sitting room with a balcony that looks out to the King's Palace which is across the street. With an assist from a fan, the air conditioning unit cools the room. We don't mind that we had to unplug the television to get electricity to the fan - the stations were all in Cambodian! And a phone isn't important in a country in which you have no acquaintances. The rate includes breakfast and this is where you can still feel the French influence. The loaves of crusty french bread and fresh fruit are incredible, a nice compliment to the omelets and rice/egg/ham dishes. The pinapple, papaya and bananas in Cambodia are the sweetest we have ever tasted. Luckily for us they are served as a complimentary desert after each meal!

Location, location, location. Our first morning we woke up before dawn to the distinctive sounds of Cambodian music. Of course, Tim jumped up, grabbed his cameras and was out the door while Jane went back to sleeping peacefully. Being situated across from the Palace, we were also next to an open square that is a meeting spot for the local community. Across from the square is the mid point of a 20 block promenade along the Mekong River, complete with a beautiful covered pavilion and shrine. Saturday and Sunday mornings, hundreds of people congregated in the square and promenade, paying the musicians to play special songs, buying flowers to place at the shrine and birds to release with their prayers and joining a large group doing tai chi. In the evening, the promenade was again the place to be. Motorcycles and bicycles made a steady stream along the street, driving slowly enough to be able to chat with their friends on the sidewalk. The banks of the river were filled with families eating their dinner - soft boiled eggs with a dipping sauce seemed to be popular. Photographers for hire were posing groups in the square to take their picture with the palace in the background.

Sunday we hired a car to explore the area outside of the city. Crossing the Mekong, we took a ferry to an island known for its weavers. The ferry was filled with people from the village carrying huge loads of bananas and tomatoes to sell in Phnom Penh. On the island, the houses are built on stilts with at least one loom set up under each house. We stopped and watched a young girl weave a beautiful pattern in a soft orange silk. Further down the island we stopped at a village where they were weaving traditional skirts. As we looked at their work, the eldest women in the family came to show us the scarf which she had made years ago and still wore.

In her 70's, this women had survived the harshest years in Cambodia. Her face was so striking that we asked her to pose for a picture that you can see here. She took a liking to Jane and invited her to sit in her shaded hut while Tim negotiated for the village to make 10 scarves to order and to have them delivered to the hotel in Phnom Penh. We were fortunate to be able to print the above picture and give it to the woman's son when he delivered the scarves. He was thrilled with the picture,, but did ask us to give them a little more time for our next order. He told us that the entire village stayed up all night weaving in order to get the scarves to us before our flight.

We had read that UNESCO had a connection to local handicrafts and so we stopped there on Monday. A UNESCO volunteer told us about the weaving cooperative that they had started, with a master weaver giving lessons to the women of a village south of Phnom Penh so that the art of using natural dyes and traditional patterns would not be lost. Fortunately for us, the head weaver from the village was at UNESCO dropping off the fabric that the village had just completed for sale. After purchasing a number of pieces, we asked for directions to the village. To our pleasure the weaver suggested that she accompany us to the village and introduce us to the women involved in the cooperative. A 90 drive through rice farms and small villages, brought us to the head weaver's home. Drinking from coconuts that her husband cut from the tree in the yard, the head weaver showed us the raw silk, the bark and leaves that she was using to dye the silk and the method she used to create the intricate patterns. By far, this was the most beautiful silk that we had ever seen. What an experience!

On Tuesday we stopped back at UNESCO to pick up a few pieces of silk that the master weaver was completing for us. As we were talking with the UNESCO volunteer, we mentioned that we would be going to Bhutan. Would you believe that a man from Bhutan was working at the UNESCO office - the only Bhutanese in all of Cambodia! We were immediately taken upstairs to meet him and learned about the weavers in his country. Now when we travel to Bhutan, we have the card of one of their countrymen to use for introductions.

While walking down a little side street, we heard the most unusual music and turned to see a funeral procession heading our way. Blocks long, the procession had muscians and drummers, musicians, people holding pictures of the deceased, men in uniform, a truck with monks carrying the casket, and many towns people walking alongside.

During our wanderings through Cambodia, we stumbled upon a number of beautiful crafts. So many, in fact, that we were stumped when we could not find a source that could ship them back home at a reasonable price, We ended up hiring a packing firm to come to our hotel room, complete with bubble wrap and packing boxes. For 45 minutes, 3 men wrapped and taped and filled 2 boxes that Thai Air graciously considered to be our luggage and sent on the flight with us to Chiangmai.

To us, Cambodia is still a rough town - extremely safe, but with only a thin veneer of belonging to the 21st century. We have stopped at the Rivercity Internet cafe daily and been welcomed like old friends. It is disorienting to us to sit in Phnom Penh and read e-mails from family in the states as well as our friends in Thailand. When we walk out of the internet cafe and onto the streets of Phnom Penh, we're back in a hot and steamy country with street vendors selling foods that we would never consider eating and modern conveniences that we are accustomed to are non-existent. We've never felt unsafe or uncomfortable, but we haven't felt that we could fit in to the fabric of the town. Maybe on our next visit.